Okja

A fairly colossal disappointment and misfire from Joon-ho Bong, Okja details the chaos that ensues after the title character, a genetically-enhanced superpig, is taken away from its owner (An Seo Hyun’s Mija) and sent on a perilous journey into the big city. It’s clear that Okja fares best in its deliberately-paced yet engrossing opening hour, with the film’s lackadaisical first act, which revolves around the gentle relationship between Mija and Okja, setting a pleasant tone that’s heightened by the palpable chemistry between the two protagonists. At the same time, however, Bong, along with coscreenwriter Jon Ronson, offers up a series of larger-than-life supporting characters that slowly-but-surely wear out their welcome, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton chewing unreasonable amounts of scenery as, respectively, a sinister television personality and the CEO of the company that owns Okja. Such missteps are, at the outset, relatively easy to overlook, though, given that Bong also delivers a series of spectacular set-pieces, with, especially, an absolutely jaw-dropping action sequence involving Okja and several animal-rights activists standing as an obvious highlight within the proceedings. It’s only as Okja progresses into its meandering and progressively mean-spirited second half that one’s interest takes a serious nosedive, as Bong abandons any pretense of subtlety by heavily stressing the inherent inhumanity of contemporary slaughterhouses – with the aggressively didactic vibe, coupled with a head-scratching decision to emphasize uniformly over-the-top periphery figures, paving the way for a shockingly unwatchable third act. It’s ultimately difficult to recall a film that so completely squanders the potential of an engaging, entertaining opening stretch, and one wonders just what Bong was thinking when he originally conceived of this entirely misbegotten storyline.

* out of ****