Review: There's too much movie in Fleak, and not enough

Viva Kids has been having a great year, with a slew of strong titles in the first half of the year, and the fascinating-looking Tom and Jerry: The Forbidden Compass coming out in a few weeks. Viva has an interesting approach to releases, and is sometimes hard to pin down. Most of their movies pop up in theaters at least for a short time, but then once in a while they put something out digitally, sometimes with next to no fanfare (I'm thinking of The Green Dinosaur, my favorite movie they've ever distributed). Fleak is somewhere in the middle ground: a movie that they put out digitally without a theatrical footprint, but one that they've done a nice job promoting. I finally caught up with it yesterday.

I can see why Viva eschewed a theatrical berth for this one, because Fleak is a truly strange movie, and one that could feel like a bait-and-switch in a way. When you look at an image of the movie, you see a boy and a cute little alien creature flying through the air, and you think you have a sense of what this movie is about. But it kind of reminds me of when you see an image of Whisper of the Heart, and it's Shizuku and the Baron flying through the air. Yeah, that's a scene in the movie, but it kind of sidesteps what the movie mostly is, and what it feels like. So it is with Fleak, a movie that has silly, fun, alien elements, but where those elements feel more like a compliment to something a bit heavier.

Thomas is a 12-year-old boy who desperately wants to hang out with his older siblings. Those siblings, maybe unsurprisingly, don't want their kid brother tagging along all the time. Pretty familiar family dynamics: the older ones trying to ditch, Thomas following along behind like a lost puppy. And then there's Jack, the cool kid who the sister wants to date, the brother wants to be. He has a moped and an attitude. To the viewer, he's clearly a jerk, but you get the appeal. Thomas more or less sees right through the act, but since his siblings are always hanging out with Jack, so he wants to, as well.

One day, Thomas follows the trio to the abandoned shoe factory where they like to hang out. Out of sight of the sibs, Jack tasks Thomas with a challenge: if you want to hang out with us, walk along that rickety board to retrieve the lantern hanging at the end of it. Thomas goes for it, and ends up falling and becoming paralyzed from the waist down.

At this point, I was like....what is this movie?

Following the fall, the lantern starts glowing, and Thomas gets a glimpse of the alien world, including the tiny eponymous pink fluffball Fleak, and also this giant glowing head with hair made of ice and fire. I think she's a goddess or something? During the film, she talks about keeping spiritual forces in balance, so maybe she's a nature spirit? Maybe I missed it? 

Anyways, Thomas has to adjust to his new life as a wheelchair user, going to physical therapy, trying to still play basketball, no one believing him about the alien. Eventually, he reunites with Fleak, who takes him into the world of the lamp, where Thomas is able to detach his shadow (?) which gives him the ability to walk again (?) but then the shadow feels the need to possess someone else (?) and that new shadow-possessed creature will start eating everything in sight (???).

If it sounds strange and slightly exhausting, that's because it is.

Watching Fleak felt a little like being bludgeoned. Not that it's aggressively bad or anything. It's pleasant enough, cute, has some fun bits and bobs. But it also just has so much stuff in it, so many wrinkles that feel like they were thrown in just for the hell of having another element, another interesting obstacle. It's too much, relentless. A flavorful dish doesn't need a mountain of ingredients; it needs carefully selected ones that compliment each other well. This movie feels like someone dumped a whole grocery store into the pot and hoped for the best.

And to add insult to injury, the film tries to pop you in the kisser with utterly unearned emotional payoff. It does one of those moments where the siblings are like "We always loved you and wanted to hang out with you. You're the best little brother ever." To which I can only call bs. They are clearly lying and just trying to be nice in the face of imminent doom, and it's the kind of slapdash moment that always rankles me in a movie. Thomas's siblings spend approximately 2% of the movie's runtime being nice to him. I think they're just bad people (or at least just teenagers).

Fleak needed a couple more passes on the script to get it into a shape that made sense. As it is, it feels like it's too much movie that doesn't add up to much of anything at all.