What’s the statute of limitations on lying to Cinemark ticket-takers? Thirty minutes? The length of the film? Oh well, Let ’em come for me.
Page and I were invited to see Angel Studio’s latest grey-scale mush, Young Washington directed by Jon Erwin. Her parents are very kind and fun-loving people who enjoy Angel Studio’s wide breadth of religious-adjacent historical dramas and stories of men who are still men.
Angel Studios borders on unwatchable with some films (the above-mentioned), frustrating with others (The Sound of Freedom was the most boring exploitation film I’ve ever seen), and just fine. A couple years ago we were invited by her parents to see Homestead featuring Neal McDonough. It’s a film that takes place at the start of a nuclear apocalypse and centers around a family struggling for survival in their… homestead. I’m a sucker for this type of film; Page and I have seen just about every episode of Homestead Rescue on HBO Max. I could never live like that, but I like to imagine I could fare better than the hapless people struggling on their land.
Anyways, back to my accidental criminal offense. We were invited to see Young Washington with her parents and uncle that just came into town. Now, I’m not above handouts; the COVID check hitting my bank account was an amazing day filled with a trip to the dispensary and… I can’t remember what else happened that day, probably a delivery from a pizza place. When Page’s parents invite us to see movies, we either use our A-List membership or, if it’s at a Cinemark, they generously purchase our tickets for us.
We show up to the theater just after they did, and walked inside. We get to the ticket-taker and see them in line at the concessions. “Hi, our group just walked through. There they are! They have our tickets.” The friendly employee looked over the rows of Spider-Man merch at Page’s family. “Oh yeah… I remember scanning them in. You’re good”
We walk past and greet her family, ordering our drink and snacks. “Got your tickets?” Her dad asked us. “What?” was all I could say. “My dad didn’t get our tickets” Page told me, shocked. What was I supposed to do? Go back to the usher, and tell him I’m a filthy liar? Call the cops on myself?
Obviously I’d take the blame for both of us, Page is too kind for prison. Maybe the judge would give me a light sentence, but what if he was an Angel Studios subscriber? Chances are he’s an old white man, he’s right in their demographic. I couldn’t handle the bullying from the other inmates when they’d inevitably ask me, “what’re you in for?” “I snuck into a screening of Young Washington in it’s second week to a nearly empty theater” I’d be ostracized, spat on, and forced to bunk with a criminal historian or something.
So I did nothing.
We took our stolen seats next to her family and watched the film. For the first time in years, I was glad I didn’t pay for my tickets because boy did this film fucking suck.
The co-writer/director is a long time Angel Studios collaborator; he directed the Prime series House of David, Jesus Revolution, American Underdog, and I Still Believe to name just a few. I think it’s fair to say that all of these share the same quality that this film did, which is to say low.
We open on a sick George Washington waking up in the middle of the battle of the monongahela, before cutting back to a formative year in the soon-to-be-general’s childhood, the death of his father. He’s approached at the funeral by his half-brother, Lawerence Washington (John Foss), a commissioned Lieutenant in the Royal Army. We jump from dead-eyed child to dead-eyed William Franklyn-Miller (who, according to his Letterboxd bio, was voted “World’s Most Beautiful Boy”)
Anyways, I’m no nationalist weirdo, but I do find it strange that we hired a Brit to play our founding father in a film explicitly released on America’s 250th birthday. I probably wouldn’t have had an issue (or even noticed) if he could tame the wild stallion that is his British accent.
So George wants to be an officer, but can’t because he isn’t a British gentleman. He eventually gets a chance to prove himself worthy by surveying Lord Fairfax’s (Kelsey Grammer) land in the Ohio territory. I’m sure we all know the in’s and out’s of Washington’s early life like the backs of our collective hands, so I won’t bore you with any more story details, because it’s a very straightforward retelling of the battles at Fort Necessity and Monongahela.
I know what you’re all dying to find out:
Does he chop any cherry trees????
Oh yeah he does! He’s chopping trees mainly to get out his aggression when both his father and Lawerence both pass, but he never fully cuts one down, which brings me to a watershed moment in my childhood education:
I was always taught that Washington cut down a cherry tree as a child. When approached by his mother, he said, “I cannot tell a lie. I did chop down the cherry tree, mother.” As I type this out, I can’t help but feel like a rube for believing it for nearly thirty years.
A quick cursory glance at mountvernon.org tells me this is a complete fabrication by his biographer after Washington passed… My life is shattered. I’m at a loss for words. I’m mainly upset with myself for believing this. I’ll have to fully process this later.
The look of the film is miserable. It begs you not to look at it, the filmmakers have sapped all color from these large and sweeping frontier shots. Those bright red British uniforms look drab and Washington looks deathly ill before he catches disentary. To prove a point, I grabbed a still from the trailer on YouTube and threw it into DaVinci Resolve and did five minutes of color correcting to give it a pseudo-Technicolor look.
It’s not perfect, but I gave it some life. It’s comforting to look at now.
Unfortunately, the lead performances don’t really give you anything to grasp onto either. Washington is hopelessly dull and refuses to give a single convincing line reading, and his mother just seems confused on her property.
However, in an attempt to find a silver lining, the supporting cast is top-notch. Kelsey Grammer, Ben Kingsley, and Andy Serkis all give fun, scenery-chewing performances that made me perk up in my seat. The featured Virginians (with their heavy hillbilly accents that made me wonder, “When did the southern accent develop? Was it 1755?”) were oozing with charisma; Christopher Gist (Leo Hanna), James McKay (Jonno Davies), and David Frisk (Angus Castle-Doughty) were all charming and lively additions to the film that all managed to hold my attention.
Now, onto the elephant in the room. I won’t spend too much time because I’m sure there’s a thirty-minute YouTube video essay just on this subject, but the gratuitous use of AI in this film was infuriating and incredibly obvious at every turn. It took me right out every time.
In an interview with Variety, Jon Erwin details that he used AI in about 100 shots of this two-hour biopic. And it should come as no surprise that he owns an AI company, Innovative Dreams, that focuses on implementing AI into films.
I’m not saying I caught every instance of AI, but I definitely could pinpoint it in the troops without faces, and the explosions that nobody reacts to, and the fucking endlessly large river. It’s frustrating to see it used, and I get it, it’s inevitable, but if you’re going to use it, at least polish that turd up to make it shine. God forbid you hire and dress thirty extras to fill out a battle scene.
Watching this bland, AI-filled plate of slop in the theaters left me wondering, “Why don’t I just watch a George Washington documentary? Or read an accurate biography on him?” So later this week, I’m going to my local library and check out some biographies, because I can guarantee my imagination is much more colorful than anything Angel Studios can summon .
RATING: 0.5/5 (Half star for the supporting cast, they did their best)
Who should watch this movie?
- No one
- Just go watch Mel Gibson’s The Patriot or even Young Frankenstein if you wanna see something with Young in the title
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