Video summary
The video review focuses on the South Korean sci-fi thriller *Hope*, a film directed by the same creator behind the acclaimed drama *The Whaling*. The reviewer describes the movie as a two-hour-and-forty-minute R-rated experience that initially hooks the audience before becoming increasingly confusing in its second half. Although the film was released a couple of weeks prior to the review, the author watched it after receiving numerous requests from viewers, noting that these requests seemed to be made in bad faith given the movie's actual quality. The reviewer explicitly states they are providing a spoiler-free overview but expresses a strong desire to create a dedicated recap video if this initial review gains enough traction.
The narrative of *Hope* takes place in a remote harbor town where chaos erupts after a massive, mysterious creature begins killing people indiscriminately. The film is divided into two distinct tonal halves; the first hour operates as a gritty mystery following an overwhelmed police officer trying to protect the town and uncover the beast's nature. However, the second half shifts abruptly into what the reviewer describes as an endless, poorly executed action chase sequence that feels more like a video game than a serious thriller. The creature designs change drastically throughout the runtime, and the overall tone swings from serious drama to something resembling *Transformers*, creating a disjointed viewing experience where the audience can pinpoint exactly where the film loses its way.
Despite having some visually lush settings and impressive driving sequences featuring a female cop who performs numerous drifts reminiscent of *Mario Kart*, the movie suffers significantly from technical inconsistencies and narrative flaws. The special effects are described as inconsistent, ranging from solid moments to low-resolution graphics that resemble Nintendo 64 era games, which detracts from the beauty of the forest setting. Furthermore, the script is criticized for failing to deliver scares or character arcs, with scenes building up to major reveals—such as a doctor dissecting the monster—only to resolve them anticlimactically. The reviewer argues that the film could have been trimmed down to under ninety minutes without losing any essential story elements, suggesting that the excessive runtime is filled with repetitive driving and shooting that adds little value.
Ultimately, the reviewer concludes that *Hope* is a cinematic disaster that wastes the audience's time and money, leaving theatergoers feeling depressed rather than entertained. While the film currently holds a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, placing the reviewer in the minority of critics who disliked it, they believe the movie relies too heavily on silly shenanigans and ludicrous plot decisions that do not work for most viewers. The only potential audience for this film might be fans of *Barbarian*, another movie by a director known for polarizing works, but even then, the reviewer found it miserable to watch. The review ends with an invitation for viewers to share their own opinions in the comments and a call to support the channel through Patreon, acknowledging the creator's full-time job and family responsibilities.
Read the full video transcript
From the director of the fantastic drama
thriller, The Whailing, comes his newest
film, Hope. An R-rated 2hour and 40inut
sci-fi thriller that'll leave you hooked
in the first half and scratching your
head in the second. The movie came out a
couple weeks back. I did not have a
chance to see it then, but here we are.
Here we are. And I have now watched it
after getting several requests, and now
I'm starting to think those requests
were made in bad faith. Hey, Adam, check
out Hope. It's a great movie. You'll
love it. It's like my audience hates me
and I don't even think it's a secret
anymore. Anyway, I'm going to talk about
Hope in a we'll say spoiler-free review
for this one. Although, I would really
like to do a spoiler video. So, if this
one gets enough traction, I will also do
a recap of this thing from front to back
to the best of my ability. All right,
let me tell you what you have to look
forward to or seemingly not look forward
to at all.
on the outskirts of a remote harbor
known as Hope Harbor. Well, you got the
title right there. I wonder if it has
two meanings. It does, but right now,
let's just go with the one. And the
second one can be up to your
imagination. If or if you saw the movie,
you know. In this small little town,
chaos has ensued as a mysterious
creature is going around killing folks
left and right. And this beast of a
monster is very large. You're seeing
cars get thrown. You're seeing bodies
get chucked across the way. And the only
thing standing in this creature's way is
a skeleton crew of law enforcement and
local towns folk who have taken up arms
to fight back. I went into this one
basically blind. I saw no trailer. The
only thing I saw was a poster where you
have a cute chick on the cover with a
gun and this dopey looking monster face
popping out of the side like, "Did I do
that?" And honestly, that poster is the
perfect representation of this film. At
some points, it's a serious, gritty
action flick. At other points, it's
Transformers. And I am not being
dramatic when I say that. This film
feels like two entirely different
movies. And you can almost pinpoint
exactly where the shift happens. I don't
know if it happened during the making of
the movie. If the director said, "You
know what? I actually want to shift
gears completely." Not only do creature
designs look different as the film
progresses, but just the overall tone of
the film. We're going to spend what felt
like the first full hour in kind of
mystery territory, following this cop
who's in way over his head as he's
running around this small town trying to
keep people safe and get a look at what
this beast is. The second half of the
movie is essentially one very large
action chase sequence. And there's
already a good amount of chase in the
first act of the movie, but in the
second half, my god, it never ends.
There's a car chase sequence that I
swear is 30 minutes by itself. And no,
this is not a Mad Max Fury Road badass
type of car chase. This is just a super
lame, neverending scene where the car is
driving down the road and this beast is
chasing him. It looks stupid as [ __ ]
The special effects are all over the
place. At some points, it looks pretty
solid. At other points, it looks
Nintendo 64esque. It is a shame, too,
because it has all the ingredients for a
really nice time at the movies. Plus,
this director, again, I only am familiar
with The Whailing, but that was a very
strong film. It was very dark and gritty
and and creepy and it had heart to it.
This has none of the above. There's no
thrills. There's no scares. You like the
people, but they don't really bring
anything that great to the table. And
there's not really any arcs for anyone
outside of No, I wouldn't I wouldn't say
there's really any character arcs
because the movie's jumping between
different characters. And there's even a
couple people that show up at one point,
these badass hunter guys, that just kind
of leave the picture altogether. I DON'T
KNOW WHERE THEY WENT. This feels like a
movie that went through a lot of
shakeups during production. I can't see
any way around it. There's probably a
4-hour cut of this movie somewhere, and
I can't imagine it's any better. In
fact, it's probably a lot worse because
without getting into spoilers, the route
they go is so silly, so out of left
field. You shake your head thinking,
"Why did you go down this road?" And I
know I'm I'm kind of making people at
this point think, "Oh, well, I need to
watch this now." And that's fair. You
certainly should make up your own mind,
but you're going to be throwing away
some money at the theater. I I promise
you this one this one is such a
disaster. I was going to take my wife
and son and I'm so happy I didn't spend
the extra coin on them because my god,
they would have been pissed. From a
cinematic standpoint, it looks great. It
is a prettyl looking movie, but the CG
is such a mess that it takes away from
some of the beauty of the lush forestry
we get at points of this small harbor
town. From an action standpoint, again,
there's a lot of chasing going on. The
the female cop in this movie went to the
school of Tokyo drifting. She is
impressive behind the wheel of a
vehicle. She's locking that thing up,
spinning it around towards the camera a
bunch of times. There's got to be at
least 15 drifts in this thing. It will
make you feel like you're playing Mario
Kart. As far as like the scary horror
side of things, it's just really not
there. They attempt at certain points,
but because we have such a mess of a
script, you're you're more or less just
kind of puzzled as to why it's all
happening to begin with. And whenever
the story feels like it's going
somewhere interesting, it just shits the
bed. It doesn't do anything with it. A
prime example would be when a doctor is
cutting open one of these monsters.
It's, you know, it's it's pretty large
and intimidating and the camera gets
right up in its grill showing all the
gross features of the creature. There's
worms crawling off of it. It has these
massive hands with sharp blades that
could rip through you in a matter of
seconds. And this woman is trying to
pierce through the shell of the
creature. She's trying a knife out. She
uses an axe and eventually she has to
rev UP A CHAINSAW
AND she starts tearing into that thing
like a Thanksgiving turkey. And then she
starts pulling out some of the inards
talking about the different organs and
how interesting it is. And the whole
time I'm sitting there kind of like, "Oh
god, what are we going to do? What's the
big aha reveal? Is this creature going
to come alive? Is it going to be toxic
inside? What's going to happen?
Nothing. Nothing happens. We spend all
this time in this room building slowly
to a nothing reveal. There are multiple
moments like this, too. This is easily a
film that could have been cut way down
to an hour and 45, 90 minutes even, and
you miss nothing from a story
perspective. And from an action
perspective, you're just cutting out a
whole lot of driving down roads, looking
back, and shooting a monster. If you
just looked at random clips online,
sure, there's cool moments to be had.
Absolutely, there's some good scenes,
but as a whole package, it severely
missed the plot. It's funny, there were
a few other people in the theater with
me and my buddy who went, my buddy just
hated it as well. He said, "It started
out so promising," which it did. And
that's clearly what the people across
from us thought because they were
laughing quite a bit, arguably too much.
I didn't think it was that funny, but
there is some levity early on and some
Joker characters that are hunting and
they come across a dead cow in the road
and there is some fun banter. This
banter goes on for 15 or so minutes
though. They really pad everything out
for no real reason at all. And I noticed
a very big shift from these guys down
the row in the theater. It got very
quiet in the last act. They weren't
laughing. They weren't applauding. They
weren't having a good time anymore. And
when the lights came back on and the
credits started to roll, I looked
around. I grazed across this theater
room. And all faces were just depressed.
No one looked like they had even a
little bit of a good time. And I will be
shocked as hell if this Hope film, which
obviously wants a trilogy out of it,
gets another flick. But perhaps it's
doing well financially and that's all
it's going to take. I looked it up and
it is currently sitting at 78% on Rotten
Tomatoes by critics and audience. So,
I'm in the minority on this one. I'm
puzzled as all hell what value people
got from this thing outside of its I
guess a wild ride. But it wasn't
satisfying. It was it was Looney Tunes.
It was silly shenanigans. And not in a
very fun way, just in a headscratching,
puzzled way of why did you make this
decision? How is this person not dead?
They were thrown across the world into
like eight trees and they got up like
nothing really happened. What? There
always seems to be that one film every
year that just boggles my mind.
Barbarian from the director of weapons
and Resident Evil, two movies I really
enjoy. Barbarian was the film when it
came out where it was so highly praised
and people loved the hell out of it and
I watched it with my wife and a friend
and we were all miserable. We couldn't
believe how stupid it was after that
first great act of the flick. So maybe I
guess I would say if you love Barbarian
maybe Hope is that kind of movie where
it is just so ludicrous, so offthe-wall
that it works for you. But for me, I
just I got nothing out of it outside of
wasting a really long time at the
movies, which is unfortunate because I
heard it was great and I had to check it
out for myself. And so, there you have
it. Maybe a disappointing review for me
if you were hoping I would praise this
thing. Or maybe you were like me and you
thought, "Yeah, I'm glad you're speaking
truth to me because I hated this crap.
It did not work and I don't know what
happened." Let me know in the comments.
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