Nerve Review
PG13: Thematic Material Involving Dangerous and Risky Behavior, Some Sexual Content, Language, Drug Content, Drinking and Nudity-All Involving Teens
Lionsgate
1 hr and 36 Minutes
Cast: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Emily Meade, Juliette Lewis, Kimiko Glenn, with Miles Heizer, and Colson “Machine Gun Kelly” Baker
A high school senior finds herself immersed in an online game of truth or dare, where her every move starts to become manipulated by an anonymous community of “watchers."
REVIEW: Teens do dumb shit. It is the truth. Think about when you were a teen, you were doing dumb shit then too. But now we do worse things because of our life on our cellular devices and this movie based on a novel, is not doing us any favors or is it.
THE GOOD: Nerve hones in it’s crazy premise for the first 2 acts by giving us a dangerous depiction of a dumb daring online game while having a great backdrop of NYC. It just takes all the stupid challenges that dumb teens participated in and embraces it as inspiration for the ludicrous dares giving to these characters in this film. The characters have as much dimension as any teen in a High School centered film.
What makes Nerve really really work is the last act. This film is from the directing duo that gave us the powerful story that turned into a phenomenon that was called Catfish. Yeah this is directed from those guys, so it wasn’t surprise that the climax of the film was one of the smartest and meaningful messages about the dumb shit we teenagers do and when it goes too far. The movie slowly turns from a typical adventure teen film to a smart thriller that was written with smart twist and turns. The leads being Emma Roberts and Dave Franco even have a cute onscreen dynamic and its really set on her.
THE BAD: Well…Nerve has a lot of good stuff to say, but it takes a while and a lot of predictable drama to get there. Don’t get me wrong, there are surprises, but there are things you see a mile away. Its dumb at times but it leads to cool dare sequences that is edited very well.
LAST STATEMENT: With a messed up premise to make teenagers do dumb things, Nerve is a film that boasts charming leads and unexpectedly have more thought to say thanks to directing duo Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman.
Rating: 3.5/5 | 74%
Super Scene: 60 MPH
