Is it let down season in my selection of titles I haven't gotten too? Roadside Attraction's Branded had limited release for a reason and not because it's indie, has a talking cow, and was partially made by Russia. The reason why it doesn't sell is because it doesn't live up to it's hype.
First, I had a bias for this film from it's first teaser trailers I saw on Twitch film. It depicted a world where one man saw all the corporation's branding images as living parasitic creatures that lived off us and or unnatural wants. This does get depicted in the film, but not until the third act. When we do get to the point of corporate images being hideous parasitic creatures fighting each other for money and power like a Godzilla monster throwdown the movie soars. A fight between Yepple (Apple) and GiantSoft (Microsoft) in the form of disgusting bacterial monsters was a satirical highlight.
Before the monsters we have a two slow acts and a monotonous build up. Our main character is explored as well as his past in marketing, which is a key theme to the film. It's was smart to tell the story behind the character, but it moved so slow for the epic battle of the film to come out.
Odd choices in the film had me suffering through it. There is narration in the theme of a disembodied voice that doesn't need to be talking that often. It was sort of guiding you like a children's book with one of those audio tracks that tells you to turn the page. I don't know if the directors were forced to put that in or chose to, in either case it seemed to be there to mock that you can't comprehend what was happening.
The film just drags on with problems.There's some fun punches at marketing that could have been explored at a faster pace. When the main bad guy suddenly dies without ever meeting the protagonist you've done a poor job. It just goes in the pile of good idea, poor execution. Then there's the part where I write everyone involved should learn from their mistakes and try to make something better next time.
I say skip towards the end and see corporate parasitic mascots duke it out. You'll never look at brands the same way again or just with more fear.
