Review

I will start with saying that I am Markiplier-agnostic. I hold him no particular ill wills. I never got into him. Saw a couple bits of him here and there at friends' houses. He seemed like he may be a screamer which I don't fuck with and so I've simply passed him by. Not my circus, not my monkeys. He was fine. I wouldn't say that the acting was spectacular, I've seen worse. I would've like more physicality with the sub. It's kind of a carbon copy of the game and so when we see it stretched out to two hours, it feels rather bare. In particular I think him talking to the intercom is an issue. There is a lot of shot-reverse shot with him speaking to it. Would've put more pipes and wires and just shit for the Markiplier to act around. He could totally have had more instances where he is speaking to another person while physically doing something, rather than just standing there. Where I fall on the film kinda depends on what standard we're holding it to. For an indie film, it's really not bad. If we're just talking film-film, eh...

It's certainly too long. We need to cut half an hour here. Two hours is too much for what we're doing. Let's all remember that the game was a tight hour at most. It did what it needed to do and then we moved on. I do think that the last third or so of the film is the best bit. But the first third really drags. I looked at the time at one point 30-40 minutes in and saw how much more of the progress bar there was to go and got real worried. We need to do some condensing and that really would not be hard at all. There's like an initial trip that aligns closely with the game, we got a reprieve for a bit and then we go back down. That reprieve happens maybe around the 20 minute mark. I super would just start there. Take first and second trip and smash them together.

It mostly just feels unnecessary. I know my opinions on the concept of adaptations is well-known at this point. I basically never want them. I don't like seeing something I like get put into a sausage grinder and then extruded into a different shape. And I consistently find it difficult to understand people that do. I don't see what it gets them, seeing the same thing in a slightly different shape. There's very little here that the game doesn't touch on. I'm glad our boy David Szymanski got his flowers and some attention on his stuff via the game blowing up to the point of getting a film about it. He has a good mind and I appreciate when such people find success. Sound design is also good. Andrew Hulshult gives us some good tunes. I liked this version of the anomaly in the game. The blood was nice.