Rating: 2/5

Three Word Summary: This is Marketing

The book on which this movie is based is by one of my favorite new authors, Max Barry. In one word, his boos are cool. That’s because Barry was a former marketer in his native Australia before becoming a full-time novelist. His first book, Syrup, is all about marketing and image and how to be cool.

The movie based on this novel demonstrates an understanding of that concept, but falls short in its execution. In short, it wasn’t cool.

There was the illusion of coolness. It did some cool things. It tried to be cool. It just wasn’t cool.

Because I like Barry’s books, I wanted to like the movie. But the movie lacked the very thing that made Syrup in books form.

The small changes I can tolerate, even understand. Like making Coke Cola a fictional company. Or changing the drink from a soda to an energy drink. Or the setting from Los Angeles to New York.

But the characters were too drastically different to even be effective in this story line. Scat is supposed to be cynical, not philosophical. 6 is supposed to be aloof, not emotional. And Sneaky Pete is supposed to be the villain, not amiable.

To be fair, it did a great job of demonstrating marketing. The voice overs describing the various marketing principles were insightful and entertaining. But they only further proved that this film was only an image without much substance.