what is going on to all my movie fans out there and welcome back to my channel today we are here
to discuss pearl which is the prequel to one of my favorite horror films so far this year x now
this story follows our character pearl who feels trapped in their family's isolated farm she's
taking care of her older dad who's sick and living under the roof of a bitter and overbearing mother
hoping for a more glamorous life pearls ambitions temptations and repressions all collide to
horrific effect now the question is is pearl worth checking out we're going to answer that question
and so much more in today's spoiler free review but before we get into it if you haven't already
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make sure you're giving the video a thumbs up and also sharing the review but more importantly
sharing your thoughts on this film in the comments below let me know if you've seen x which film that
you prefer out of the two but focusing more on pearl let's talk about the direction the story the
performances are you excited to get more from this franchise which we'll talk about at the end of
this video and also we've been talking a lot about horror recently so let me know your updated top
five horror films that you have seen so far this year in the comments section so let's start off
by talking about the director and the co-writers film ty west who i refer to as a wizard behind the
camera now i say that because i know a little bit of behind the scenes of these two films number one
they were shot back to back and literally within a three-week difference ty west and his crew
were managing to put together a with x a 1970s slasher grindhouse film and then three weeks later
you go into making pearl which is definitely an homage to 1930 1940s golden age of cinema
with the use of technicolor aspects to me like i said it's a wizard behind the camera it's next
level creativity and one of the things that i also really appreciate what he's doing with his
franchise is the statement that he's going through this through line of what the film
industry has done to these characters where x it was more of these x-rated films what it
did to those characters with pearl we're seeing with this obsession of what hollywood can do for
someone and wanting to become a star so from a creative standpoint a production standpoint
a direction standpoint ty west you can tell this is a lot of passion for him and it's just oozing
off of the screen which speaking of oozing off of the screen let's talk about this performance here
i am just so amazed by what we saw this is a force of nature by goth here she's literally in every
single scene and i just couldn't take my eyes off her her playing this character pearl who number
one pearl and you met her at x such an interesting character and just seeing this performance here
as we're seeing mia who's able to capture your sympathy in the first half of this film because
you're seeing this situation where she's on this farm she's isolated with her dad that's sick with
the spanish flu her mom is super religious and this kind of puts her in a box and you kind of
feel for but as the film goes on she manages to just switch on the drop of a dime where you get
to learn more about this character as she displays her more sinister more nightmarish elements and
her murderous side and again the performance is just so great there's two scenes that stand out
to me one that is a little bit later in the film was there's this 10-minute monologue of pearl just
venting to someone about her life about howard who we know as her husband from x
and then there's another scene that just is her looking at the camera looking into the audience
smiling awkwardly which felt like an attorney and this performance reminds me a lot of what
joaquin phoenix was able to do in a joker where you sympathize the character at first but as the
film goes on you just see who they really are and again this performance is next level transitioning
over to some things i also liked about seeing this film from pearl's perspective it felt like
a fantasy at time i feel like you were in a dream like sequence things felt heightened so again the
perspective of this story being told from her lens was a very interesting perspective but also being
a fan of x i definitely want to applaud the little easter eggs little nods to certain locations we
saw an x certain creatures we met in x so i definitely appreciated that and speaking of x
to me x the kills were a little bit more creative and also it has a much higher body count but when
pearl does get to those more horrific elements they are pretty gnarly i'll say that but going
into some of my criticisms here with the film one of my biggest issues with this story was it
was unfortunately for me very predictable and at points very uninteresting now i say that because
again just kind of tying it into my experience with how this film kind of is obviously connected
to x i felt x did a much better job of mentioning pearl's past more so than this film showed at
points which is kind of unfortunate because you have an hour and 45 minutes to really expand on
this story but to me the x the way that they kind of gave us a story was just more interesting so
getting into now again i mentioned the film does a good job of creating a sense of sympathy and
you care for the character at first but that only lasts for about 15-20 minutes because as
the film goes on as an audience member i kind of lost interest in the character it wasn't
due to the performance it's just from a narrative perspective we're seeing this character who feels
like they need this they should have this in their life and there's points when pearl's like
hating other people for being able to do a better job at certain things i'm just like i don't
care for this character because again it's just obviously again relating to the joker i never was
rooting for arthur in that film nor am i rooting for pearl but you still want to be able to feel
engaged with the character and i just kind of lost that engagement because i wasn't really on board
with the story that we had at hand again i found the story to be one of the more weaker elements
but going into another thing that really kind of stood out to me the supporting casts were fine as
far as acting goes but i found the supporting cast anyone outside of maya golf was just very
flat and very bland now when you compare this to x i found x to not really pick up its momentum to
like the second half of the film which is like 45 minutes instead of to get like a first kill
this film's kind of the same way in in regards to it takes about an hour for you to actually kind of
really get into the more horrific elements and when it came to x i was okay with that because
you know kid cudi uh jenna ortega britney snow those characters were fun they were fascinating
they had charisma where it's the complete opposite with pearl all the secondary characters
to me again lack charisma i didn't really care for them and they were just flat for me so those
are kind of my main criticism with the film before i give you all my score and let you know if it's
worth checking out i had mentioned earlier how i appreciate the technicolor the aspects of the
film the production it's almost like an art piece which is a perfect segue to talk about the sponsor
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what do i think about this film pearl now i would highly suggest if you're a fan of x like i am do
not go into pearl expecting the same experience because you will not get that now as a character
study on what it's like to be obsessive over becoming a star and what it can do to someone with
the hollywood glitz and glamour then yes the film definitely delivers especially when you talk about
this amazing performance and the great creative direction and unique filmmaking by ty west but
unfortunately with the lack of an interesting story and an uninteresting set of supporting cast
members i am going to ultimately give this film a three out of five and the only reason i'm getting
a three out of five i'll be honest with you all when i walked out of theater i was feeling more
like a two out of five but again i go back to that amazing performance in the really solid direction
so again i'm gonna give this film a three out of five and i do recommend you all give it a watch if
you are a fan of exploring psychotic in you know crazy murderous characters but i want to mention
one thing and just to save you all time there's no post credit scene there's no trailer like
there was an x some people didn't even know that there was a trailer attached to pearl to x but
i will say as i'm recording this video the news just came out as you all can see on the screen
a24 has greenlit ty west maxine which will be the third film in this ex franchise the film
will bring back maya goth and she will be playing the character we saw from ex maxine and the film
will follow the events of x as the sole survivor of someone who continues their journey towards
the framing of setting out to be a actress in los angeles in 1980s so i am very excited to see what
that film has to offer but again let me know your thoughts on pearl which ones you like more pearl
or x your pros your cons and everything in between let's talk about it in the comments below again
shout out to the sponsors today's video movie palette you can use my discount code if you
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right here come and join the community check out my other reviews that i've seen from movies this
far so far this year check out my review for x we'll catch you all on the next breakdown