Crazy Rich Asians Review

Crazy Rich Asians is a culturally significant, albeit, underwhelming entry into the romantic comedy genre. This movie is about a rich guy who takes his girlfriend home to meet his family. However, the girlfriend is unaware that the family is extremely wealthy. Constance Wu gave a fantastic performance. She did a good job selling a character that is just as lost as the audience. Henry Golding gave a great performance. He had fantastic chemistry with Wu and they were a believable couple. Michelle Young gave an incredible performance. She brought multiple layers to a straightforward character. Awkwafina gave a hilarious performance and all her scenes are high points in the movie. Jon M. Chu did a great job directing. He especially handled the large-scale scenes well as they were truly stunning at times. The script, however, is good but not great. There are so many characters that I struggled to keep up with who was who. Also, there is a ton of filler including numerous sequences of just the family showing off their wealth. However, the main romance story is sweet and believable. The comedy when it is there hits. For me, though I felt the movie could have used more jokes as there are long periods without any. At 121 minutes this movie is far too long and really drags at times. You could easily compact the script down to 90 minutes and the movie would be stronger for it. The big discussion around this movie has been about the fact that this is the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to have an all Asian cast. To that fact, I am happy this movie exists for a culture that is far underrepresented in Hollywood. Overall I had a good, but not great, time with Crazy Rich Asians.

6/10