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Touching Blue Test Movie 4 Review:

Touching Blue has a real potential for becoming an interesting genre movie after some SERIOUS REWRITES. As it is I found little to no suspense or interest in any of the characters and mostly felt like I was being manipulated and told the story to as opposed to shown the movie.

Show, don’t tell, as the saying goes in screenwriting.

Every time we write a character with an affliction, writers inadvertently box themselves and limit their character’s potential, movement, and development. Blue has a psychic ability and an affliction, we empathize with her and we can even feel sorry for her, but we can’t do anything about it, here I felt like as if I was being given two choices; either feel sorry for Blue, or feel guilty for not caring, both are manipulative. What’s worse is that no one, including Blue for most parts, can do anything for her other than just to watch her suffer for almost 135 minutes. It gets exhausting.

Blue’s flashback and telling us about her early life is boring and unnecessary. If you want to give exposition give it through conflict and bury them in active forward moving scenes not in a, day in the life of a screamer, prolonged scenes and we will be surprised to learn more about her as we go along.

Aside from her condition, Blue is never really in any danger. She’s constantly surrounded by mostly protective FBI people and she is being taken to far away places repeatedly. She should be in clear danger from the minute we start the movie that way we’ll be awake and watching (more later).

The first twenty five minutes of the movie could be edited and compacted in the first three minutes of the movie. By minute 25 we’ve already spent hundreds of thousand, surely more, dollars in production cost and accomplished not so much. The first chase scene is not related to anything really and seems to be just there to TELL us about the character. It would be better to relate that to Blue on the run from the killer/s or at least have her be looking for the killer/s. We cannot take a, scenic route; Oh, and then this happened, Oh, and she said this…etc., in explaining a movie if we want to create suspense.

For example; In the very first scene, If we want to establish Blue’s touching condition we could have her and her FBI people run after the suspect and have Blue catch the suspect or someone related to the suspect (masked and unseen person) and then she can’t hold on to him because of her condition. Blue is hurting and lets the suspect go. Now we know who Blue is, what she’s trying to do, and what her challenges are. We are automatically on her side and want her to succeed. This one scene is a type of a running start that would get viewer’s attention to hang with because there’ll be more folks.

Some of the dialogue is a bit too forced: “She’s good people…Don’t trust Graham,” trying too hard to create some suspense by telling us about potential suspense or threats upcoming, as opposed to showing the action. Blue:” Have you seen my future tell me.” Graham to Blue:”…You owe me.”

By minute 31 there was still no real threat or a killer connection to Blue, other than that she’s there to touch stuff, and there has been NO threat to her life by the killer/s. Again if she’s the protag she should be the main target of the killer. We learn that there are other screamers like her so what’s so special about Blue that she gets this gig and not others? It has to be made clear to us. Blue should be the only one that knows how to find the killer/s and she is the only person that is going to find the killer/s out. Blue should be in constant danger from the start as the killer is after her and she should be pretty much in the same area or arena with the killer/s to create constant tension for us to stay really involved. Perhaps you could tighten the scenes maybe have some of her FBI escorts get killed. Bring the danger to Blue.

The opponent/killer is missing for most of the movie, which makes it boring as all those killed are new people to us and we only learn of their past connection to Blue after the fact. No one on the screen is in any danger for most of the movie, how is it possible to create any suspense? As it is the movie is just going through the paces like a snooze-fest of a procedural on network TV.

Taylor and Blue romance is a nice touch, thankfully.

The resolution scene is just a bit too convoluted. The last act could be more suspenseful, Sandra’s reason for doing what she did is a bit over the top, but whatever. Decide on one really bad badass opponent and let us see her/him get hers or his. All this she did it, no he did it, but we both kinda did it, dissipates the potential suspense and takes away from any of our potential release at the end. It just seems that here the writer is trying to jam all the missing suspense of the first 125 minutes into the last ten minutes.

Then, after all that, we find out that screamers can lose their powers if they want to? WHAT? Are you kidding me? Here the writer is probably thinking, “oh crap it’s the end of the movie and I gotta deliver a happy ending.” It is as if though we’re saying, Oh, we lied, to the viewer. It takes away from the credibility of anything we’ve setup before. I would seriously suggest taking that part out or modifying it, for one thing, you may want to leave room for a sequel and have Blue team up with Taylor and form a crime fighting duo.

As for the production: Nice suspenseful music early on, keep that for sure. Also, The animation was really nice and effective.

Overall, Blue needs to be more actively involved throughout the movie and not just to usher us into crime scenes, scream and touch things. Develop her character fully, she needs to have a moral need and a real burning desire for something to go on, looking for her longtime missing mother, while worthwhile, is not urgent enough and doesn’t motivate the viewer to stay interested.

I look forward to your possible rewrites.

Best,

Thom

Hope the quality of final product matches the potential, I would go see this one.

In the very beginning, the WOW factor should be heightened to send home clearly the message of the child's gift.
The scenes move quickly and linkage to the gift in its message to do good is somewhat weakened in my humble opinion.
I love the premise and having the child with the gift is an added plus.

This is pro stuff, period! Absolutely loved it. First time I've watched this type of 'movie.' Wonderful! The story-line is very much worthy of 'prime-time TV.'

Thanks, folks, for really nice time.

jh

After a first viewing, my first impression was one of approval. There were definitely things I would work on though.

First of all, I liked Emma's character, and I'd like to see more of her. On the other spectrum, I didn't like Spencer's character. Actually, let me re-phrase that. I loved Spencer as a character, but I found very little value to him in the end. He almost seemed pointless to me. I think it would be better to have more scenes showing Blue and Emma bonding, rather than Blue and Spencer. Spencer just doesn't add much to the story. In the beginning, I thought Spencer was going to be the love interest, rather than Taylor, but then he just ended up being almost useless.

I think it would make better sense to bring Emma into the story sooner to become Blue's confidante, and take out Spencer all-together.

One aspect I did truly enjoy was the ending. I liked the fact that everything didn't turn out sunshine and roses, and it left it open for the Screamers to help others with their abilities. And we all know sequels are more valuable than a single installment, and this movie sets us up for a sequel perfectly.

"Wow!"

I'm not sure what else to say. Sure, it's not a live-action movie, but the premise and story are great. The characters are well developed. A little hard to follow sometimes with some of them wearing the same thing, but look for the things like hair style and necklaces and they each become unique.

It's easy to fall in love with Blue and feel her pain and sorrow. You are constantly moving between emotions about solving a murder and emotions about finding oneself. This is a well-written piece and the test movie is definately worth a watch. I think everyone should see this and hopefully it will find it's way into a feature movie.

If this were to be a movie with real people, I would watch it. I would like to see more special effects like car chases, fires, slow mo sexual content. I am not sure I understand the concept of Test Movie. I see this as a story board animated with just enough script to make it interesting and giving the idea of what the real actor production would follow.

Very interesting idea. I really liked that whole premise of the story. It had some dull parts and I almost didn't watch the whole thing, but all in all I would love to see it completed as a full movie.

The one problem I had with it was that the music selection could've been better. But that isn't set in stone and will probably change before a theatrical version.

This is the first Amazon movie that I've watched. I decided to give it a try as I like this type of story. (My son started to watch it half way through and really enjoyed it and wants me to start it over for him.) Although the beginning was a little rough I continued to watch and get pulled in to Blue's world. As the storyline picked up I was Intrigued and wanted to see it to the end. I think with some modifications this could be a hit!

Overall, I enjoyed this film. There were some areas that were a bit confusing, and I wish there was not an overall feeling that the screamers were being held against their will. However the premise of the film is new and exciting and will probably make a very profitable feature film. And I wish BLue had kept her hair blue.