It’s easy to know where to begin with She (1982): start with the best the film has to offer, and work your way down.
So … I have this lurking admiration for the costumes and makeup in this movie. Clearly, in the hurly-burly of planning, an allocation for the budget of makeup and costumes was forgotten, but that didn’t stop those critical people from coming through in the clutch. Digging up old prom dresses, Halloween costumes, and (more likely) bridesmaids’ outfits, along with the assorted contents of garage sales and dumpsters, the characters in this movie are entertainingly clothed; each group of characters clearly cohere based on the thematic vision of their tribal costumes.
I particularly liked the 6’4″ guy, a real bear, in what appeared to be a pink tutu. It was a good match for his boss, who was also fairly far-fetched in his attire, although not to the same extent as his underling.
In a similar vein, the cinematography, staging and use of sweeping vistas had a nearly competent feel to it; the use of abandoned industrial plants, both cheap and effective, while hardly unique, at least conveyed a flavor of ruined industrialization key to the background of this movie.
Moving down our hierarchy, as it were, the sound quality was occasionally smudged, and certainly without insight and innovation. The sound waves were captured, in some form or another, on the media of the day, and conveyed to our ears. Let not originality mar this exercise in sound conveyance.
Sadly, to suggest the acting in this movie approached adequate would be to commit a deception unforgivable even in a casual movie critic such as myself. To be honest, my Arts Editor and I marveled at the sheer lack of competency: poor stage combat, lack of chemistry between characters, nearly no expression of emotion through dialog, even mere movement seemed a problem sometimes. For example, when one of the Amazons was trying to look like she had finally become interested in one of the guys, it came out looking like gross repulsion, soon to be followed by physical illness.
It couldn’t have gone well for him that night.
But, in defense of the actors, they had to wrestle with some truly wretched dialog. It had no sense of originality, of purpose, of conveyance of multiple meanings. When a character is being tortured on the wheel, screaming “No! No!” over and over and … isn’t dialog. It’s laziness. Not a single profanity uttered, not a humorous aside, observation on the depraved nature of the torturers, or the futility of their tribal superiors, not to mention the inevitable moral failings.
Even the “No!”s began to sound bored after a bit. And that joke about her seeming a bit taller afterward? Not clever. Humor works when it’s not obvious, even the tenth time you hear it. This was obvious before it was ever uttered. Not to put too fine a point on it.
But even if the dialog had been innovative and inspirational, this joke of a story would still have dragged all down under the waves and left the whole kit & caboodle, characters, dialog, and costumes bubbling haplessly, trapped in the coral reef. Characters disappear and reappear with nary a reason why, a tribe of vampires wander through, we run into a God with flashing green eyes who easily overcomes the Goddess She, for who the movie is named (her superpower seems to be screaming “I’m She, the Goddess!”). Perhaps this dreck reaches for the high mount of surrealism, but it doesn’t get there. We wander on some odd quest, I think it was to find someone’s sister, but I’ll tell you –
I could call this all putting lipstick on a pig, but that would be an insult to lipstick.
Recommended, if you’re a film studies major surveying some of the worst movies out there. Otherwise, only watch while impaired.
