Look, I could go into all the points other reviewers, including professional film critics, have made about the confusing, rambling plot, or the arrogance of casting yourself as the savior of humanity via your writing, or weirdness of making a film critic the "bad guy," but it's been said. But there's one thing that really bugged me about this movie I haven't seen pointed out.
Using "Asian folk tales" (are the mother and daughter supposed to be Chinese or Korean? I've seen them referred to as both) to infodump and declaring your nonsense words like "narf" and "scrunt" to be part of them is weird and kinda racist. Plugging in your made up words, while ignoring if they follow the phonology of the language is no better than the "ching chong" jokes, reducing another language to "funny sounds." Plus, it renders actual Asian folktales disposable. You'll notice he doesn't use something like Greek mythology or European fairy tales, because he expects people to be familiar with those and will know it doesn't fit. But Asian folktales? Those aren't "real" just an exotic backdrop for his nonsense.
Arrogant, confusing and slightly racist
Look, I could go into all the points other reviewers, including professional film critics, have made about the confusing, rambling plot, or the arrogance of casting yourself as the savior of humanity via your writing, or weirdness of making a film critic the "bad guy," but it's been said. But there's one thing that really bugged me about this movie I haven't seen pointed out.
Using "Asian folk tales" (are the mother and daughter supposed to be Chinese or Korean? I've seen them referred to as both) to infodump and declaring your nonsense words like "narf" and "scrunt" to be part of them is weird and kinda racist. Plugging in your made up words, while ignoring if they follow the phonology of the language is no better than the "ching chong" jokes, reducing another language to "funny sounds." Plus, it renders actual Asian folktales disposable. You'll notice he doesn't use something like Greek mythology or European fairy tales, because he expects people to be familiar with those and will know it doesn't fit. But Asian folktales? Those aren't "real" just an exotic backdrop for his nonsense.