Dakota Skye (2008)

Dave’s 3-Word Review:
Cheap, but silly

Everyone knows that Hulu has movies, for those of you that have run out of choices on Netflix. They are typically the movies you have never heard of, nor care to see, but once in a blue moon there might be something interesting that at least digs into your brain with an interesting concept. The best of the best are usually on multiple platforms, but not always. If you spin your randomizer/movie generator, you may land upon Dakota Skye…which lives in Hululand. The reason why this one caught my attention was because it was an unlikely-superhero movie, which, hit or miss, always catches my eye.

The Dakota Skye in question is our heroine. Her super power is an interesting one…she can tell when people are lying. That’s right, whenever someone lies, she reads a line of subtitles that tell her the truth. However, all superheroes must have arch nemeses, and apparently hers is “a cute boy named Jonah”. She can tell when any given person tells a lie, but she can’t read Jonah…is he telling her the truth all the time? Or does he have a gift as well, which allows him to conceal his untruths whenever he likes? Whatever the case, they’re practically in love with each other.

The real reason why I wanted to see this is because I really do like unlikely superhero flicks because they usually go a especially unique route in terms of the actual special ability. How many movies, books, and comics do we really have with heroes that have super strength, flight, or speed? Her ability is to tell when anyone is lying…but here’s the problem…that’s a really weird choice for a power. So weird, in fact, that the audience may just think she’s conceded or is just misinterpreting intuition. The movie’s plan may have been to have the audience decide for themselves what it really is, but the execution of their plan wasn’t exactly the best. I think they were leaning towards her actually having powers, but again, the execution was a little poor.

The film is also very clearly cheap. We’re talking student-film budget. There is no movie filters in place here, it looks like everyone is just wearing their own clothes from home…which is a problem when a teacher is wearing a regular t-shirt under a suit jacket. Also, you really don’t see how bad auto-white balance looks until you see it used in an actual movie. Let’s just put it this way – it doesn’t exactly look like a movie in general. But I try to look past certain flaws. Maybe if it was done by Universal Studios or Sony it would be good.

Eh, even with the best actors, lighting, foley artists and the works, they’d still have a poor script that doesn’t make a lot of sense. The whole idea is wrapped around this girl having an arch nemesis who she can’t read. But this Jonah guy…he’s not much of an arch nemesis. As soon as you see him, you know he’s like the nicest person in the entire movie. He’s a sweetheart, and she’s off cheating with her boyfriend. If you want to call anyone a nemesis, it would be her. She is her own arch nemesis, but it didn’t even go that route. It almost glorified cheating, actually.

The Good:

Well, I do like a fraction of what the concept was trying to be. The first few minutes I was actually pretty interested in what they would do.

The Bad:

But everything else had me a little disappointed. The film isn’t horrible, but it has some seriously flawed writing, production, acting, and direction. In short, it makes sense why this movie is on Hulu. I have deemed Hulu “The Island of Misfit Films”.