Eagle Vs Shark is a New Zealand set romantic comedy directed by Taika Waititi. The plot follows the romance of Lilly (Loren Horsley) and Jarrod (Jermaine Clement), with a subplot about Jarrod’s quest to track down his high school bully and beat him up.
As far as Waititi’s film goes this is oddly off beat and almost sad, the wackiness of something like What We Do In The Shadows is a million miles away from this film instead it shares more in common with the darker more upsetting moments in JoJo Rabbit or Hunt For The Wilderpeople. I left this film feeling depressed.
The central romance has quite a few troublesome elements, in that Jarrod treats Lily like trash for most of the film, even dumping her abruptly to run of with his dead brothers girlfriend: the apology for his bad behaviour at the end of the film does not make up for it, and really they shouldn’t be together. However, as far as toxic messages within romantic comedies go, this film is on the better side of the scale and isn’t as offensive.
There are odd stop motion sequences peppered in throughout the film that I am not quite sure how I feel about. On the one had they fit in with Waitit’s quirky sensibilities, however they also feel quite unsettling and troubling for reasons that I cant quite put my finger on, there is just something about them.
The one positive I can find for this film is that the humour worked for me and I found myself laughing quite a bit.
Overall, this film really didn’t jive with me at all which is surprising considering that for the most part Waititi and Clement can do no wrong.
Pros
It has a few laugh out loud funny moments
Cons.
It is a bit too melancholic
The animation is weirdly unsettling
You don’t want the characters to be together in the end
It leaves you bummed out.
1/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 