A Retrospect on "Sleeping Beauty" (2011)

Confessions of a Film Junkie: A Retrospect on “Sleeping Beauty”

By: Brian Cotnoir

     Hey All I’m doing another Retrospect on a film I’ve already reviewed.  I decided to re-watch and re-review the 2011 Australian film “Sleeping Beauty”.

My First Impression of the film

How I loathe this film.  I swore after first seeing the trailer for this film that I would never see it.  “Sleeping Beauty” (or “50 Shades of God Awful” as I like to call it) is bad!  I had one reason—and one reason alone—to see this film and that reason is somebody told me that actress Emily Browning was completely naked for a good portion of the film.  That was the only reason I had to want to see this film, and nothing else.  Nothing in this film—besides Emily Browning—was good or “enjoyable”.  The story had too many plot holes, the dialogue made no sense, and it was really freaking boring!  I tore this film to shreds, and I stand by it.  This film had almost no redeeming qualities.

It's So Awful!

My second impression of the film

     So sometime down the road, someone I knew told me they were thinking about checking “Sleeping Beauty” out after reading my review of it, and I told them that it was not worth checking out unless you had a fondness or attraction to Emily Browning.  Somewhere along this discussion I made a comment—jokingly—that the only way I would probably ever see this film again is if I had it on mute the whole time, and what started as a joke took on a life of its own and I decided to re-watch “Sleeping Beauty” in its entirety with the sound off.   

Burning money?  How appropriate, this all the film really did!

    You know what; I actually liked this film slightly better with the sound off.  I didn’t have to listen to any of that awful dialogue, and it was just fun to make up dialogue to the film myself.  Besides that, an added benefit to not having any sound to distract me, I began to notice all the subtle movements of the camera and actors in the background.  It was actually more entertaining that way.  Not to mention I still got to see my porcelain skinned goddess on screen in all her glory.             

What I’d do to make the film better

     Remove all spoken dialogue from the film.  That is the worst part of the film.  I would just have nobody in this film speak, and just let people create their own little stories going off of the actions and facial expressions of the cast. 

My final impression on the film

I did the same thing after watching this film....paaaiiinnnn

I would actually recommend that more people try to watch “Sleeping Beauty” with the sound off at some point, or to just grab any random film and watch it with the sound off and see how much new stuff you notice in the background or how many funny lines you can come up with for the film.  There were still some boring at points in the film, but once those passed it was somewhat tolerable to watch.  So it should come as a surprise to none of you, that I still don’t care much for this movie, it’s a pile crap, and if Emily Browning wasn’t in it, I probably would have never seen it at all.  It’s just an awful film.  I can’t remember the last time a film caused me such great mental anguish.

My Original Review of "Sleeping Beauty" (2011)