Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile
Extremely boring, shocking dull and uninspired! - 3/10
by The Movie Inspector
A dry biography, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile takes the story of one of the world’s most notorious serial killer and deprives it from building on its potential. The problem is that it has all the material to make it entertaining but instead it chooses to be excessively informative.
Extremely boring, Shockingly dull, and uninspired should’ve been the title of this movie as it truly results in a monotonous narrative that is exhausting to sit through. I can’t begin to review this movie without mentioning the tons of wasted potential. I mean this could’ve been an intriguing biopic on Ted Bundy, an infamous serial killer, but instead it goes on forever with endless exchanges that are terribly repetitive. If it truly wanted to show just how evil this person was then how about presenting that onscreen, rather than defending him till the very last minute. ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile’ follows the life of serial killer Ted Bundy as all his illegal activities lead to his prosecution.
First off, with an R rated film and multiple murders to Ted Bundy’s name, one would expect some violence to help establish Bundy’s character right? Well, nothing like that happens and instead we get a film that decides to glorify the serial killer. Why? I have absolutely no idea. The thing is it’s clear that they wanted to present him as someone with a heart, who cares about others and they do achieve that early on but doing that for the entirety of the runtime completely goes against the movie’s premise! What’s worse is that it keeps informing viewers on the details on and on, and never decides to project any of his actions. That ultimately transforms the whole film into a boring drama.
The pacing was completely slow during the first two acts and that doesn’t really allow one to invest in the film. Additionally, I found the film to be poorly directed and edited as so many illogical scenes are inserted and the botched editing didn’t help whatsoever. Perhaps the only redeeming quality of the film was the acting, as the performances of Zac Efron and John Malkovich were pretty good. Besides that, the climax was intriguing where a final confrontation built some tension that was unfortunately absent from the rest of the film. Heck even the end credits were more haunting than the film itself! It’s really your call wether or not you wish to watch this, just bear in mind that’s it not a lively biopic.
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