CLAWS (MÓNG VUỐT) (2024)
SYNOPSIS: A group of friends goes on a fun camping trip in the forest, but things take a terrifying turn when they come face-to-face with a deadly wild bear.
MOVIE REVIEW:
In today’s cinematic standard, the Vietnam produced creature flick, Claws clocks in at an efficient 96 minutes as compare to the typical standard of 100 minutes to two hours. Yet the story has little to entertain in terms of laughs and thrills making it a wasted comeback effort from hundred billion VND director Le Thanh Son.
The concept is simple even to the point of predictable. A group of seven friends embarked on a camping trip only to venture into a forbidden part of the forest. In the middle of the night comes a very angry black bear. No prizes for guessing what will happen to the campers.
One significant issue with Claws is the pacing. Too much time is spent with the campers that it took up almost 30 minutes of it before the first attack happens. Honestly, there isn’t anything interesting with the bunch of protagonists talking and chatting. Who really cares about an estranged couple or a lovey-dovey pair talking about their future? It feels stretched to the point that they should just stop yakking and just introduce the bear and her rampage.
Besides the group of friends, there is a pair of father-and-son illegal wildlife poachers who apparently has trapped a baby cub. Again no prizes for guessing who is the mom. Anyway, the son poacher is a psychotic trigger-happy maniac who has no qualms killing anyone or anything, a character that unfortunately doesn’t gel with the rest of the movie.
Other than the not-so-clever plotting, the creature flick also lacks the element of cheesy humour often found in Thai horror comedies or outrageous Korean comedies. Claws take itself too seriously for the whole time despite being a straight-out B-movie. There’s an obvious dark comedy quality but Le Thanh Son fails to capitalise on it. Instead the narrative slapped together chunks of sentimentality and leisurely choreographed escape tactics to pad out the rest of the screen time.
With the bulk of the movie being set dead in the night, the CG-rendered black bear is more than convincing as it aggressively trampled and maul its victims to death. Violence is inconsistent as majority of the bear attacks are shown from afar though there is a gruesome scene involving one of the campers being hurt by an animal trap rather than mama bear.
Taking three years to complete and a box-office that pales in comparison to One Wish, a movie that has been in theaters since April, Claws is a flick that never delivers on the laughs and thrills. The entire movie reeks more of a melodramatic thriller while trying hard to find a tone that fits into the concept of a creature running amok.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
