Songbird (2020)

2020 PG-13 85 Minutes

During a pandemic lockdown, Nico, a young man with rare immunity, must overcome martial law, murderous vigilantes and a powerful family to reunite with his love, Sara.

Overall Rating

5 / 10

Verdict: So-So

User Review

d_riptide

1 / 10

He did it. The son of a bitch actually did it. Michael Bay literally made a movie about f’n COVID in 2020 and he went about it in the most Bay-est fashion he could’ve managed to pull it off: pretentious and irresponsible. Don’t believe me? Just look at “Songbird”.

It was WAY TOO soon to even think about making a movie on COVID and the fact that they pulled it off anyways, effectively spitting in the face of every other person who is still dying from it to this very day? That is a special kind of ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’. Part of me wants to give this film props for, at least, supplying the restrictive/paranoia filled craze that comes with these lockdowns similar to what Before The Fire did with its atmosphere. Not to mention, Alexandra Daddario can really sing. But I’m like scraping the bottom of the barrel here, guys; this movie feels utterly tasteless and directionless. Switching between a drama, thriller, action and survival film, it has no idea what it wants to be, the film's understandably low-level production values are still staggering nonetheless, characterization is one-note despite some dedicated performances, the scripts rather churlish simplicity raises multiple red flags, and in its attempt to showcase both the noble and selfish sides to humanity that come with the limitations to our precious resources, it instead comes off as childish, amateur and irresponsible. On the bright side, it could’ve been a lot more worse than what we got: Bay could’ve directed it if he was feeling edgy.

You know what? He’s producer behind this film so let me just tell you something, Mr. White Noise: it’s not inherently misguided to use a current tragedy as the jumping-off point of a genre movie but if that is the case AND IF the subject matter you’re implying is this exploitative and gross, then you’d better make damn sure that you can do a good job either trying to create something interesting within the backdrop to either justify its existence or cover up the offensive malarkey. Of course, you made sure this film did neither of that; you do realize lack of taste is a COVID symptom, right?

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