(This review may contain spoilers).
It took me a while to sit down and write out this review as, even though I try not to go into movies with any preconceptions, I walked out of this one feeling very disappointed.
I thought there was lot of telling rather than showing, particularly when it came to Elisa not being able to talk. There weren’t any issues with people understanding her and the only time someone didn’t, it was when she would have been put in a bad situation if she had been understood.
The relationship that formed between Elisa and Amphibian Man was probably the most powerful part of this movie, even if it was hard to see the latter as really humanoid. There were some really sweet moments in this movie and I thought it was good to see the effects of segregation, even if the problems faced by someone with a disability weren’t really shown.
I did like seeing the friendship between Elisa and Zelda, as well as Zelda’s interactions and relationship with Giles.
To be honest, it was the first scene of this movie that was thoroughly engaging and actually quite beautiful to watch. The rest of the movie didn’t really have that same dreamlike quality to it that I’d engaged with right at the start.
I really didn’t like Strickland; which was sort of the point, I guess. But as a villain, he had zero depth to him. Plus, his wife looked like a completely stereotypical housewife from that time and it was very hard to take that seriously.
I did like seeing the characters work together and although there were some very disturbing, gory scenes, the movie was very entertaining to watch. I did find it engaging, despite there being issues I would have liked to see improved upon. I wouldn’t choose to watch this movie again any time soon, though.
Ink of Blood 