Released in 2018, “Searching” was made before the coronavirus pandemic, but in hindsight, it claustrophobically focuses on a father who scours the web for clues to his missing daughter. It felt like the ultimate Covid movie, hit and miss. While the film struggles, perhaps inevitably, to hit the “update” of the formula, it’s still plenty twisty and watchable.
This time, perhaps aptly, 18-year-old June (Storm Reid in “Euphoria”) is forced to go hunting when her widowed mother (Nia Long) doesn’t return as planned after a trip to Colombia. it was done. her new boyfriend (Ken Leung). It doesn’t help that June was aloof and surly – frustrated by her mother’s absence on Father’s Day – as her search reveals clues and shocking secrets in roughly equal measure. Guilt prompts us to go hand in hand with surprise.
Written and directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, who edited the previous film starring John Cho, “Missing” once again filters the audience’s view through computer screens and shows how people can be traced online from their credit cards. have a great deal of fun in demonstrating Receipts and mobile phone locations for ringing video and cameras in busy tourist areas.
Putting daughters in the case lends itself to the overall notion of how well different generations have mastered technology, including the ability to navigate advancements like Facetime and crack passwords smarter than June’s mother. Add some funny wrinkles.
Still, “Missing” seems to be plagued by a desire to not only match, but surpass its predecessor, resulting in a few tortured turns being denied in the final stretch. Until then, the film does an admirable job of pointing a frantic June in many directions and keeping the audience guessing as conflicting information drips down, in a state of constant agitation that Reed conveys wonderfully.
Various experiments with relatively inexpensive Zoom-style filmmaking have taken place in the Covid quarantine era, but “Search” not only preceded the trend, but generally with better results than most of its successors. Achieved.
Rather than trying to reinvent the concept, “Missing” tries to recycle it. The more your audience looks forward to it, the more they will enjoy it. Still, even with that tolerance in mind, this computerized detective thriller is already starting to run in low-power mode, which should be taken as a caveat to plans for future sequels (or reboots).
“The Missing” will premiere in US theaters on January 20th. The rating is PG-13.
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