Director: Bobby Boermans
MPAA Rating: NR
The newly released Dutch thriller App is the first film of its kind that encourages the audience to use their cell phones during the film. By making clever use of second screen technology, the companion app runs on your phone as the action plays out on the big screen, enhancing your movie watching experience in interesting way. Yes, it certainly is a gimmick, but it’s a fun gimmick nonetheless.
The film follows Anna (Hannah Hoekstra), a college student who, after a night of partying, finds that she has a mysterious Siri-like app on her phone. At first it seems like a cool thing to have, answering questions and helping her in school. Things quickly take a violent turn however, as Iris’s power grows and begins spiraling out of control.
App plays out like a bad version of Her mixed with a good version of Transcendence. It’s a fairly standard technology run amuck story-line, but it remains intriguing enough to keep most audience member entertained. There are a few interesting twists that unfold, but these are only really effective to those that are able to get past the ridiculously unrealistic use of tech throughout the film. If you consider yourself a techie, you may find yourself having a hard time swallowing some of the more outrageous moments, but it’s still not quite as far fetched as something like The Lawnmower Man or even Nacho Vigalondo’s upcoming Open Windows.
The real draw to this movie is the app companion you run with it while watching. When the film starts, you open the app and tap the start button. It uses your phone’s microphone to sync with where you’re at in the film, so even if you launch it mid-way through, it’ll know where you’re at. From here, the app will periodically buzz as if you received a text message and show you various things that coincide with what’s happening on screen.
For example, the party scene near the beginning of the movie shows various people texting on their phones. Those text messages will show up on your phone, giving you some more backstory with some of the characters. One of the coolest features is when the app utilizes a second camera angle within the film. At one point, Iris turns on Anna’s camera and we see what the phone sees. This device proved to be the coolest part of using the app, and really helped in making the film feel more interactive. Of course, if you really think about it, it doesn’t make sense that we as individuals would be seeing all this play out on our own phones, and if we’re supposed to be seeing things from Anna’s phone, then why didn’t our phone mirror hers throughout the whole film?
I also found myself wanting more from the app. I understand it’s a very fine line that needs to be balanced when handling a thing like this, but I could have used more frequent events. The filmmakers surely didn’t want the audience to be looking at their phone the entire time as to miss key moments in the movie, but it seems like they could have done more with the technology. Adding the ability to interact with the app would be a good addition as well, even if it’s to only scroll through pictures or text messages.
Aside from the cool app gimmick, App manages to be little more than a passable, but forgettable thriller. It doesn’t depend on the app to succeed, which is good, but it’s still clear that this film was created for the sole purpose of playing with this technology. I do hope that more films use things like this in the future however, as it did successfully make a fairly generic movie into a slightly more unique one. You don’t have to use the app to enjoy App, but it’s kind of like watching Polyester without the Odorama cards that smell like farts.
