 Ari Aster, the director for Editorial and Midsommar, is here to divide film critics with his new film, Bo is Afraid. Some are calling it a masterpiece. Others? A massive piece of crap. For me, I feel like they both have some points to make. Let's break it down now. Bo is Afraid is 2 hours and 59 minutes because screw you. Ari Aster says, I'm gonna troll the audience throughout the entirety of this film, including the runtime. Three hours? That's too much. But 259? Come on, you can't argue with that. Walking Phoenix is the show here. He plays Bo Wasserman, and we're gonna be spending a lot of time with him. Sometimes dressed, sometimes naked, sometimes engorged in certain areas. It's a lot to take in. The movie, as a whole, is a lot to take in. If you loved hereditary, because of its creepy vibe, its beautiful cinematography, its unnerving feeling, you probably liked Midsommar for those same reasons. With Bo as Afraid, it's all actually still there. And what Ari Aster does so incredibly well is he doesn't bother with tropes in films. He doesn't need to rely on jump scares or the creaking door opening. For Ari Aster, he flips everything over. It's the middle of the day, and you're feeling nervous. You're feeling concerned for our character. There's gonna be stories within stories that might connect to a third story. You just don't know. And that's both a pro and a con when it comes to Bo as Afraid, because this is an art piece. This is in the mind of the director, and only he really knows the full point of the whole thing. This is one of those movies that sits with you, not for a few minutes after you see it, not even for a few hours. Days go by, weeks go by, and you're thinking of a few moments from this flick. I know I have been. I'm a certified critic on Rotten Tomatoes, and unfortunately they have a binary zero and one system. It's either Rotten or it's Fresh. And this type of movie is really hard for me, and I haven't even put a review on there yet. That's why it's taken me a couple days to make one on this channel, because I want to sit with it. I want to talk about it to people. And I guess at the end of the day, that's a pro, not a negative. However, awful things sit with you too, right? Some of the worst crap you've ever seen unfold on film can stick with you for years. But I don't think Bo is afraid is that. Let's talk about the surface level objective things that I think are hard to argue. First of all, it looks gorgeous. This is a beautifully shot film from beginning to end, a ton of practical effects. There's some CG mixed in. There are things in this flick that I haven't seen anywhere else before, so that's already a major leg up for it. Two, the acting from everyone involved is stellar. There are people that show up in this I was not expecting. I'm not going to give anything away. It's not like there's major cameos, but there are some actors that show up where I just thought, I haven't seen this person in like five years. Okay, cool, I guess. The way the sounds really drive the scene forward, he's a master at his craft already, so early in his career. However, to get to some of the amazing moments, you have to sift through a lot of bullshit. There are scenes that feel like they go on and on and on without real purpose or narrative point, because at the end of this picture, it's all about the journey and deciphering what was real and what was not, because Bo as an individual is a complete disaster. The whole premise behind this is Bo needs to go home to see his mom. His mom is a very important, very wealthy business woman who hasn't seen her son in a while. He's living in a dilapidated apartment on the wrong side of the city. There's scary people all over, noises in the middle of the night, freak shows running rampant through the town, through this nightmarish hellscape that he's decided to occupy. Now, is this real? I don't know. I don't know. I genuinely don't. Maybe. At some points, I think, okay, he probably died in this movie early on or he's in some sort of a coma or trance or he's having a fever dream and this is all in his head. Does it matter? Kind of. It kind of does for a lot of people that really want to connect to the film and to the story, because if it's all just shenanigans, if it's all just whimsy, it doesn't really have any meaning outside of the pretty visuals and some of the unnerving sequences. You want to be able to connect at some level with the character. You want to go on a hero's journey with them. Even if it's not a hero, even if it's just a disaster of an individual, you want to find a way to maybe not relate, but at least understand the strife, understand the struggle, see the obstacles he needs to overcome. With Bo, though, he's on medication. Is he tripping balls? Is any of this real? Do we feel bad for this guy? Because we're essentially watching a mental patient fall to pieces. It's just hard to really know. Is this a drama? Is it a horror? Is it a comedy? It's a little bit of everything. Really, there's some very funny moments. There's some parts that are sick and twisted. There's some parts that are sick, twisted and funny at the same time. There's a scene later on in the film where Parker Posey shows up and I have to say, I was equally turned on by that section of the flick as I was horrified. Ari Aster's playing a lot of different emotions in tandem. He does a very good job working the marionette strings. I just don't think he fully sticks any of it, and that's what sucks so bad. I'm sitting in the theater for the most part, fully taken into the experience, wondering how things are going to play out. But ultimately, as it keeps building upon itself, it's also kind of falling apart. And when we finally arrive at the final act, I couldn't help but feel incredibly led down by it, thinking, all right, well, it's all kind of bullshit. I was talking to a buddy about this movie. We were listing the pros and cons and how we thought that it could have ended up better because I'm told there's like a four hour cut of this, maybe longer. And I was thinking this would have worked really well as maybe a 45 minute limited series on HBO Max, maybe six or seven episodes, maybe longer to really flesh this out, maybe make a cohesive story around whatever the hell's going on. And the movie kind of has a structure like a TV series. Bo is over here for 15, 20 minutes. Now he's in the woods. Now he's staying with some people. Now he's coming in contact with someone he hasn't seen in a long time. They really feel like 30 minute pockets of a show that you could do if you built upon it more. Or you go the other direction and you make this an hour 45, two hour movie, cut out some of the fluff, some of the nonsense and really get to the heart of this film or just make it an extravagant fever dream affair. You know, something that's just high in spectacle, low in story. Instead though, it kind of waffles in between the two. And that's just my overall impression with the thing. I like it a lot in certain areas. I hate it in other areas. So I just end up in the middle. And that's a tough place to be. I still don't even know if I'll give it a positive or a negative score on Ron Tomatoes. Like that really matters, right? But for someone that genuinely loves movies and loves creativity and new stories being told, it actually is really hard for me to sit there and be like, ah, did I like it? Did I not like it? I know it doesn't matter to the rest of the world. But we as movie lovers, we really dissect this stuff in our heads. It's easy for me to review something like Mario. It's a very basic movie that has tons of nods to the video games that's really all I needed. Great job, positive. Bo is afraid. What are you? What are you, dude? Certain people are going to love the hell out of this film. A lot of people are going to hate the hell out of this film. They need to stay away from it. This is not a movie you take your family to and enjoy. This is a movie you go with your one friend who really likes dissecting Mulholland Drive, for instance. That would be the type of guy you bring to this. Even the people that like hereditary and could stomach mid-summer are not all going to be on board this one. In fact, I think a good percentage won't. Bo is afraid as an endurance test and as a movie lover, I recommend you check it out in theaters just to show support. Even if when it's all done, you hate it, we should still support this type of thing. Like I said, I haven't reviewed this on Rotten Tomatoes. I genuinely care what people in the audience have to say. Let me know, is this a great movie? Does it deserve a positive score over there? Or do I knock it down a peg? Right now it's in the 70% range, I believe, both critic and audience. But maybe it should be closer to 50% because that's kind of where I'm at. So I need to even things out a little. Let me know in the comments. Please like the video if you had some fun with this video and subscribe if you haven't. I post tons of movie content each and every week. Need to have more people on board. And hopefully, I see you then. Take care.