There’s a new movie on Netflix… again.
A Week Away is a faith based musical movie about a kid who’s almost landed in juvie going to a church camp, musical style. According to Netflix’s description, he “unexpectedly finds love, friends, and a place to belong.”
The question is, is this movie actually new?
My answer is, yes and no. The church camp part is new. But that’s about the only new thing about this movie. Some of the plot lines, recycled. The drama is almost non existent, and when it’s there, it’s so cliché.
Some of the plot points, if not all, were recycled from some sort of other entertainment. For example, one of the main characters (and my personal favorite) George, has written 365 letters for his love interest, Presley, and doesn’t have the guts to give them to her. Sound familiar? If you’ve ever watched To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, or basically any other romcom like that, it should. There’s also the classic two guys, in this case Will and Sean, fighting over one girl, Avery.
Another question you might have is: Is this movie worth watching?
Let me put it to you this way: I have more fun watching my own day to day life playing out than I did watching this movie. I was interested in a total of two scenes for this movie. Mini “spoilers” ahead.
The first one: The chase scene in the very beginning.
The second one: When Will and Avery have a fight.
Neither of these are musical numbers. Those weren’t interesting enough. The music, not up to my standards. It was, in the best words I could possibly describe it, meh.
The acting, the only two scenes I was interested in remotely, are mentioned above above. They acted as if they knew they were in a movie. Acting is supposed to be a character’s life as if there were no screens or people watching besides the other characters. I was disappointed especially since I knew a lot of the actors for other projects. Bailee Madison (Avery) has been in multiple TV shows and movies since she was a child.
Here Madison is seen as Maxine in Wizards of Waverly Place:
She possesses great range as an actor but it is not on display in this film. Madison’s acting in this movie is worse than it was when she was a child.
I don’t blame the poor acting only on the actors. The writing was terrible. The actors most definitely did their best with what was given, but the writing didn’t allow this movie to be good at all. Besides the recycled plotlines, the rest of it was a complete failure on the writers end.
The choreography was sharp, but sloppy all at once. Not only was the execution bad, but there were basically only three to five steps repeated. I cringed. I have even seen some other work from one of the choreographers of the movie, Paul Becker. Paul has worked on one of my favorite Netflix series with Kenny Ortega. This was a downgrade from that work. A huge let down from the great choreography I’ve seen from him in the past. The choreography was below standard.
I wouldn’t recommend this at all unless you want to cultivate your own opinion, as I have mine. Here it is in a nutshell: Out of 10, I’d give this a 4.5, and that’s me being very generous.
MOOSE PRINTS 