I really wasn’t in the mood for a Christmas movie tonight so I gave the Christmas season watch marathon a rest & watched Coyotes with Justin Long.
Verdict: I really enjoyed this movie! I remembered Spooky Astronauts saying it had a lot more going on than a typical creature feature & upon initial reaction I didn’t agree. My first thought was “it’s just a creature feature with especially fun characters, Emma, that’s all, calm down.” But as I sat here typing up a review I realized that yeah, she was right. This movie did manage to juggle a lot of balls & do it well when I really think about it - it just ALSO succeeds really well as an action packed creature feature so it’s easy not to truly take note of everything it has going on.
Between the storms & fires & power outages the characters faced on top of the viscious pack of coyotes this movie almost had a disaster movie element to it as well as creature feature. It also managed to be action packed, quippy & funny without ever losing heart. The characters felt like real people & the family & their issues were genuinely compelling & relatable while the film also never felt slow & kept the action going at all times - not an easy thing for a movie to accomplish & I think most movies fail in at least one of the elements when creators try to go for so many things at once between comedy, & family drama + action packed thriller. I have to honestly applaud this movie for its flawless pacing.
Again, a really fun movie that pretty much killed it in every element. The comic book style to certain moments as a storytelling element also just added to the fun action vibe & worked great with Justin Long’s character being a comic book artist.
My only criticism of this movie has to do with the marketing. While I read some light subtextual social commentary thought the story, this movie was first & foremost a creature feature action thriller. I don’t think “eat the rich” was a very truthful marketing slogan for what the movie was. To me it felt like this movie was marketed as if it would be a piece of social commentary when that was a very, very subtle aspect of it that was very background & could easily be missed or interpreted as not present. So it was a good movie I just don’t think that slogan was an accurate marketing theme.
Overall Coyotes is entertaining with a very fun cast of characters that were easy to route for & spend the 90 minute runtime with & I’d honestly recommend this movie to anyone. I watched it alone but I bet it would make a really fun group watch too.
