Movie Review: 'Orion and the Dark' loses itself in the leap from children's book to animated film
ABC News
To say the hero of Netflix’s new animated movie “Orion and the Dark” is fearful is an understatement
To say the hero of Netflix's new animated movie “Orion and the Dark” is fearful is an understatement.
Orion, 11, is scared of clogging up the school toilet, murderous gutter clowns, cell phones giving him cancer, mosquito bites getting infected, falling off skyscrapers, bees, dogs, haircuts, mispronouncing good morning and the ocean. Among other things.
“It’s OK to be nervous — more than OK, in fact. It’s normal," his mom tells him, helpfully. "Sometimes you just have to feel the fear and do it anyway.”
One thing that scares Orion the most is darkness and that is where things get going in this very uneven movie that seems to completely lose the thread by the end, despite a script by renowned filmmaker Charlie Kaufman.
“Orion and the Dark” is about fear and overcoming it but this movie directed by Sean Charmatz has too much junk clogging up the vision. It's based on Emma Yarlett's children's book but, like its main human character, lacks confidence, ending with time travel and dimension jumping. You could say the filmmakers are scared of their own movie.
