Remake of the Thai film Bad Genius (2017)
Narrative
A group of seniors at an entrepreneurial high school team up to dismantle a rigged college admissions system. Early in the film, there is a scene where Lynn calculates the cost of commuting to the private school she attended. The film showed a stack of public transportation tickets that were clearly marked with the SEPTA logo, which stands for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. SEPTA operates in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Half a minute later the film identifies the city where Lynn and Dad live as Seattle. References Roots (1977). Bad Genius (2024) is a remake of a 2017 Thai film of the same name.
Somehow it becomes a bland, lazy, and forced experience
It uses the 2017 original as its recipe, down to the dialogue, sets, atmosphere, character ambitions, and even the positioning of the characters on the set. It follows this recipe exactly, only deviating slightly towards the end and changing some minor elements of the original plot. Bad Genius (2017) is a movie I love so much that I’ve seen it more times than I’d like to admit; so yes, I’m biased. It has its flaws – it’s a little shoddy at times with its sound effects and directorial choices – but it turns out to be an engaging and successful heist film. It was a huge hit in its home country of Thailand and across Southeast Asia. The original 2017 film took on the difficult task of writing intelligent characters and putting them in a testing atmosphere that would otherwise have been boring in the film, while also making it incredibly suspenseful. It took four fantastically cast leads who had little to no previous acting experience and made them stars.
Lynn was *smart*
Its production was through the roof, incorporating some fantastic effects from the soundtrack to the on-screen display of overlay text used to convey the message. She turned out to be a truly intelligent young woman with exceptional talents who had a loving father who cared for her; testimonies from the original writers. Her relationships felt natural and the supporting cast made sure of this in their acting and chemistry. Her methods and schemes were shown through film in a satisfying and entertaining way. Her relationship with her father was emotional and well acted by both parties. The story had pace and purpose, but most of all it had SUSPENSE. And all of this was shot and produced in a country that is probably not considered a film powerhouse.
It has no charm
Bad Genius (2024) has little to none of what it is trying to copy. The remake somehow manages to take all the right ingredients – lighting, suspenseful music, same plot points, same characters – and turn them into a sloppy rendition of what feels like a poor dubbing of the original. It has no great moments. It has almost zero emotion. Lynn (2024) *acts* intelligent, but we don’t think the character is actually a genius. The classroom scenes *feel* like they’re trying to convey suspense, but they mostly come off as silly. The supporting cast is lacking.
It’s not suspenseful at all
All we have, translated well, is a good father figure, courtesy of the great Benedict Wong, and good acting by Callina Liang trying to bring the poor performance to life. There’s no reason to watch this. Watch the original if you haven’t (or just want to watch it again) and thank me later.
