O’DESSA: 2 ½ STARS. “a musical that wears its influences on its colorful sleeve.”
SYNOPSIS: In “O’Dessa,” a post-apocalyptic musical now streaming on Disney+, “Stranger Things” star Sadie Sink plays the title character, a dirt farmer who follows in her father’s footsteps as a “Rambler,” a musician whose music has the power to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” When he died he left her a “mighty guitar” and a mission. When the guitar is stolen O’Dessa travels to the dangerous world of Satylite City where the power of her music is tested.
CAST: Sadie Sink, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Murray Bartlett, and Regina Hall. Directed by Geremy Jasper.
REVIEW “O’Dessa” builds a cyberpunk world for its characters to inhabit that feels, like the rest of the movie, like a new story built on the foundations of films like “Mad Max” and “The Hunger Games.”
During its 106-minute runtime “O’Dessa” wears its influences on its colorful sleeve.
Everything from “Phantom of the Paradise” to “Repo! The Genetic Opera” garners a nod, but what writer/director Geremy Jasper’s vision lacks in originality, it makes up for in enthusiasm. This dystopian mash-up is vibrant, often extravagant and may even get your toe lightly tapping along with the folk-rock songs.
Trouble is, while the songs are plentiful, they don’t leave much of an impression, let alone have the power to change the world and bring humanity together.
Visually, Jasper evokes 19809s music videos, with wild splashes of colour and costumes that would make Grace Jones envious but, ultimately, while it may entertain the eye, it won’t engage the brain.
Even a pair of pretty good villains, Regina Hall as wicked Neon Dion and Murray Bartlett (“White Lotus’s” pooping resort manager) as the evil empresario Plutonovich, O’Dessa feels music video stretched to feature length.
Writer/director Jasper’s vision of the future may not be as original, or as engaging, as it could be to really sell the movie’s premise, but there is a sincerity to the idea that music and the arts have the power to change the world.
