Twist

If you want to enjoy this film or this story, give both parts of Twist a miss. Please, pretend it doesn’t exist and get on with Awake. You will thank me if you ever watch Twist. The trailer is sufficient in revealing enough information about the characters so just take it from there. Speaking of which, I felt the trailer gave away a lot of details that would have made the film more suspenseful.

The plot was good, the basic storyline is good on paper and the director tried to convey this. For this review I am pretending that Part 1 and Part 2 don’t exist. Why? It was slow, it dragged, it was boring and poorly acted in most places. I just cannot understand how the acting talent changed so drastically between movies; it felt like a whole different film with a whole different case. If you are brave enough to watch the first two movies, you will be equally puzzled. The storyline has been handled before in different mediums and across different film industries, and to be honest it has been done better. At least this is the best I have seen in Nollywood; I have not seen the Desmond Elliot’s ‘Ghost’ although it is referenced in the film. The climax was actually quite interesting, if only in its originality. The end was not surprising but it wasn’t predictable, it had a moral and a (weak) dilemma.

There were massively irrelevant details to both films and I feel that if the story and the runaway plotlines were tightened up, this could have matched Hollywood. It wasn’t on the cusp of greatness but the storyline was so good that in the hands of the right people it would have been one of Nollywood’s gems, joining the ranks of films such as ‘I belong’ and ‘Reloaded’ that one uses to introduce an outsider to Nigerian movies.

Tonto Dike is a curious case; her quality of acting varies from film to film. She is the only person I know that can unlearn acting. In this movie she was a top form, able to engage and pleasant to watch (her accent is understandable when she relaxes her voice so no strangulated words). Paul Sambo started out as bad then in Awake upped the ante. The extras were wooden and unconvincing, there were a few that showed promise – Watch out for the King- but nothing no one stood out.

Okay, first shoutout to the makeup artist because Tonto Dike was looking so good in this movie…or maybe she has been drinking a lot of water and detoxifying her skin ‘cos it was flawless. Tonto Dike had to wear the same dress although the whole movie, that must not have been very pleasant for her. The special effects were not terrible nor were they Hollywood good but working with that they had it was okay and it made it believable. However the costume for the royal family made me cringe, the golds and oranges and craziness was too much and made it seem really tacky. And the music full out embarrassed me, it was the same soundtrack as the one used in ‘Mr and Mrs’. That shows a remarkable lack of talent. And the medical aspect of it was a bit shady, some parts were good and it was clear that there was some though going into it but the others were haphazard.

In conclusion, watch if you want an intriguing film if only to explore the storyline. And avoid Twist 1& 2. Please. But don’t watch if you need to be mentally challenged.