Maria Leonora Teresa: A Review
Last Tuesday, I had the chance to watch Maria Leonora Teresa. I had the choice between three movies, two of which are American films (The Maze Runner, and I forgot the title of the other movie, but it was a thriller, I think.). I chose to watch MLT (I'll be using this to refer to Maria Leonora Teresa from here on, seeing as the title is really, well, too damn long.). I guess my decision was swayed a little by Rappler's article about it, and, seeing as they seemed to have given it a pretty okay review, and, added to the fact that I have an interest in dolls and such, I wanted to watch the movie, and see if it's good or not myself.
I think that the plot is pretty generic, somehow. The first few scenes shows the interaction between Maria, Leonora, and Teresa with their parents. In fact, I think that one could say that these parts were unnecessarily long.
The main cast of the movie.
There were some interesting parts though, wherein they show scenes wherein two of the parents of the children saw a kid, with his face half-burnt. However, knowing that, I think that the movie went downhill there.
The children, while on their way to their field trip destination, ended up dying because of a horrible accident. The scene was a little bit light-hearted, at least for me, because of the 'BBN' segment. I mean, what, come on. Can't they think of a better news name?
The story was predictable in itself, but I guess that's how most Filipino movies are these days. What I don't understand is why the 'dolls', or the children, went out and killed people, for, at times, no real reason, even if, in the end, it was revealed that they were in control by an evil mastermind -- that is, the father of the deceased child with the half-burnt face. I mean, sure, it's understandable that doll!Teresa would want to kill her cheating father, as well as the whole other family he has with another woman, but, what I don't get is why doll!Maria would want to kill her nanny. I mean, was that the only way to really get 'rid' of her? I think it was too easy, as well as convenient that while the doll was trying to kill her, she ended up taking photos of the doll while falling and being stabbed to death by the doll. Anyway, bottom line is, while watching the movie, I thought that there was a lot of unnecessary killing, though, they did add some drama, or, well, they consisted of the bulk of the movie.
Aside from the endless gore, I think there had been a lot of questions left unanswered, and I'm going to list them all down:
-How the hell did the father of that boy who died because of a fire accident even know that Teresa's mother hid the fact that Teresa knew about the accident that was going to happen (due to the fact that the boy told her) and didn't do anything about it? I mean, the ghost!boy didn't seem to be in cahoots with his father, as shown in a scene where he helped the three troubled parents by talking to an 'albularyo'. So.. How the hell did he know about that when there wasn't anyone to tell him of it?
-In the first place, if the boy knew that the whole school was going to burn down, why did he even opted to listen to his teacher and stay? If I were him, I would just run as far as I can away from the school. At least then he'd been save from death, and then there'd be no more MLT.
-What happened to the maid in the hospital? Did she ever come back to work for Maria's parents?
-Same question goes for the albularyo that helped them. Teresa's dad (Zanjoe), was able to kill off the father of the dead boy in the end, saving the other two parents from death, before dying himself due to the blood loss. Anyway, the albularyo was nowhere to be found in that scene. So... Where was he and why wasn't he with Teresa's dad? Wouldn't it have been better if he was the one to help the other two parents? After all, he was the one who didn't have a hole on his stomach.
-Whatever happened to the Leonora doll? After all, she seemed to be the only 'good' doll out of the bunch. She ran way, so where is she? Also, I think she's the only doll who killed once in the movie.
-Finally, the ending was all shades of messed up. I mean, Teresa's mother gets the baby that she didn't have the chance to kill. Okaaaay. Maria's mother, well, she seems to be doing okay. I don't have any problems with those two, but.. The hell, Leonora's father is shown to approach a parent from the school, offering a doll to her to ease the pain.
......
What was that all about? Won't he be like, recognized? After all, she had been a parent of a child from that school, and he was a teacher from that school before??? I don't. I don't understand?
Anyway, that's all the questions I can think of, and, MLT wasn't really that bad. But it wasn't anything new either. It was, in general, okay, though, I think it could have done better.