One of the most anticipated video game movies, “Five Nights at Freddy’s”, grossed $132.6 million globally at the box office for its debut this past weekend. “Five Nights at Freddy’s”, developed as a video game by creator Scott Cawthon, is about “a troubled security guard… spending his first night on the job, he realizes the late shift at Freddy’s won’t be so easy to make it through.” In this review, I will be going over the pros and cons of “Five Nights at Freddy’s”.
I believe this movie does an incredible job of showcasing the A-list actors that captivate the hearts of the audience almost immediately. Josh Hutcherson, Peeta Mallark in “The Hunger Games” movies, does phenomenal in his role as Mike Schmidt. Still troubled by the disappearance of his younger brother, he yearns to figure out who abducted his brother by sleeping to noises of nature that take him back to the time and place of when it happened-while also taking on the responsibility of caring for his younger sister Abby, played by Piper Rubio. When you see Schmidt on screen, you can feel the emotion of loss and grief due to him losing his younger brother. Although Rubio is a younger actor and might not have much acting experience, I feel as if her acting can be improved if she’s brought back for a possible sequel. Even still, these lead actors do a great job of bringing life to a movie filled with silent, animatronic killers.
The animatronics, Freddy Fazbear, Chica and Bonnie, are perfectly crafted by the artists at the Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Although they might look beautiful on screen, the animatronics in the movie don’t deliver as much fright as they do bite. The suspense of the animatronics sneaking up on their victims is often underwhelming and not as scary as one might think. In fact, this movie really never made me fear the animatronics at all. Sure, they had a couple of jump scares here and there, but they don’t compare anything to the game’s jump scares. I believe that if they do start working on a sequel, they will have to add more of a fear factor into the mix and create something scary enough for the fans to actually enjoy.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” has outstanding lead actors who only need a little more work, and while their animatronics might look amazing, they don’t deliver the terror that many players of the games might know. I give this movie a 7/10 because in all honesty, I really wanted to walk out of the movie afraid of the animatronics and in the end, I found them quite heartwarming and cute. In the end, I think if they do make a sequel that they can follow up on their losses and actually make the animatronics as frightening as they are in the video games.
