Dakota Skye has won a decent amount of attention on the festival circuit, where it has one six prizes. The premise is unique and engaging and the actors are generally good, but the movie gets tired extremely quickly. Skye’s hipster attitude and quirkiness are entertaining for a while, but they soon grow tiresome and even boring. The press release for the movie claims that it has the “charm of Juno and mixes in a little Heroes”. If only that were true. Juno (for its many flaws) was well-written and expertly cast, and “Heroes” was a good show at one point, with a decent amount of suspense and action. Dakota Skye has a touch of Juno’s sarcastic and biting wit, but little else.
Dakota Skye (well-played by Eileen Boylan of the teen soap South of Nowhere) is a 17 year old girl with a superpower. She has the ability to recognize any lie. She knows immediately if a friend or loved one is lying to her. She can see the truth in any lie. The truth comes up on the screen anytime a character lies. Dakota is fairly apathetic towards life till she meets Jonah (Ian Nelson) and starts to fall for him. Jonah either always tells the truth or is Dakota’s kryptonite. Her powers don’t work on him and that intrigues her even further. Jonah is either always telling the truth, or Dakota’s arch-nemesis. Dakota Skye would have worked much better as a short film than a full-length feature. It goes from interesting to bland, than boring in record time. For a movie made on such a tiny budget (150,000) it looks quite good on DVD. There’s even a few extras including interviews, a commentary, and a decent making of featurette that runs almost 25 minutes in length. This should please the fans of the movie who caught it on the festival circuit.
Dakota Skye has an intriguing premise and was made for a miniscule amount of money, so it’s hard to kick a movie that is so earnest, but Skye hasn’t much to recommend it. The movie is proof that indie films can be just as bad as Hollywood big budget trash. Dakota’s Emo attitude and quirks soon make the viewers wish they were watching a different movie. The movie’s small cult of fans may disagree, but Dakota Skye is just another tiny, wannabe hipster indie flick soon to be forgotten.
DVD Grade: C-
Loading ...