The Five Nights at Freddy's franchise is interesting and while I haven't' followed up with the most recent lore and games, when I was in middle and high school, I really enjoyed playing the game especially the first three as I thought they were fun and had some fun scares. I always like the animatronics designs and I did like the character of Foxy and Freddy. I had known about this movie since the beginning of its development and after being in development hell for years with various directors and writers switching, it is finally out. I knew this movie wasn't going to be some art-house/grand movie and I wanted to watch this for the purposes of having some entertainment and popcorn fun. As a whole, there are some good moments but it's underwhelming.
Throughout, the production, setting and the atmosphere is solid as it helps to add the tone of the environment. On the technical aspects, the technical, costumes and effects are great. Especially the animatronic character designs as the character models of Freddy, Chica, Bonnie and Foxy look great. Moments where the animatronics were at play and the characters having to be situated around them, especially the building the fort scene and the group destroying the pizzeria, were pretty good and fun to observe. With the designs from the Jim Henson's Creature Shop, it's impressive and I appreciate them not using CGI on the designs. Including some decent gore effects. Unfortunately, the positive aspects are overshadowed with extremely dull characters and messy plot. The narrative is kind of all over the place as it feels like the writers are trying to shoehorn many ideas together in one and it makes things messy. There are some concepts that I thought were interesting but they were rarely utilized.
Honestly, the performances weren't really great. Matthew Lillard's performance was pretty good but the rest of the cast members weren't great, especially some of the child performances. Including the cameos as they felt like they were just there rather than have the cameos be creative. The direction from Emma Tammi was decent but there are certain direction moments that felt sloppy and uneven on certain moments. None of the characters were interesting as they felt uninvesting and too thin to care about while at the same time, they were given some pretty bad dialogue which made things a bit difficult to believe a single word from them. Most of the horror elements feels weak as it is filled with horror cliches and serious moments that sometimes feel unintentionally hilarious. There are some attempts of non-serious tone and humor used but it doesn't work and comes off as forced.
The soundtrack was okay and some of the pacing was off which made certain moments pretty boring. I understand this movie is more for the younger audience which is perfect for them but as a whole, it's pretty disappointing since the animatronics are the best part but the movie could have been better. Overall, the fanbase will like this and while I do appreciate the technical aspects, it's not a good adaptation.
Throughout, the production, setting and the atmosphere is solid as it helps to add the tone of the environment. On the technical aspects, the technical, costumes and effects are great. Especially the animatronic character designs as the character models of Freddy, Chica, Bonnie and Foxy look great. Moments where the animatronics were at play and the characters having to be situated around them, especially the building the fort scene and the group destroying the pizzeria, were pretty good and fun to observe. With the designs from the Jim Henson's Creature Shop, it's impressive and I appreciate them not using CGI on the designs. Including some decent gore effects. Unfortunately, the positive aspects are overshadowed with extremely dull characters and messy plot. The narrative is kind of all over the place as it feels like the writers are trying to shoehorn many ideas together in one and it makes things messy. There are some concepts that I thought were interesting but they were rarely utilized.
Honestly, the performances weren't really great. Matthew Lillard's performance was pretty good but the rest of the cast members weren't great, especially some of the child performances. Including the cameos as they felt like they were just there rather than have the cameos be creative. The direction from Emma Tammi was decent but there are certain direction moments that felt sloppy and uneven on certain moments. None of the characters were interesting as they felt uninvesting and too thin to care about while at the same time, they were given some pretty bad dialogue which made things a bit difficult to believe a single word from them. Most of the horror elements feels weak as it is filled with horror cliches and serious moments that sometimes feel unintentionally hilarious. There are some attempts of non-serious tone and humor used but it doesn't work and comes off as forced.
The soundtrack was okay and some of the pacing was off which made certain moments pretty boring. I understand this movie is more for the younger audience which is perfect for them but as a whole, it's pretty disappointing since the animatronics are the best part but the movie could have been better. Overall, the fanbase will like this and while I do appreciate the technical aspects, it's not a good adaptation.