Crater: A Spoiler-Filled Discussion
When Netflix was starting the conversation about the point in which they internally realized that they were greenlighting too many things without focusing on quality, they brought up Insatiable as the exact show that made them realize they needed to rework their thought process. Crater could be that point for Disney+ because while the other shows and movies that have been lackluster like Willow or National Treasure: Edge of History were attempts to cash in on existing IP, Crater is just bad on its own.
The movie is basically Stand By Me but in space about a group of teenagers who set out on their own on the moon to find a crater and become greater friends along the way. The problem is that none of the kids feel like real characters and the movie is an exercise in telling the important character development, not showing it. The information about all the character's backstories are entirely relevant to the proceedings but it is delivered as such heavy-handed exposition that nothing works the way it should. It has the same feel as The Last Airbender where even during emotional moments, there are just layers of exposition given that undercut everything.
The other problem the movie has is that it is inconsistent in its selection of a target audience. The movie is rated PG and it has a relatively young cast so it is definitely designed to be for a family audience, however thematically the background of the world is designed to mirror where science fiction has gone recently with a very anti-corporate message. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the narrative tries to have it both ways where the anti-"definitely not Amazon" company is a superficial approach at best. When dealing with a corporation that is enslaving people to make them mine valuable materials from the moon so an aristocratic elite can live out their days on a utopian faraway planet, that should be the A-plot, not an afterthought to push the plot along.
On the one hand, it feels weird to push someone to not watch a piece of original programming from Disney+ because of how much that streamer is just used for regurgitating new stuff based on older IP, but this movie is just so unwatchable it should just be skipped entirely.
★
