Do Revenge. Quick Review.

All you need to know about Do Revenge is this. After a sex tape leak In the opening scene, the central character (played by Riverdales Camila Mendes) conveys a speech that feels like it could be delivered by Veronica Sawyer. Behind this, the intro to Olivia Rodrigo’s brutal is specifically timed so that the smash into the guitar solo is played over the title logo. The prospect of what is effectively a queer-coated Heather’s fan film for the Olivia Rodrigo generation is not automatically a bad thing. Granted Heather’s ending can’t play dramatically in 2022 without intense backlash ( note that this writer hasn’t seen the musical adaptation. ) That says more about how painfully relevant a film celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2022 still is. All the other archetypes and performances typical of this style of teen revenge narrative are here. Just with plenty of extreme liberal buzzwords that fall somewhere between the open-heartedness of Sex Education and the general sense the creative team put these in because they will get them automatic good notices within certain audiences.  
There’s still plenty to like here. Mendes is joined by Maya Hawke fresh off her dalliances effectively selling her in-built Stranger Things audience on her artistic soft porn masquerading as a folk music career. The two have solidly snarky chemistry and deliver strong engaging lead performances. They’re joined by several YA adjacent actors that one may recognise as “ that person from that thing” if they have consumed any team-focused media within the last five years. Not to mention a recurring celebrity cameo that fits “bizarrely memorable” to a tea. Fun set pieces and enough bite within the dialogue help make this pretty pleasantly easy watch for this variety of team black comedy. Even if the film never develops an identity beyond its influences. It’s not hard to see why this has become a word-of-mouth hit since it dropped. With the media, it’s indebted to accessible within the same genre and target audience it won’t be difficult for the teens of today to connect with the material something like Do Revenge is directly lifting from. This viewer is somewhat surprised the firm has received a certain level of acclaim given that it does not have an original bone in its body. That said this very fact is not an automatic disqualification. Something like Do Revenge proves that a film can be entirely successful at achieving what it sets out to do with its lack of originality in place as a parameter.
6.5/10.