The Legend of Ochi - Movie Review

The Movie: The Legend of Ochi

The Director: Isaiah Saxon

The Cast: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe

The Story: In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a shy farm girl named Yuri is raised to fear an elusive animal species known as Ochi. But when Yuri discovers a wounded baby Ochi has been left behind, she escapes on a quest to bring him home.

The Rating: 6 / 10

The Review: 

My first thought while watching this movie is that it looks and feels like if Wes Anderson made a fantasy film and, while a lot of you will see that as high praise, I'm really not a fan of Mr. Anderson's work. That's not to say I didn't enjoy this movie, it does what it sets out to do, so don't let that opinion of mine sway you from either seeing it or not.

I will say that it is visually one of the more unique movies I have seen in a while, at least since Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things although not nearly as bold or as wild. I'm not smart enough to describe the film techniques or color grading or other technical type things that went into the making of this movie, but it all does a great job of giving it that hyper realistic fantasy element. Certain parts of the film even looked animated at times which helps to plunge you into that world.

Is it just me, or does it seem like Willem Dafoe is in every other movie these days? The dude is a great actor and I love seeing him on screen, but I'm starting to feel like all his characters lately are kind of the same person although I can't really see him playing a role any different type of way so here we are. For what this movie is and for what his character is, he does just fine, I guess. Emily Watson was pretty great in her role as was Helena Zengel who you may remember her acting alongside Tom Hankings a few years ago in News of the World.

The thing you will notice, at least I hope you notice, that really stands out about this movie is the use of practical effects, especially the little baby Ochi creature that is basically the star of the movie. Without knowing so much of the movie contained real, tangible things, I think most people will just assume it was all CGI because that's kind of what Hollywood is nowdays. No, the filmmakers went to great lengths to create a very rich and textured world from the top down and all of that effort really pays off on screen.