SummaryWhen her mother (Nia Long) disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s (Storm Reid) search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late. But as she digs ...
SummaryWhen her mother (Nia Long) disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s (Storm Reid) search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late. But as she digs ...
I was only able to figure out the answer to about a third of the mysteries. But the rest left a thrilling impression that made “Missing” a genuinely fun ride.
great movie, just note that the entire movie is filmed on a mac, which means there's little real life footage, and the movie is largely based on a computer screen except for a couple of scenes. the movie is a mystery, suspense and murder movie, in which a daughter attempts to find her missing mother through online evidence and internet searches.
(for some people my review link takes them to Missing - 1982. this review is about Missing - 2023.)
I remember watching Searching back in the day and I absolutely loved it for its intense suspense and unique perspective through security and webcams and I never thought it would get a successor but I'm glad it did because I absolutely loved this movie overall. The characters and performances are excellent keeping you invested into these characters and hoping to see what will happen to them all the way in the end. The writing is phenomenal since seeing and hearing some things for the first time causes your head to initially brush it off since you've seen it plenty of times before only for it all to come back later on and make you see it from a completely different perspective the second time you watch it. The foreshadowing is excellent with again how it just uses everyday actions preventing you from thinking about it all too much but when it does come back, it feels so surprising and satisfying. Finally, the webcam perspective is a genuinely unique perspective as it allows you to see the world in a completely different point of view and this perspective will allow it to stay with you for years to come. Finally, the fact that the supposed main villain gets killed pretty late into the movie when there's still more gives you the feeling that there's a much bigger threat and there's more to these characters than you initially think and it keeps you invested no matter what. Overall, I absolutely recommend this movie if you enjoyed Searching and I can't wait to see Sony continue to expand this concept in the new future.
It’s all great fun, even if there’s no central performance as riveting as Cho’s in “Searching.” Then again, acting in movies like this is an admittedly uphill battle, one that Reid is better at when not having to rely on the occasionally tinny dialogue. Long, Leung and de Almeida, meanwhile, fill the tapestry of intrigue efficiently and appealingly.
It’s not a movie for you to turn off your brain, but rather, a movie to engage with the most primal parts of possessing a fundamental need for cheap entertainment.
Like Searching, Missing has something tenuous it wants to say underneath its shocking mystery about viral social media culture and the true crime craze; how our social media culture is too prone to exploiting real peoples’ pain for clout and consumption. But if there was an inkling of profundity in this regard in Searching, there’s none of it to be found in Missing, which functions more like a direct copy of true crime rather than an interrogation of it.
The many logic-defying developments in “Missing” make it difficult to hold one’s attention, especially considering that the film gives viewers plenty of time to think about the countless ways it doesn’t make sense.
Decent movie. I was pretty turned off by the format at first, but the store was intriguing enough I eventually forgot about my announce and just enjoyed a well-performed and written mystery thriller.
“Missing” involves the same creative team (and essentially the same plot) as 2018’s “Searching.” One can only hope that the next installment in this anthology series will be “Ceasing” or “Desisting.”The film is best described as a “techno-thriller” or a “screenlife thriller.” Everything the moviegoer sees is on a computer screen. We get images of the lead character because her FaceTime app is always open for no apparent reason. When action takes place, we observe through security feeds or online streaming. The implication is that a computer screen and a phone are apparently all we need to deal with real life. It’s an observation offered with no apparent irony. High school student June (an excellent Storm Reid – TV’s “Euphoria”) is being left at home alone while her mom Grace (Nia Long) heads off on a getaway with her boyfriend. On the day of Grace’s expected return, June goes to the airport but Grace is, wait for it, missing. The game is afoot, Watson. Sacre bleu. June leaps into action to rescue her mom. Well, her fingers leap into action. She almost immediately hacks all of Grace’s online accounts. She discovers that Grace’s new boyfriend is an ex-con. June uses an app to hire Javi (Joaquim de Almeida), a gig worker who tries to discover what happened to Grace after she arrived in Cartagena. But wait, Grace was never there. The boyfriend hired a look-alike to stand in for Grace. Huh? After that, the storyline lurches from implausible to ridiculous to **** fairness, there are a couple of redeeming features here. Storm Reid is compelling as a smart, self-aware, sassy teenager. (Minutes after her mom’s departure, she googles “how to throw a rager on a budget.”) Joaquim de Almeida, a veteran actor with 149 screen credits, is charming and appealing as a diligent worker, a thoughtful sounding board for June and a consistent source of comfort and support. (It makes you wonder why he works so cheap and is only rated 2.5 stars.) The story takes a couple of swipes at the credibility of social media. Noting the corrosive effects of watching self-appointed experts on self-produced podcasts breathlessly promoting fact-free opinions to get a few more views and likes is hardly a ground-breaking observation. However, there is the suggestion, offered mildly and with understated tact, that cultivating an online presence might in some cases be less important than interacting with other humans IRL (in real life).Finally, this screen-only approach to cinematography completely ignores the unique value of, you know, going to a theater. Turns out, some people attend movies in person to see high-quality images on a big screen. Here, we get to watch intentionally grainy footage to prove that all this is happening on a laptop. For me, the allure of “screenlife” wore off pretty fast. Watching June download apps and perform computer tasks got tedious early on. But your experience may vary. Full disclosure: this review was written on a computer that uses Windows 7.
A screen within a screen. New Inception? Not even close. The entire movie is portrayed via the main character's laptop, phone, and all other screens besides the one you actually pay tickets for.
This movie was incredibly lackluster, so I do not understand some of the rave reviews. If I wanted to watch someone typing this much, I'd just record myself writing a dissertation with screen record on.