Branded (2012) User Reviews

Don't see this movie based on the ads, do some research first

[gavynhelfyre · 6/10 · 7 September 2012]

So, I've been seeing the ads for this film for a while now, and it always looked like a really interesting concept. Even looking at IMDb's summary of the film sells it as a sort of science fiction film.

Nothing you see in the ads or read in the summaries has anything to do with the actual film.

While the footage from the ads featuring strange creatures that seem to embody brands and feed off the desires of the populous for the brand is indeed in the film, it takes more than half the film to get to that point. The first half of the film shows the protagonist as marketing executive who gets caught as a pawn in a scheme to make fast food brands more popular. Throughout this section of the film, there is no indication that you'll ever see any of the footage that has been presented in the ads.

After the halfway point, the story radically shifts gears and we finally start to see the images that sold us on the film. However, it must be made clear that this isn't the story, and in fact the climax seems very strange compared to the first half of the film. Each brand has it's own weird monster, which really might be nothing more than the protagonist hallucinating (it's never really made clear and no one else ever sees or acknowledges these monsters), and eventually the monsters fight. However, again, there's no indication that any of it's really going on save in the protagonists head.

Now, that said, the movie itself is pretty interesting. I think that if they had sold it as what it really is, it might attract the right audience for it. As it is, the movie is being marketed solely around it's climax which has a drastic tone and premise shift from the rest of the film. Yes, there is a narrator who seems to be the filmmakers short cut, but it doesn't really add much to the film and every now and again seems inappropriate. The film felt long, but that may be because a part of you is waiting for the movie you expected to see to start.

Over all, this may be more of a Netflix rental for most people. It's not the movie it wants you to think it is, and it's not the movie you expect it to be. However, if you can get past the downright dishonest marketing, the movie isn't half bad. It has a lot of flaws, and the end of the film feels like it needed some sort of biting twist that was hinted at, but never fully arrived.

I don't regret seeing it, but I wish I'd waited until I could pay less to see it.

It's not what I expected...

[navylicious · 5/10 · 8 September 2012]

But it definitely wasn't as bad as some of the reviews are saying. I think some of the reviews are being sensational in how bad it is, but I guess to each his own.

Overall, movie is about a guy who works as an advertising genius and decides to leave all the money and glamor behind when he starts realizing that his deeds are leading to people being hurt by his actions. While in hiatus from the city life on a farm in the Russian countryside (did I mention this is a Russian movie?) he has some sort of revelation about a ritual that came to him in a dream. After he performs it, he finds himself back in the city only to see physical representations of how advertisements and marketing are sucking the will power out of people, becoming slaves to the system (this is where most of the trailer footage comes from). When he figures out what he's seeing, he ends up formulating a plan of using the same tactics used to turn people into cattle to crush the forces that enslave human will...but at what cost?

Overall, I have to say, there's lots of loose ends, subplots with no payoff, a relationship play that could've been left on the cutting room floor and many other elements that sort of add too much noise to the main story, almost to the point that there IS no main story, just a series of events that finally lead to the credits rolling. However, I was entranced by the randomness of the movie overall and found it's quirkiness charming. It's that same randomness that caused the hate-fest on the movie, so knowing this, it's not as bad as reviews say, but it's definitely noticeable.

However, I firmly believe that this movie was the victim of post production tinkering. Even comparing trailer 1 to 2, you can tell that even the people making the trailer were trying to shift the advertising campaign so as not to completely anger it's possible audience after seeing the movie. This begs the question: What was the original story? And why does Sydow (who never has any direct contact with the protagonist and apparently has no reason to be in the movie at all) get vaporized by lightning? This one scene alone speaks volumes as to how editing can kill a movie. Even if the original movie they shot wasn't good, editing that story into a completely different one cannot save the movie and in this case, although it was quirky in it's weirdness, completely destroyed any sense of completeness.

It's not unwatchable, but it's certainly far from being anything coherent.

A movie for thinkers

[Joel-942-144075 · 6/10 · 26 October 2012]

This is a strange one folks, but just strange enough. On the surface it seems to be railing against the institute of advertising. From just that level, it is a bit flat.

On the level of sci-fi, one can see the suggestion that the brands are alien monsters bent upon domination of earth. We have been bought and sold to feed their needs.

Underneath this though, is a much deeper message - one of our own personal consumerism. In the West we believe that we are free, but this movie, using a surrealistic approach, questions that for us. It's been said that you can get addicted to anything, even your favorite soda. So, what are you addicted to? Where have you, moment by moment, given up your life?

Will you like this movie? Not if you just want to sit back and be entertained. It does have a decent plot, and good acting, as well as decent CGI. What it doesn't have is an easy to swallow, cookie-cutter script.

Supreme senselessness

[StevePulaski · 1/10 · 8 September 2012]

Branded allegedly appears to be a modernist work of art; the concept of a dystopian future, run by sly corporations who create products that etch themselves into the consumer's head to the point that they begin seeing logos and advertising literally everywhere.

Well, that's what the trailer would lead you to believe this film is about. The actual film is a muddled, confusing, winded, and uninteresting slog through the most tedious ins and outs of marketing. Littered with meaningless scenes, plot-holes, and filled to the brim with intentions to alienate the audience members with its asinine premise, by the first hour, I gave up trying to understand everything and just hoped to see something resembling what I came for. That was some commentary on the advertising world we live in today. No such thing ever showed up.

One phrase I hate to see people use after seeing a film is, "it made no sense." It's an overused justification for why someone did not like a film, and is often used by people who most likely did not make a conscious effort to even follow the film in question. This will be the first and hopefully only time I use this phrase. The film makes no sense. I tried hard to comprehend events in the picture; researching, Googling, and reading other reviews after my initial viewing and now I'm faced with the challenge of describing a plot I barely understand to my readers.

But such a thing needs to be done and will be done. We follow Ed Stoppard's Misha Galkin, an expert marketer in post-communist Russia, working for his girlfriend's uncle, played by Jeffrey Tambor. Tambor overacts horrendously in this film, but I wasn't upset about it. A good actor like him should be able to identify when a film is this bad and he made a nice effort to capitalize on its supreme senselessness.

Misha's girlfriend is Abby (Leelee Sobieski), who is supportive of him after both of them agree to partake in a cosmetic reality TV show. That is until Misha becomes disgusted with his life, runs away to a remote land with acres of grass and cows, finds a bright red cow which he murders for no real reason, and then becomes cursed with the power to see those large, gelatinous demon-like creatures I mentioned earlier that protrude off the necks of innocent people - I think.

Dozens of subplots come forth here. One involving Max von Sydow's executive character seems like it is from another movie. He attempts to make "fat" the new "sexy," by revamping a burger joint and populating the town with pictures of overweight people in order to manipulate their senses to eat more. Again, I think.

The film's pacing is so hokey, unbalanced, incompetent, amateurish, and disoriented that at any point it feels like the film will break. Shots are disjointed into feeling out of place; one scene will be calm, the next will be completely chaotic. Random sex scenes between Misha and Abby take place for no apparent reason, including one scene where Abby changes in the car while Misha randomly watches another woman change in another car and apply lipstick. Some scenes are equipped with some of the most cloyingly robotic narration I have ever heard, not to mention, the film's technical aspects are strangely flawed. The picture switches between the normal 16:9 ratio (where the film takes up the entire screen) to 4:3 (where large black bars occupy a good fourth of the screen on opposite ends) for no reason at all. All of this is captured through some of the ugliest photography imaginable. The cherry on the sundae, if you will.

But what slaughters the film's attempt to make any reasonable point about advertising in the world today is the appallingly unsophisticated narrative that carelessly drags on for one-hundred and five minutes, never drumming up much besides frustration and indulgence. Its characters are undeveloped, its intentions are buried under the vacuous amount of unfinished, unexplained ideas, and its satirical element wears thin when we discover that its writers and directors, Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Duleray, have nothing interesting to say about marketing and don't feel like making a competent picture but one gridlocked by its own banality.

Branded appeared in theaters with very little publicity (I recall one trailer prior to a film I saw earlier this year), and is likely to exit after only a week or so. Good riddance. The film is one of the most dreadful pictures I've seen in years, so robotic, unmoving, and coldly distant from its audience that it is incomparable to any other film I have seen this year or almost any other year. Its ambition to be a satire and a portrayal of shallow, empty-headed consumerism is crushed by its pompous direction, visual ugliness, horribly confused writing, and above all, its woeful marketing treatment that promise a completely different film than what is presented. Then again, after reading this review, don't you wonder how it could be efficiently marketed at all? Starring: Ed Stoppard, Leelee Sobieski, Jeffrey Tambor, and Max von Sydow. Directed by: Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Duleray.

Interesting but fragmented, entertaining but flawed

[ryandannar · 5/10 · 17 July 2013]

I wanted to like this film more than I did. I admire its ambition, and I like the way it sets out to satirize the advertising industry and its effect on us. Unfortunately, it seems that the filmmakers had problems shaping their material into an elegant, effective film.

"Branded" is entertaining throughout -- and sporadically brilliant! -- but most viewers will probably feel, as I did, that this movie is wildly uneven. The tone of the film shifts in bizarre and disorienting ways; important plot-points are barely touched-upon; great chunks of time are skipped, often revealing that our main characters have changed in ways that are so profound that it seems some kind of further explanation is required; some very clunky narration attempts to tie everything together.

The problems lie mostly with the script, which can't seem to decide how seriously to take itself. In the film's earlier scenes, as the forces of evil begin shaping their bozo nightmare, the film often projects a winking, campy sort of vibe. Later, the film is solemn and reflective. Then, it's an angry political screed. Each of these pieces, individually, has its merits -- but they sit at odd angles to each other. Combine this with the film's fractured and episodic method of storytelling, and you end up with a film that plays like patchwork. It's entertaining, but I think there's a lot of unintended dissonance created by the film's cavalier approach.

The acting is actually pretty good; these actors were given some tough material to work with, given the script's shifty nature. All the actors do their best to provide their characters with strong through-lines, and they mostly succeed. That is to say that, even though the script and the tone are all over the place, the actors do a good job of providing solid and centered performances. I was frankly surprised that the acting worked as well as it did in this film.

The cinematography and effects are also worth a mention. The camera-work is top-notch, and the CGI "monsters" which appear in the film's final third are rather clever creations.

Overall, I got the impression that this was a wildly ambitious project undertaken by a crew that wasn't quite up to the task. And yet, they succeeded in creating a great-looking film of ramshackle construction. It entertains and provokes some thought, and there is a great sense of enthusiasm in the production.

Just Read

[kris_snyders · 28 October 2012]

I have read most of the reviews by the IMDb users, and they all seem negative. Therefor i can conclude nobody got the message behind the movie.

We all know the famous criticizing documentaries by M.Moore. Well the pitch behind this movie is the same. Only this is scifi instead of a documentary. The concept of the movie is a critique about the manipulation that we call advertising today. It clearly states that advertisement should be a direct response to our needs, instead advertisement is more and more creating needs for us, for them to exploit.

So if you have any kind of intellect, enjoy the movie. If you were hoping to see a mindless scifi-save-the-world-from-eminent-destruction-movie, you picked the wrong flick.

Branded...0.5 out of 4 Skittles

[FilmStallion · 1/10 · 8 September 2012]

Branded should be shown at every film school across the country to aspiring screenwriters with dreams of one day writing that next great sci-fi classic as an example of what NOT to do.

The screenplay's character development is an absolute joke…not to mention the pathetic garbage in disguise as dialogue that spews out of everyone's mouth. Not sure in what world this is supposed to take place where people actually talk like these characters do. It's also funny and convenient how every plot point seems to happen at just the perfect time, like when the characters fall in love so suddenly, or bump into their boss at that oh-so-awkward moment while having sex in bumper to bumper traffic jam (a scene that would make Too Fast Too Furious proud). It's the kind of timeline cuteness and perfection that only happens in really dumb movies.

The acting is abysmal, but with written words like this it's hard to blame the talented cast. Max von Sydow (Minority Report, Shutter Island), Leelee Sobieski (Joan of Arc, Joy Ride), and Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development, The Hangover) must have needed to make a quick check, because it's hard to explain how they would get themselves tied up in this train wreck. However, lead actor Ed Stoppard (The Pianist, Joy Division) can't blame his troubles on the script. His overacting at every turn grows tiresome very quickly. Newcomer director duo Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksander Dulerayn screwed the pooch by not reigning Stoppard in.

If Branded were half as interesting as the catchy and energetic preview that first grabbed my attention then it could have been a great sci-fi pic. Sadly…it's not even close to what's advertised. Maybe that's part of the joke since false advertising and marketing brainwashing make up the film's weak theme. Branded is a major disappointment and an epic waste of time. And like most crummy commercials...it's very forgettable.

For more quick reviews check out www.FilmStallion.com

could be better

[ssto · 5/10 · 21 October 2012]

this could be better i guess

the first half of the movie goes really slow and you don't know what is actually going to come out of this - almost made me give up on movie.

if you decide to watch on there is some sort of a more interesting story going on, that is actually the essence of this movie: how brands are taking over the world, shaping it, shaping us. the way it is put, i guess it is only good that it was made in Russia, and probably partly produced by Russian company - makes the statement more bold, although still quite shallow

generally, what i liked about this movie is exactly this statement about marketing and mass culture of consumerism, too bad it misses some production touches, otherwise it could be quite good

This movie is Terrible,

[DigitalFilmWorld · 1/10 · 8 September 2012]

The movie is so horrible that I wanted to believe that it was done on purpose to show how advertising can manipulate people.

The special effects were cheaply done, There is useless narration that is very distracting. While I watched this film several people walked out of the theater. I don't blame them because this movie sucked. I wanted to give it a chance. Only see this film if you believe you are a bad person and want to torture yourself.

Whomever made this film must have used there own money to fund the film.

On a positive note. The trailer and posters were great.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Beckett would be proud

[urthpainter · 7/10 · 17 October 2012]

Somewhere at the far edges of the absurd, the profound can be found. This movie can be enjoyed strictly as a comedy, it can be taken seriously by a few, but most should know this film reaches further than it could ever truly grasp. Branded is flawed, fun, and perhaps best enjoyed in an extremely tired, alternative state of mind.

A few reviews and reviewers note that this film does not live up to its own advertising. There is irony there, but what does live up to advertising? Advertising is amongst the biggest waist of resources in contemporary society. Not just in terms of illusory currency, but the waist of many of todays greatest artists, thinkers, and idea makers; professionals payed to spin lies and manipulate participants of mass media consumption.

Branded may only scratch the surface of many important current problems caused by modern media, but at least its creators and performers put themselves "out there" to ask some interesting questions. May more artists ask important questions, and help move us all to a better place.

Good idea, bad implementation.

[wildphoenix960 · 2/10 · 7 September 2012]

I'll give one star to the general concept. But overall, i'd rather have just left and seen another movie. Story was very long and drawn out, there was a narrator for half the movie and it was terrible. You don't really see him start seeing the "world" for how it is until close to the end. He only starts seeing these things (which can be called our desires) because he sacrificed a red cow because it came to him in a dream to do so.

I honestly have no idea how that went to theaters in the first place. The trailer to the movie makes it seem like a completely different thing than what it really is. Most of the clips from the trailer are either pointless scenes in the movie or things that really were not dramatic.

Disappointing.

Hmm, why all the bad reviews? This is a rare story told well and should be appreciated as such

[JackHoffe · 10/10 · 6 November 2012]

It seems that a lot of people are threatened by simple truths in this film. Fat people don't want to be told that their food choices are being influenced by advertising. The negative ratings come from the mirror held in front of the faces of the audience, the negativity is a reflection of the shame of being overweight or the reflection of their own brands that they are wearing and the value they put in them.

This is an original film that doesn't fit the current Hollywood blockbuster mold, but rather it requires self-examination of what influences human choices.

There are a lot of word salad reviews on this movie already, no need for another. Go in with no expectations, come out with a cleaner view of the world and start to understand why you're craving your McDonalds/Coke/Idevice.

Check it out and be pleasantly rewarded - unless your own reflection reflects something too unpleasant to accept....

Good and delivers !

[tomas-willer · 7/10 · 13 October 2012]

The movie comes a bit slow but after 10 minutes it delivers its purpose and keeps you watching tensed until the last second !

We really enjoyed the movie and it had for all of us important messages.

Its indeed interesting to know that its done by Russians and not Hollywood. I can't imagine that this story would find a studio there.

I really don't understand all this haters here who don't give it even a 2. There are far more worst movies and this is definitely a good one.

I give 7 for acting, 6 for plot 5 for effects, 8 for the message !

Please, give it a try, its funny and straight !

There may be a good idea in there...

[shoobe01-1 · 4/10 · 30 July 2017]

...but too painful to watch for me to care. Not because it's a bit B-movie cheap, or has poor VFX, or some of the actors sorta suck, or the overbearing made-for-SyFy movie music, but because it is just terrible.

The main key thing to me is the total lack of reasonable storytelling. Every time something should be getting on with the story, a character stops to explain something about the plot to another character, or a news story explains it for us, or a full on and unashamed voice-over does it!

The Movie Sucked!

[darrien-worth · 1/10 · 8 September 2012]

This movie sucked. Do not waste your money on it. I was thoroughly disappointed. The commercial for the movie shows you the best and only good few minutes of the film and makes you think that it's going to be awesome and interesting. The person who created this movie had to be high as hell, and it wasn't the type of high which helped them to make something fun and creative. The movie was poorly constructed. I waited the whole first half of the movie for something interesting to happen, when something happened it was an extremely poor concept. This movie has no deep plot or scheme behind it and it has absolutely nothing. It barely makes sense...

In short, save your money and time. Nothing happens, and the commercials for the film describe an entirely different concept. If you're a SCI-FI fan, this movie will have absolutely nothing for you except a few poor animations.

this movie is way too stupid to be didactic.

[S_Craig_Zahler · 3/10 · 8 September 2012]

branded is a mess.

there is no scientific grounding whatsoever of the far out concepts or even a consistent logic with these concepts once they are presented.

the filmmakers obviously hoped to coast on the "important" message and allegorical nature of the piece, but the lead dude has no charisma, no core (a historian turned agent turned advertisement guy turned shepherd turned crusader) and the fx look like garbage for the most part. the pacing has a strange lumps and overall, the movie has the feel of a cobbled together eastern European movie that is imitating mainstream Hollywood, which seems like an idea that also goes against the premise of the movie. we are told of an important romance that happens in the center of the movie, but we do not see this.

i wonder if this movie is a tax write off.

if you want thoughtful, real science fiction that has a sense of wonder and makes you think without pandering, go watch moon.

if you a cerebral, trance-inducing sort of science fiction experience, check out beyond the black rainbow, although the piece is flawed.

"Branded" has lofty ideals, but not enough force to leave a mark

[thefilmdiscussion · 5/10 · 11 September 2012]

This latest independent, low-budget mind-trip has lofty ideals, but without a single driving force to make them worth anything. Branded is set in a world very much like our own, a world ruled by brands and the companies who market them. To assume that this film is further from the truth than it is closer would be ignorant, in my own humble opinion. So, we've established that the world is our own. Enter the main characters, a man and woman, in love, who see the world for what it is and take advantage of it until the world chews them up and spits them out. Up until this point in the film, the storytelling lacks anything that compels us to root for any of the characters, and presents us with weird scenes, flashbacks, and a monotone narration that seems out of place, at best. Once our male hero is banished and is enlightened in the middle of a field by a star cow in the sky that tells him to perform an ancient sacrificial ritual (yeah, that's right), he heads back to find his girl and change the world. While we're never led to believe that he didn't know how the world works, his new-found enlightenment has now allowed him to literally see how marketing is urging and pulling us this way and that, as he is the sole witness to a world where people are controlled by monstrous personifications of marketing which grow from their backs (yeah, that's right). It's this last act that finally goes somewhere and gives us reason to root for our heroes, and yet I felt it was more unnecessary than the rest of the film. The creation of these marketing "monsters" seems nothing more than a cool pipe-dream designed to show us what our world is doing to us. But it's never explained! Why, I ask! Where do they come from? What do they want? Who is the sky cow? I can suspend my disbelief for a film that rewards me for it, that takes me to a world that makes sense in spite of its oddities. This one just let me down, and would have served its message better if it took time to set a few things straight or simply play it straight, with no sky cow. I dunno, maybe I'm just no fun.

-Thomas Bond, TheFilmDiscussion.com

Not a Sci-Fi or Fantasy movie, it's a statement film

[cafesmitty · 4/10 · 27 January 2013]

Overall, I have no problems with statement films, but if you going to make a movie like that, then ADVERTISE it that way. I know the previews were misleading on purpose so you can have an epiphany and say "Oh, they were making a statement with the preview", but I think that is complete bull. If you advertise a Sci-Fi movie and you deliver something else, all you are doing is tee-ing off your audience. As you all can probably tell from the preview, the movie is about advertisement and our association with it. Unfortunately, even as a statement film, the movie lost focus. The creatures you see in the preview practically means nothing and for a time, they are just annoying because they are just uninteresting blobs. LeeLee really doesn't do anything more than to be a focal point for the main actor from time to time. Max Von Sydow is completely wasted in this film. They had a chance to do something really special here in turns of statement film and they completely missed. I would only rent this from the dollar rental from Redbox or wait for cable. And if you want to stop watching halfway through, go ahead because trust me, you aren't missing anything eye opening. Filmed entirely in Moscow (I think maybe one other location in Russia) and it felt like a bad foreign production.

Waste of time

[dwaynewoodley-470-431775 · 1/10 · 7 September 2012]

Branded, no need to tell you who starred in this movie you won't no who they are anyway, is set in the future where corporation branding has talking over the desire of the people to influence people to buy their products. One man is able to see the truth and he is trying to stop the manipulation of the corporations.

You may have seen the trailers for this movie and thought that looks king of interesting. Well don't be fooled because it is not. This movie is so bad I can't even find the proper words to describe it. The movie drags on for about an hour and half before it actually get to plot of the movie. This is a DVD movie that by some miracle made it into theaters and took away two hours of my life that I will never get back.

Film makers these days need to stop trying teach us about how bad the world is in a subliminal way. If you want to teach me something just make a documentary. All we want to do is escape really for two hours and have a good time.

No shields for this peace crap movie

See more reviews at:

http://reelknights.blogspot.com/

Thought provoking

[tshrjain · 7/10 · 19 October 2012]

The movie gives a clear message about current marketing standards. It is one of those must watch movies that speak about the society in general, things happening around people about which they are unaware of.

I would rate this movie more, but it was pretty slow and gets uninteresting in the middle. But by the end of it, you have something to think about and relate to the stuff happening around you. As for the movie itself, it is one of those "Dark" movies where you find yourself losing the appeal for the movie as it continues. But surely, characters have been sensibly selected and over all dialogue delivery is good too. However, it lacks witty dialogues which I was looking forward too seeing the trailers.

Story good, story telling not so much.

[Hizy27 · 5/10 · 3 January 2015]

I liked idea of movie but in showing this story something got missing. As few people mentioned this movie was slow. Trailer made me think that movie will be full with action but there was no action till the end. Maybe some people will find this absurd and some people could find this interesting. It's 50/50 chance. For me... I'm still confused. But just for a story sake I recommend to watch this. It kinda leaves us with thinking about how advertisements impact our lives. There was some plot holes, and some part i hardly could understand. Acting was average and effects was okay. See it with friends and you will have good time and subject to talk about with them afterwards.

Destined To Become A Cult Classic

[craig8128 · 10/10 · 14 October 2012]

I just saw _Branded_ and came here to IMDb and was shocked at all of the negative reviews. Other reviews go into the plot and so forth, so I won't do that here. I guess I can understand some of the criticism: the pacing in _Branded_ is uneven, at times a bit slow, which probably doesn't sit well with contemporary movie audiences who want 90+ minutes of non-stop action. But if you can appreciate the pacing involved in telling a good story (think Kubrick or Lynch), then I think you'll appreciate _Branded_.

I think this movie will become a cult classic ala _Liquid Sky_, _Repo Man_, or _Idiocracy_ - it is that rarest of things, a film with an original tale that is well-told. I've not seen a trailer for the film, but I get the idea that the trailer does not accurately reflect the movie itself, which may lead some to disappointment. But if you watch _Branded_ with an open mind and just open yourself up to the story, I think you'll find it a memorable and enjoyable experience. I fancy myself to be something of a connoisseur of quirky science fiction and fantasy movies, and I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Interesting

[jhewkins · 7/10 · 5 January 2013]

We start off with Misha as a child in Moscow. He gets struck by lighting and told by a woman that he will have an interesting life. We move ahead a number of years and eventually get to Misha as an advertising executive, struggling to make partner. His boss's niece, Abby (Leelee Sobieski) is in town, and they eventually begin a romantic relationship. Abby is working on a television show called "Extreme Cosmetic," in which an overweight, unattractive woman is chosen to undergo multiple surgeries to be made slim and pretty. Lest you think this sounds outrageous, let me remind everyone of a show called "The Swan" that aired on Fox in 2004. Truly an absurd idea, in this reviewer's mind, that a show could air in which a contestant does indeed undergo numerous cosmetic procedures to supposedly build their confidence. Yet, I remember this show and thought of it instantly as I watched "Branded." Misha encourages Abby to produce the show. Meanwhile, on a Polynesian island is a marketing guru played by Max Von Sydow, who is on a quest to …"make fat beautiful again." "Fat is fabulous." So the marketing guru plans his attack on the current idea of beauty. As the public becomes outraged at the cosmetic show, Misha's future in advertising begins to unravel. During this time, he retreats to become a shepherd, forsaking all modern conveniences. While on his personal hiatus, if you will, he has a dream …of himself having a dream. And in this dream within a dream, he is shown what he must do. Upon awakening, he performs a ritualistic sacrifice of a red heifer, much like the sacrifice in the Bible in Numbers 19. In biblical times, a sacrifice was made of a red heifer to cleanse oneself from impurities. After the animal was burned, the ashes were put in water, and the water was used to bathe and cleanse the impure. The same happens in the film.

After his cleansing, Misha returns to Moscow and discovers he can see the brand on each person, but no one else can see anything. This causes him to behave oddly, prompting Abby to believe he needs to see a doctor. After some time, Misha comes to terms with his ability and uses it to manipulate marketing strategies and builds himself a grand company that is able to fight and win the brand wars. Simply put, in order for a company to do well, it simply has to get the public to believe that its competitors' product is, in some way, a danger. Once the public becomes fearful or wary of that product, the stage is set to introduce the competition. This is exactly how it plays out, yet there are dire consequences, which I will leave to the movie.

At first, I thought this film would be a cross between "The Matrix" and the modern advertising world, but it was far from that. It was more cerebral—very much an independent film. "The Matrix" also centers on a dystopian society but does so in typical Hollywood fashion. "Branded" is presented in a semi documentary format narrated by a third entity. I applaud its efforts to show the dystopian world driven by marketing and consumerism, but it lacks something. Often, we want our films to be an escape, and that is perhaps where it falls short.

I don't see the conspiracy

[KineticSeoul · 5/10 · 7 September 2012]

Now the trailer of this movie intrigued me, wasn't super hyped but wanted to check it out. Cause I thought it was about a big sci-fi conspiracy in a disillusioned world. This movie is ironic in a way since the trailer, ads and even the poster for this flick is very misleading. The trailer makes it seem like a crazy sci-fi movie that is confusing and yet cool, well the movie is not confusing. Even if the way it's directed is a bit weird. Now the way it's directed is the only remote thing that stands out about this movie. The rest of it is pretty forgettable and the message just seemed a bit to forced without delving into the topic in a more interesting or clever way. It tries to seem like it's a out of the ordinary clever movie but it's not when you think about it after couple of hours after watching this movie. Now some movies like these don't have to make much sense to be good. But a lot of the things that happen in this just seem like a dream without it questioning reality or figment of the imagination much. The whole movie revolves around marketing and how ads and brands can effect and leave a impact in the world. The whole thing makes it a bit far-fetched but some may agree with parts of the messages this movie tries to leave behind. Now I personally enjoyed the 1/3 of this movie but after that it starts to really slow down and lose interest. If you have interest in marketing this movie might keep your interest but it won't educate you much about the marketing world or anything like that. The marketing for this movie wasn't good for a reason probably but still this movie is the epitome of a movie where you should not trust the ads. The CGI wasn't good either and almost crap for a movie that made it into theaters in 2012. It isn't a super terrible movie but sure wasn't worth full price at all. Everything is jumbled up in a incoherent manner for the most part and almost just seem random all around without it being effective. The only thing memorable about this whole thing is how it kept reminding me of the OBEY clothing brand for some reason.

5/10

Terrible

[jjshankin · 1/10 · 17 September 2012]

I put a 1 on my ranking for this movie because there is no lower option. I hate to give it such a terrible review without saying something for it first. The actors did a reasonable job, given the circumstances. That also is what really was just disappointing about the work as a whole. It didn't seem like the tools were missing to make a decent movie about corrupt business marketing. It was that they were just poorly used. The plot was unknown to me until about 1/2 through the movie. Jumpy scene changes and unnecessary side elements killed any chance at a story from really taking hold. I was hoping that it would develop into a weird/cool view of the world that would be at least an interesting concept.However, the climax of the movie led to a letdown. The main character was built up to be a messiah to save the world with his unique skills. All he turned out to be was a guy who saw the market industry from the eyes of someone overdosing on acid. This movie was a waste of time. The only thing that I gained from it is that I have a funny bad movie experience to share. I hope that no one else makes the same mistake.