REVIEW: Wish UponBy Quinn OxleyJuly 15, 2017Spoilers ahead, but only if you haven’t seen the trailer. I’m not giving any more away than they did.

“People are dead, Clare. You can't just wish that away.” But why not, Ryan? The rules seem pretty simple: make a wish, someone dies. But is there any reason you couldn’t use one wish to bring everyone back? Could you use one wish to say, “I wish you could satisfy this and my other wishes without staking claim to a blood price of any kind?” The movie never brings up a rule against this, so I have to assume that everyone who’s ever been caught up in this thing’s drama is just a complete idiot.

Clare Shannon (Joey King) and her dumpster-diving father, Jonathan (Ryan Phillippe), come across a strange trinket laden with Chinese characters and a strange air about it. Discerning that it grants wishes to anyone holding it, Clare begins to trade lives for longings as she wishes for more and more, and watches those around her die in freak accidents.

Watching this movie is a fascinating, wildly introspective and thought-provoking experience. You’ll ask yourself questions like, “Why is her dad a dumpster-diver? That’s so random. And why is she taking Chinese? It’s usually Spanish and French that are offered as foreign languages in public high school. And why are those characters even there? They haven’t represented any kind of significance to the story, and they’re already dead.” And eventually, Wish Upon carefully, painstakingly leads you to the answer. “Ahh, so the plot can happen.” But sometimes you don’t even have to ask the question. Someone will say something, and you’ll think to yourself, “Yeah, the only reason she’s addicted to that game is because she needs a reason to go up into the elevator later in the movie. I’ve seen the trailer.”

As I was exiting the theater, I threw my arms up in the air and shouted, “Hot nonsense!” Because this movie was hot nonsense. The writing is ridiculous. The plot is uninspired and unoriginal. Joey King pulls off a marketable performance, but few others pull their weight for their characters - but who can blame them, really? I can’t imagine that I would have put much effort in either; this movie is, after all, hot nonsense.

If I had only one wish left and the price of that wish was a yaoguai stealing my soul, I would wish that I hadn’t seen this movie. Totally worth it.

Rating: 2.5/10

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