Songbird (2020)

Setting a fictional premise during serious periods of history can allow interesting executions if they use all the elements well enough. Any kind of description like that sounds complex but in the grand scheme of things, films need the basics down to a tea in order to succeed: characters the audience can connect with, relatable surroundings, and stakes in the conflict that are worth the investment. There have been examples of this I've been aware of but I haven't watched many of them. This brings us to a science fiction thriller that taking place during a COVID pandemic, Songbird, which was produced by Michael Bay (which is usually not a good sign with his involvement). Considering how sensitive the current situation is with the coronavirus, having the nerve to make a project that's written in that surrounding is treading on very thin ice. After watching the movie, its exploitation of the pandemic surprised me in how incompetent it ended up being as one of the worst movies of 2020.  

What's it about? Taking place in 2024 where COVID-19 has mutated to become COVID-23, the story follows an immune courier trying to help his girlfriend while other somewhat connected subplots occur. The exposition of premise laid out in the beginning credits has content (such as "quarantine zones" that are implied to be concentration camps, slur terms used by the military, and rich people profiting of expensive deals they make for goods) that could be expanded into something interesting. But this entire movie falls apart for a variety reasons that turns it into a rushed student film. There are too many characters that are incredibly stock and boring to where you don't care about their outcomes at all. Instead of getting to know anyone through showing, it goes through bad dialogue with cliched lines and exposition. 

In order to highlight how nonsensical and ridiculous it gets, details about the plot need to be mentioned here. The bland love arc has a girlfriend whose worried about her grandma's health and the boyfriend trying to help her before she gets deported by the sanitation department to the camps, which has a predictably dumb twist. There's a musician who forms a wooden connection with a veteran technician while being involved in an affair with someone else. There's the wife of the guy who's having the aforementioned affair who does business dealing with courier to supply an immunity badge to smuggle his love interest out while wanting the best for her ill daughter. And the cherry on top of that is a corrupt (and cartoony) head of the sanitation department whose actions against the protagonist are goofy to watch. ALL of that is shoved into a short runtime that barely fleshes anything out and ends up not saying anything at all. 

 

How are the actors? In regards to story importance, the actors to focus on are AJ Kapa and Peter Stormare. AJ does what he can but he's not a good enough actor here to make his stock protagonist role work (in addition to the lack of meaningful chemistry in the romance arc). Peter is having more fun with how cartoonish his villain role is alongside how silly his exposition gets. Honorable mention goes to Paul Walter Hauser for having a nice portrayal in the beginning as a veteran (before it quickly disappeared as the outcome of his subplot went into an explosively stupid territory). Dishonorable mentions go to Sofia Carson, Alexandra Daddario, and Bradley Whitford who all appeared to be sleepwalking through their respective roles.

 

Overall Consensus: Songbird's irresponsible insensitive muddled pandemic message is confounded even further by its illogical subplots, characters lacking substance, badly edited action, and offensive stance as an anti-government propaganda. 1/2* Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes PG-13

*Yes, half a star out of 5. 

Reasons to watch it: You are a fan of the aforementioned actors and/or director Adam Mason.

 

Reasons to avoid it: You aren't a fan of the aforementioned actors and/or director Adam Mason. You dislike films with irresponsible messages regarding government and pandemics. You are annoyed with wooden characters, too many subplots, and idiotic outcomes. You hate terrible action editing in general.