Riot Girls review: 1995 gets an alternative apocalyptic timeline in teen drama Riot Girls.
Image Courtesy of Fantasia Festival
The year is 1995 and in the American town of Potter’s Bluff there’s a war brewing between the East and West side. An unknown disease has wiped-out all the adult population and now only kids and teenagers remain. They have divided themselves into two factions, and as resources dwindle, the two tribes collide. After her older brother is taken hostage, Nat (Madiosn Iseman) and best friend Scratch (Paloma Kwiatlowski), must go behind enemy lines to rescue him.
Riot Girls kicks-off with an explosion of colour and exposition as Nat narrates the events leading-up to the current situation with the aid of comic book style animations. It instantly grabs the attention and brings the audience up to speed nicely, meaning that once the film starts, it can just get on with things. Similarly, as we are introduced to our main player, we get an old school freeze frame and description. For example, Scratch is summed-up as being ‘Hard skate punk. Voted most likely to not give a f**k’, so we know all about her character immediately.
What starts out well begins to falter towards the half-way point, the narrative running out of steam and the pacing loses some momentum. Given the scope of the world, with all the adults now dead, it would be great to explore that more. However, Riot Girls focuses solely on Nat’s rescue mission which feels like somewhat of a waste, especially when baddie Jeremy (Munro Chambers) doesn’t get a great deal of screen time.
Despite the occasional murder, things just feel a little tame. If the stakes were raised just a little, the film could be something super special. As it stands, Riot Girl is an entertaining watch, one that’s sure to resonate with a specific type of teenage girl, with some super cool characters and ideas. It just need that extra little push.
Riot Girls was reviewed at Fantasia 2019.
