Songbird

Directed by Adam Mason, Songbird follows several characters, including KJ Apa’s Nico, Demi Moore’s Piper, and Peter Stormare’s Emmett, as their fates collide during a worldwide pandemic that’s spiraled out of control. Filmmaker Mason, working from a screenplay written with Simon Boyes, does an effective job of initially luring the viewer into the somewhat watchable proceedings, as the movie incorporates the COVID-19 pandemic into its narrative to a degree that is, at the outset, certainly quite intriguing – with the promising atmosphere perpetuated and heightened by an eclectic cast comprised of such familiar faces as Bradley Whitford and Alexandra Daddario. It’s disappointing to note, then, that Songbird‘s entertaining atmosphere dwindles steadily as the novelty of the movie’s premise begins to wear off, as Mason, to an increasingly distressing extent, delivers a hopelessly mechanical, by-the-numbers thriller that’s been suffused with some of the genre’s hoariest (and most tedious) elements (including, but certainly not limited to, an overly verbose, seemingly unstoppable villain) – which, when coupled with an endless and interminable third act, cements the picture’s place as a half-baked and entirely misbegotten endeavor.

*1/2 out of ****