Summary:

All the way in Paris, Kate Sanders is a dancer trying to win a competition hosted by Madame Brunelle for the chance at a spot in the Paris Opera Ballet. Unlike her competition in the States, Kate struggles to find her place in this new world. After a rocky start with Marine, Kate and Marine become the unlikeliest friends and the two make an oath to succeed together.

Characters:

Our two main characters are Kate and Marine, the most unlikely friends. Kate is a ballerina from Virginia who is in Paris on a scholarship, courtesy of Marine’s parents. She comes from a poor family, and she understands what it means to work for everything. The thing she has yet to figure out is how to handle the bright lights. Marine on the other hand comes from a rich family, and has been in the spotlight her whole life. Almost everything has been on a silver plater until the passing over her twin brother. Marine and Kate become good friends while competing for a prize only one of them can have.

Nathanyal: 7.0/10

Review:

Birds of Paradise was a very average movie. From the average plot, to the average characters, nothing in this movie really screamed amazing. However, there also weren’t too many areas that screamed bad. It was a decent movie through and through.

Usually, I would talk about the pros and cons in separate sections, but for today’s movie, I don’t feel like there’s a need. For one, the characters were only average. At the beginning of Birds of Paradise, I enjoyed all the characters, as their interactions and relationships with each other seemed pretty natural. However, as the movie progresses, some of the characters make some questionable choices, which ruins all the development they have throughout the movie. Plot wise, the story is a simple tournament arc. Protagonist gets thrown into a competition, and protagonist competes. Now, the shows or movies that excel are the ones who make this archetype not feel like the archetype. When watching a movie with a tournament, it shouldn’t feel like it’s too heavy or overbearing. In the case of this movie, all it had was the tournament. There wasn’t anything else to back it up.Overall, I just found Birds of Paradise an average movie. There was nothing great or nothing bad about the movie. It just exists. If you’re interested in ballet, then give this movie a try.

Birds of Paradise was a very average movie. From the average plot, to the average characters, nothing in this movie really screamed amazing. However, there also weren’t too many areas that screamed bad. It was a decent movie through and through.

Usually, I would talk about the pros and cons in separate sections, but for today’s movie, I don’t feel like there’s a need. For one, the characters were only average. At the beginning of Birds of Paradise, I enjoyed all the characters, as their interactions and relationships with each other seemed pretty natural. However, as the movie progresses, some of the characters make some questionable choices, which ruins all the development they have throughout the movie. Plot wise, the story is a simple tournament arc. Protagonist gets thrown into a competition, and protagonist competes. Now, the shows or movies that excel are the ones who make this archetype not feel like the archetype. When watching a movie with a tournament, it shouldn’t feel like it’s too heavy or overbearing. In the case of this movie, all it had was the tournament. There wasn’t anything else to back it up.

Overall, I just found Birds of Paradise an average movie. There was nothing great or nothing bad about the movie. It just exists. If you’re interested in ballet, then give this movie a try.

Favourite Moment (Spoilers):

My favourite moment in Birds of Paradise was watching Marine helping Kate with her dancing. The two had some fun chemistry and it was great watching Kate grow as a dancer.

Austin: 6.7/10

Review:

I’m gonna be honest, this wasn’t great. It wasn’t even good. It was mediocre all the way through, although I thought the characters were awesome. They were really deep, and they all came from slightly different backstories. They seem like rich pricks on the outside, but upon further analysis they all have minor quirks that make them very different people. Kate is a wonderful addition to the movie because it creates some depth and variability in our characters. The backstabbing nature of our characters says a lot about the era and the atmosphere around higher class, and I thought that was really well reflected in our characters. Unfortunately, I thought the plot was not good at all.

The plot lacks the enthusiasm we see from the ballerinas, and it comes out really boring. For a two hour movie, nothing happens in the first hour. It takes a long time for anything substantial to happen, and then it almost feels rushed at the end. The story is beyond predictable until the very end, and the cinematography is mediocre. It was so dark for a good portion of this movie, and for seemingly no reason. The lack of vision didn’t add to the movie, if anything it confused me more. I thought the ending was pretty well done, maybe a bit quick, but the first half is just so bad I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people just turn it off before then. 

  I feel like these characters could have made a great movie, it’s just too bad the plot couldn’t keep up. It’s rare to see such a boring movie with some great characters, but Birds of Paradise does exactly that. I wouldn’t watch this again, and unless you love ballet, I wouldn’t watch this once.

Favourite Moment (Spoilers):

The best part is quite easily the ending. Nothing specific, but the back stabbing, and the high energy final act slightly redeemed this movie for me. 

Sebastian: 6.7/10

Review:

 This movie bored me more than I could’ve imagined. That’s not to say everything in this movie is bad but that overall, it just did not entertain me. My biggest criticism would have to be that for a film that centers around dance they don’t focus enough on the dancing or even show enough dancing for my liking.  I felt that this film could be both very focused and yet meandering at other times which also caused my loss in interest.  The story itself was decent with some interesting elements and themes that were introduced but I felt some of them were handled poorly and therefore they did not make the impact that was intended.  The characters are ok with our two protagonists being given good starting off points but their development was a little messy in my mind. I felt that even when the characters were off the acting was good especially from our two leads Diana Silvers and Kristine Froseth who do a real good job portraying the complex relationship between these two dancers. Like I said this movie should have shown more dancing to engage us in the competition but I do get they tried to spend that time instead focusing on the characters it just sadly didn’t land as much as it should’ve.

All in all, this film just didn’t grab me and I found it to be slow and not very engaging. I can’t say I recommend this one but if you want to check it out hop on Prime Video and see what you think.

Favourite Moment (Spoilers):

My favourite moment was the dance done by Marine at the end because I felt the emotion it portrayed represented the film well.