PRETTY LETHAL
Starring: Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Lydia Leonard, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apatow, Kate Freund, Michael Culkin, and Uma Thurman
Director: Vicky Jewson
ROBERT
Not since Abigail have ballet dancers killed with such impunity! Pretty Lethal plays on the idea that a dancer’s inner strength to endure all manners of hardship for their art can translate to mass murder (in the name of self-defense). It tries to give off a Green Room vibe, and while Uma Thurman is game to play a heavy, that film had better writing, staging, and acting in comparison to this. For its runtime, it is decent, but its execution is downright stupid. This did, however, reinforce that the kids from Dance Moms could be one bad day away from this level of violence as adults.
BODE
In Pretty Lethal, a group of young ballerinas have to fight their way out of a seedy remote inn filled with hired guns. You’d think this sort of premise would be tough to mess up, but somehow, director Vicky Jewson and screenwriter Kate Freund found ways to do so. Each character is a thinly-scripted archetype, which leaves great performers like an accented Uma Thurman stranded. Even the action sequences - the main attraction of any 87North production like this one - are shockingly uninspired, with lazy camerawork and rhythmless editing that fails to remotely excite. It’s lethal alright, and it ain’t pretty.
