directed by:
Todd Montesi written by: Todd Montesi genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi, Horror |
Whoa…I feel like I'm playing severe catch-up here. Apparently, "PN & Friends" was a series back in 2018, and it lasted until 2021. "You won't understand the rest," as PN will tell ya…and that sounds like good advice. I'm not sure I understand a damn thing after watching this film...it feels like it has cooked my brain. We've got AI inside the mind of PN, who used to be good, and now he's evil…and there's a dude with a headlamp and a beard drawn on his face in permanent Sharpie marker - and as this film began, I felt like I was beyond lost. "PN & Friends: Algore" jumps you into this film with the intensity of a gang initiation. Obviously, if you know anything about this series, you're going to stand a way better chance of having some semblance of an idea of what's going on here, but from the outside looking in, this is chaos. It's very meta… I'm definitely picking that up…in fact, it sounds like "PN & Friends: Algore" is actually a prequel. So, I suppose, even though I'm late, I'm technically early? Timelines are tough to follow. Even as PN and his friends listen to AI try to explain things, it's still as clear as mud. It's aware that there was a show called PN & Friends before, but I have no idea how it got to this point in time.
Tough one for sure. I'd love to say I've got the time to go back and check out all the previous episodes so that this makes a little more sense to me, but I'm not all that convinced that'd be enough to 'get' this. Ultimately, this is made by friends, for friends…and I'm not all that sure the rest of us stand a chance of enjoying this from the outside looking in. Somewhere roughly around the twelve-minute mark, with a whole bunch of dialogue & potential jokes falling incredibly flat, my level of concern is through the freakin' roof. Comedy is a hard genre to navigate... what's funny to one person isn't going to cut it for another. Aside from the concept of "Algore," which legitimately made me chuckle, the rest of what I've seen is straight up unhinged…and it's really hard to imagine that they've got Comedy that would work on a universal scale here. Whether it's the animated effects, the conversations with AI, PN, or his friends – everything is remarkably awkward to the point where I'm really not even sure what to say about this. The plotline with "the sacred glitch" is interesting, even though it's extraordinarily hard to follow. Once you get an idea of what's going on, somewhere around a third of the way into "PN & Friends: Algore," you will stand a better chance of liking what you see, but if I'm being truthful with ya, there's still not enough here. It's such a strange mix of low-budget work done in real life, with what looks like some fairly pricey work in the animation/AI realm. So you end up flipping back and forth between what looks expensive and what looks seriously cheap in a detrimental way - and I'm just not all that sure about how to square that circle. PN (Todd Montesi) actually seems like a fairly watchable dude, but even he doesn't get a great part of the script…most of the time, we see him reacting to other things happening in the film, rather than being the main character we'd assume would drive this story forward. To a degree, it's like what you'd imagine a whole movie would be like watching Jim from the office react to whatever the heck Dwight is doing…and I feel like we need more than that. So much of this film is spent with long audio explanations that do their best to catch us up and fill us in on the details, which keeps "PN & Friends: Algore" spinning its wheels and stuck in the mud – and rather than showing us the stuff we're learning about, we spend way too much time watching PN hold his phone as he listens to different voices explain what's theoretically goin' on. The more we hear, the more details we get, the more this story seems to get convoluted and bogged down by extraneous information we don't need. I will always admire those who can do a whole lot with very little. Like, PN & Friends…these dudes all got together, and pass or fail, they committed, and they kept this going way past its expiry date – so I do ultimately think they deserve some credit for that. I respect the shoestring budget that the scenes filmed in real-life display…and even though I have no personal interest in anything to do with AI, I can see that the effort has been put in there. Neither of these elements, nor the imbalance between them, was what stopped me from feeling like I could enjoy myself watching this film - it was way more about the material being some of the thinnest I've experienced since I started critiquing movies. The jokes don't land, and the story isn't engaging enough. I'm perplexed beyond belief.
I think the closest I felt like I was to enjoying this was about thirty-some-odd minutes in, where we start to glitch around with The Voice (David The Voice Stein) and we shift into different animated scenes as he's talkin' about trippin' balls from sniffing markers and such…but even barely felt like it moved the needle for me. I think we have to be objective about what we're really seeing and experiencing here, and like, about a third or more of this movie feels like we're watching someone on the phone having a conversation. Is that what you're looking for in the films and movies you watch? Probably not, right? So…like it or not, PN & Friends has to reckon with this. There are some really cool scenes & animations done through AI and whatnot, but it can't offset how much downtime we spend watching a phone call. At best, Todd Montesi is like a milder version Jason Mantzoukas…he shows us some of the potential wildness at times, but the timing is off and the material isn't really there. "PN & Friends: Algore" is billed as a Comedy/Sci-Fi/Horror…and it's kind of none of these things, from my perspective. A cult film, if anything…it pretty much defies description. The jokes are nearly nonexistent; there's nothing horrific about the storyline, which leaves Sci-Fi as the most likely dominant trait, but even that is compromised by limitations, and it's more of an ingredient referenced than reality. Like I said from the start, Comedy is tough – I'm absolutely aware that maybe it's on me…Maybe I just don't find Todd's brand of humour as funny as I was hoping it would be. Montesi's show was successful, and he's willing to keep it going with another chapter years after the last part of its story was put out there online. Should he have kept it going? Probably another conversation for another time. As long as he's happy, then cool, I guess. As we start ripping through clips and Sora videos in the final of "PN & Friends: Algore," I couldn't help but feel like I was nowhere near understanding this. I was bound to get old one day, and maybe today's the day – I have never been so perplexed by what would pass as entertainment as I have been in watching this. No disrespect intended whatsoever – like I said, everyone involved committed to this; it got made, and people were happy to take part in it. I've gotta call things like I see 'em though…and this didn't hold up for me. I don't know if that's because I'm attempting to jump into this mid-story arc, or if there was just no hope of me enjoying this from the very start. The ending is probably the most satisfying part of the film, where PN actually has a fair amount of profound & interesting things to say, but alas, that is not a reflection on the film so much as it's a quick wrap-up at the end. I'm gonna have to go with one and a half stars out of five here. I don't really think this would pass as watchable for most viewers, the storyline is way too scattered, the comedic value is pale…I needed/wanted more substance. |
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