After the billion-dollar Mattel cinema “Barbie”, it would not surprise anyone if the game shelf competitor Hasbro announces a “My Little Pony” real film-of course, including the glitter insignificance Twilight Sparkle and Rarity, which is particularly popular with fans. And if the Jenna Ortega, which has been particularly popular with the target group since its Netflix mega success, for the leading role, then you could actually start expanding the money storage at the company headquarters.
But puff cake! Instead, there is now “Death of a Unicorn“-And the film lasts what the title promises. In the first five minutes, the skull of a unicorn, of all people, is maltreated by the otherwise sympathetic Paul Rudd with a jack that the purple glitter blood injects …
The bite is missing from the cult
The “My Little Pony” crowd will not solve any tickets-and in fact the approximately $ 15 million “Death of a Unicorn” at the US cinemaasses will remain behind the expectations. But Hey, Alex Scharfmann finally shot his directorial debut for the indie studio A24-and there you know the best with provocative cult films from “Spring Breakers” to “Hereditary” to the Oscar-Baumer “Everything Everywhere All Atce”.
So “Death of a Unicorn” does not make any prisoners when the unicorn family starts the revenge campaign and the helpless people enjoy the intestine. But at the same time, the FSK-16-horror comedy is missing from the sought-after satirical punch-those responsible have simply chosen a lot of targets that are too obvious for their clumsy anti-rich and anti-pharmaceutical points.
If you suddenly make a unicorn on the country road instead of a deer or a dog …
The single parent Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) is about to realize his professional dream: The difficult-rich pharmaceutical Magnate Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) suffered from cancer has chosen him to take over the management of his business after his death. Leopold's own son Shepard (Will Poulter) describes himself as a “diversified entrepreneur”, but with science, apart from his well -documented drug career, he has little in the top.
But before the final decision, a weekend is on the program of the Leopolds, to which Elliot should also bring his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega). However, it doesn't feel like it, and so there is already a lot of stress on the way from the airport until Elliot overlooks the unicorn boy that jumps onto the street in front of him. Completely overwhelmed by the situation, the lawyer redeems the seriously injured mythical being with a jack – and quickly ships the carcass into the trunk …
Eh everything assholes
Even Paul “Ant-Man” Rudd, who otherwise embodies almost only super-sympathetic characters, turns out to be “Death of a Unicorn” as a cantilever ass, who supposedly only wants the best for his daughter, but especially forbids her mouth: if the adults already split up the unicorn profit (blood and horn promise medical miracles), then the ethical flashes of a teen Nose ring no longer a role.
It is the usual swipes against the super -rich and especially Big Pharma, which you can't actually have that you have been served several times. Only here and there is there again a particularly sharply ground punch line that is still sitting-for example, when the billionaire wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) can no longer remember seconds after a charity video, whether it was about the “evacuation” (= evacuation) or the “vaccination” (= “vaccination”) of fugitive.
Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) had imagined the weekend very differently.
Only Poulter (“Warfare”) turns up as an archery-shooting, grated unicorn horn sniffing pharmaceutical sprouts so much that his performance alone is almost worth the cinema. It almost looks like he is acting in his very own film – and this is a film that we would have actually preferred to see. In the meantime, the unicorns make it particularly clear in daylight, especially in daylight, when the budget-related CGI weaknesses emerge particularly well. As with so many creatures features, there would have been less times!
Nevertheless, the horned four-legged friends deliver properly as a splatter supplier: When the unicorn dad only crushes the skull of its particularly despised value and then wipes his hooves as if he had accidentally stepped into a bunch of shit, “Death of a Unicorn” makes the absurd gaga promise of the title all up to.
Conclusion: red and purple blood flow into streams. But for a really good horror comedy, “Death of a Unicorn” lacks a bit.