When you set out to make a movie during a pandemic, inevitably you have to make a movie ABOUT a pandemic. I mean how else are you going to explain why (most) everyone in the cast is social distancing, communicating over their computer via Zoom, and sitting alone listening to podcasts? I don’t know about you, but I just lived through a year and a half of this shit. I don’t need to see another ninety minutes of it.
Songbird was produced by Michael Bay. That explains why the virus in the movie is called COVID-23. You can almost hear him in a pitch meeting: “You know what would be even more jacked than COVID-19, bro? COVID-23! Isn’t that boss? That’s at least four more COVIDs than we have now!”
Nico (K.J. Apa) is an immune courier who rides his bike through the empty streets of a pandemic-ridden America delivering packages for his boss (Craig Robinson) while 99.9% of the population is stuck indoors. When his girlfriend (Sofia Carson) is exposed to the virus, she is immediately scheduled for termination. Nico then breaks protocol and risks his life to save her.
Songbird is mostly a shitshow from start to finish. The lone bright spot is the always lovely Alexandra Daddario who plays a sexy cam girl/YouTube singer. I guess the fact that she sings makes her the “Songbird” of the title? If that’s the case, she’s not in it nearly enough to justify naming the movie after her character. You have to wonder if originally she was supposed to be the main character, but somehow, the other plot line managed to win out during the editing process. The highlight comes when she participates in a weird sex scene that unfortunately ends way too abruptly to be worth a damn.
The movie is brimming with a bunch of fine actors (Peter Stormare, Demi Moore, and Paul Walter Hauser among them) who are completely wasted as they are up the creek without a paddle in a sea of fragmented narratives that never really gel together. At all times, it feels like a crass, joyless cash-in to exploit our common current struggle we find ourselves in.
Also, it makes it really easy to hate when it’s just so fucking terrible. The erratic camerawork and incoherent editing during action didn’t do it any favors either. In short, the shit Songbird pulls just doesn’t fly with me.
Got to strongly disagree here, I thought this was a really well done film, didn't feel like a cash in to exploit anything to me at all.
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