by Robert Bouffard, Editor
It’s not inherently bad to make a movie based off a real event less than five years after that real event, but I think you have to have an interesting angle or an intriguing way to tell the story if you’re going to go this route. Thirteen Lives is missing this crucial angle, and it settles for being a good-enough retelling of the story of a young soccer team and their coach being trapped in a series of caves in Thailand, and the thousands of people from around the world who banded together to try to save them.
The biggest issue that Thirteen Lives runs into is that an excellent documentary, The Rescue, was released last year, and it tells the exact same story, but with a much higher success rate. The Rescue gave such an overabundance of detail that you felt the tension of each and every action, and the emotion of each moment was pumping through your veins. Meanwhile, Thirteen Lives goes almost completely emotionlessly and matter-of-factly through the 18-day ordeal.
Usually, it’s unfair to compare a movie to a documentary on the same subject, or to the real life events it’s based on. But in this case, your experience could very much benefit from already being familiar with what happened. The true story is already inherently gripping, so that works to the film’s benefit, but it somehow doesn’t give you anything to really care about or latch onto. You want the boys to be rescued because of the basic humanity of the mission, but none of the rescuers — who are the main focus of the movie — are fleshed out beyond a couple of surface level character traits. But having seen the documentary, I thought, “Oh, that’s the guy who left his elderly dad!” or, “Wow, these dives took so long!” Because apart from extremely brief lip service and basic text on screen, none of that is communicated in Thirteen Lives, and it’s worse off for it.
None of this is to say the movie is terrible. Far from it, in fact. Apart from forgetting to take a step beyond recounting events, everything in this film has a baseline competence that lets you know you’re in good hands. It’s directed by Ron Howard, who is about as trustworthy as they come. He makes some solid choices, including returning to a shot of the sleeping lady for which the mountain is named after. It helps to ground the story and visualizes the unified belief in a cultural symbol. Unification is the film’s main theme, so it’s a good visual reminder. The diving sequences are also well done in a technical sense, though they mostly lack emotion and intensity, like the rest of the movie.
You could also do much worse than having Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, and Joel Edgerton as your main Hollywood stars. Having actors of this caliber is important when their characters are so thinly written. They have a solid baseline of depth and authenticity that helps you buy in, even when you don’t know much about them.
Howard also shows good restraint with when he uses the musical score. In keeping with the matter-of-fact, methodical nature of the movie, much of the film is without music. But it certainly helps create some tension and emotion when Benjamin Wallfisch’s score comes in to play.
Thirteen Lives is an okay movie based off incredible, awe-inspiring true events, and is handcuffed by having to follow a much better documentary that exceeds it in every way. It’s a fine film, but it will never be better than second in line when it comes to narrative media about this event.
Score: 6/10
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