"Challengers" Lacking in Everything but Sexual Tension

 


    When you first hear about the premise for Challengers, you think oh, that's interesting, a film about these two tennis players fighting over the same girl, I wonder where they go with that. The answer is they don't. That's literally the entire movie, all 2 hours and 11 minutes is them fighting over Zendaya through a series of both flashbacks and current day scenes. I can safely say that my friends all absolutely hate this movie and thought it was rubbish, and only watched it for Zendaya. Which I suppose is part of the issue with this movie. If I'm going to be honest with this movie really does feel like it was written with Zendaya in mind for Tashi Duncan, and I think it sort of fails to ever get past that fact.

    Let me explain, Tashi Duncan is a compelling enough character. A former tennis star forced to live out their greatest passion vicariously because of a vicious injury suffered at the lower levels. The film basically tells you that she's really the engine that is pushing the star her husband is, and every character practically screams to you that she'll never love anything as much as she loves tennis and that's why she's with her husband in the first place. The issue is, it doesn't really focus on this aspect of the film very much. This film is described as a "sports romance", but frankly I think it's way more romance than sports, tennis is mainly just a vessel for them to explore the very intimate relationships that can occur during tennis.

    But there's more to relationships then lust and intensity and it just feels like this film somehow manages to miss every marker that would make it good. I'm not saying every scene needs to be filled with dialogue, but I'd be lying if I said it's more showing off these characters in raunchy scenes and how they got to this super intense final scene than the friendship that was broken. You would be surprised at how little this film actually accomplishes, and I think part of the issue is that it feels as if it lacks substance. Do not be surprised if this films legacy in ten years would be people watching Zendaya participate in sexual scenes, and causing Tom Holland to propose to her. Because frankly, people came to see this film for Zendaya, and that's all they're going to get. Look, I know it feels as if I've laid a lot of blame at the feet of Zendaya, but really it's whoever is the creative force behind this film. It's smart to get such a big name for this film, otherwise how else would you market it, but it falls short basically everywhere else. Is it too much of a stretch to call this film Zendaya worship? Maybe. 

    I mean I personally enjoyed the Trent Reznor soundtrack, it was booming and it really helped contribute to the tension which made the tennis scenes some of the only enjoyable ones in this film. Was it a bit overpowering? Yes, but you could easily make the argument it was intentional. After all I know athletes have spoken multiple times about how when they're playing, or in the mode they just sort of drown everything out, so the music serves that purpose in a sense, other than the moaning. Also, the film looked very pretty, some of the angles were interesting. But I do have to say, I came into this film being told on Twitter that this movie was filled with obscene amounts of slow motion, and I didn't realize how bad it was. Did we really need Zendaya looking back and forth in slow motion? Or the choppy slow motion when Patrick and Tashi made out in the middle of a bad storm like it was some music video? Come on people, who let this slide?

Final Score: 50/100

    Would I ever watch this film again? Absolutely not. They had some gay scenes exploring the every-intimate relationship between Patrick and Art, but they should have leaned into it more. They needed more scenes like the sauna, or where they were making out or anything. They should have had more, this film all leads to one moment you're introduced to in like the first 15 minutes of the film, and there's ultimately no payoff. If you wanted to make this film about two dudes reconnecting over tennis then why the hell didn't you lean into that more? Why was there so much Zendaya. The more I type out this review the more I'm leaning towards agreeing with my friends because I'm going to be honest most people are probably just going to want to watch Zendaya. Something something about the male gaze also my female friends only wanted to watch for Zendaya. I suppose if you really wanted to give this film a shot then I would warn you of what's going to happen, but I wouldn't stop you. Otherwise, just find something better to do with your time, you can just search up the Zendaya clips online.

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