Basic problem: in several places the vocalization by the child actress and poor sound editing makes it very difficult to understand what she's saying.
#The prodigy movie plot movie
A movie that has a decent ending can be forgiven somewhat for its flaws. Despite all that, fairly decent ending, again due to fairly good acting. Hannibal Lector rip-off (do they really use such devices? Probably, dunno). Token throw-in-another-race acting part, completely unnecessary to the plot. Good-guy psychologist (actually rather well-acted). At the risk of others probably pointing out the same things: Do the directors/marketers really think anyone is going to fall for this stunt and buy their movie? The number of "thumbs down" responses to such reviews should give these clowns a clue. One has to wonder at the motive behind such banal hoax. It’s unfortunate that person had to be the viewer.The quality of the movie set aside for the moment- the plethora of obviously-bogus short reviews for this movie is astounding. Miles might be a scary kid, but for every person he creeps out, his movie pushes another one away. Again, there’s a decent movie somewhere in here, but you’d have to be hard-pressed to dig it back out and it just isn’t worth it. Nope, no fun here-instead we get worrying parents. And while its twists into the abyss are entertaining in theory, Buhler and McCarthy’s pacing is too skittish to embellish what could have been its sharper moments. The performances range from mediocre to decent but rarely get to breathe thanks to some truly crude editing and an increasingly absurd plot.
The scares, for one, are wholly reliant on quiet-quiet-bang noises, and aside from a few oblique shots, they lack enough panache to engage. Buhler’s script could have made for a self-aware romp, but McCarthy approaches it all with such a poe-faced glare. But this isn’t the most frustrating part: it’s the film’s downright refusal embrace its sillier, more entertaining sides. It makes a deal of the differences in its mythology compared to similar fare but never goes beyond a few feeble implications, and this, alongside the downright one-dimensional characters, makes for a 92-minute feature of literal and figurative tiptoeing. So much of McCarthy’s film feels like little more than the same clichés put into a different pile.
The reincarnation spin on the subgenre is the farthest The Prodigy gets from its formula, and it’s underwhelming to watch its potential stay so untapped. If you can think of it, The Prodigy apes it: The Omen, Exorcist III, The Good Son, Orphan, and even touches of Child’s Play are all on display here but without the knowingness to come alive. But things start going wrong and Miles keeps speaking an unknown language in his sleep, leading Sarah to consult a psychotherapist (Colm Feore), who suggests that Miles is the reincarnation of a much older man whose time on earth wasn’t totally done. By age eight, he’s been placed into an education program for gifted kids, having the intelligence of a grown man to compensate for his unusually stunted emotional development.
#The prodigy movie plot serial
Just as she goes into early labor and rushes to the hospital alongside her husband John (Peter Mooney), serial killer Edward Scarka (Paul Fauteux) is shot dead by police, and as his soul leaves his body, Sarah gives birth to her son Miles (Jackson Robert Scott). We’re introduced to Sarah just before she becomes a Generic Movie Mom.
A literate little chiller exists somewhere inside The Prodigy, but you’d have to go pretty deep to find it. It’s exasperating, too, since screenwriter Jeff Buhler ( The Midnight Meat Train) has a handful of decent ideas. And why should it? It’s more of a collection of tropes than anything else. It’s clear she doesn’t have much intuition-no one in this movie does-and while these contrivances could’ve at least been contextualized, Nicholas McCarthy’s ( The Pact) film doesn’t try much of anything.
She doesn’t turn on the lights, she doesn’t call for help, and she doesn’t recognize the obvious. Partway through The Prodigy, a Generic Movie Mom named Sarah (Taylor Schilling) teeters through her house.