Review: 'Omniscient Reader' bets big on franchise dreams, comes up snake eyes
"Honestly, I'm quite desperate. Please help us out here." Director Kim Byung-woo's closing plea at Tuesday's press conference for "Omniscient Reader: The Prophet" at Megabox Coex carried more weight than your typical promotional patter.
With a reported 30 billion won ($22 million) production budget requiring at least 6 million admissions to break even, Kim has every reason to sweat. In a year where theaters are experiencing their worst slump in decades, with "Mission: Impossible's" 3.39 million tickets representing the ceiling, that's one heck of a mountain to climb.
"We're well aware of the current theater situation," Kim told reporters. "Through this film, we wanted to prove that exciting movies still exist in theaters — that was the earnest hope I shared with the cast."
The film arrives bearing the weight of its source material — the web novel "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint" launched in 2018, which later spawned a webtoon that has accumulated over 425 million views worldwide. It has the kind of built-in fanbase that seemingly guarantees success, but beloved IP cuts both ways.
On one side stands an army of superfans ready to dissect every adaptation choice; on the other, newcomers who need convincing that a story about the apocalypse transforming into a real-life role-playing game — complete with floating inventory screens, mission alerts and mysterious intergalactic entities betting on human survival — merits their time and money.
The cast assembled at Megabox on Tuesday clearly felt that burden.
"When I first got the script, I had no idea the original was this massive," said Ahn Hyo-seop, fresh off voicing Jinu in Netflix's "KPop Demon Hunters." Playing protagonist Kim Dok-ja, he emphasized focusing on fundamentals: "All I could do was stay true to the script, collaborate with the director and my fellow actors, and give my absolute best every single day on set."
Lee Min-ho, playing the mythic regressor Yoo Joong-hyuk — a hero who relives the apocalypse in endless loops — acknowledged the challenge of high expectations. "When adapting a successful IP, the key is preserving the original's emotional truth while bringing your own interpretation," he said. "I see this as an opportunity to help Korean content reach even more global audiences."
Director Kim detailed his approach to bridging the gap between devotees and newcomers through extensive test screenings and feedback sessions. He also ditched handheld cameras entirely, opting for precise storyboarding to create what he hoped would be a more immersive visual experience. "I wanted to break away from the conventions I'd been following," he explained.
His advice to the prospective audience: "Just sit back on that subway car. We'll handle the rest."
That particular train never leaves the station, however. While Kim's stated ambition was to balance popcorn spectacle with grounded social commentary, "Omniscient Reader" achieves neither with any conviction.
As blockbuster entertainment, it underwhelms with spectacular consistency. The action sequences, rather than showcasing apocalyptic grandeur, feel claustrophobically small-scale, largely confined to one-on-one skirmishes that could have been staged in any warehouse. Also, for a film dealing with a cosmic-scale catastrophe, why should nearly every battle unfold in dingy subway tunnels?
The monster design collapses into unintentional comedy. Our heroes face oversized praying mantises, serpentine sea creatures, and what can only be described as roided-out demons sporting glossy plastic textures that barely seem to have survived quality control. The crown jewel of this menagerie might be the Dokkaebi — the floating in-game guide that moderates the game's deadly scenarios and serves as Dok-ja's ad-hoc adviser — which resembles nothing so much as a Michelin Man-inspired stress toy and yaps endlessly in helium squeaks.
The premise here demands particularly serious groundwork: ordinary life suddenly gamified, with floating stat screens and cosmic entities running humanity through gruesome toil by way of intergalactic entertainment. But the film takes a curiously disinterested approach to its worldbuilding, sidestepping the fundamental task of making its universe remotely comprehensible.
Rather than carefully establishing the game's core mechanics, the film throws exposition after exposition at confused viewers through Dok-ja's monologues as jargon like "scenarios" and "constellations" whiz past without context.
Where the director appears to have invested real energy is moralizing about humanity's descent into savagery during crises and the redemptive power of community. Viewers beware, these preachings come drenched in some heavy-handed melodrama — villains all cardboard cutouts of sociopathy, while heroes spout platitudes about humanity through tears and swelling orchestral scores.
Critics have already begun panning Jisoo's performance as gun-slinging warrior Ji-hye, but singling her out seems rather unfair when stilted delivery plagues the entire ensemble. The real issue seems to be the screenplay that sounds like anime dialogue run through ChatGPT. Even accomplished actors can't help but struggle when forced to deliver lines about "attribute windows" and "regression cycles" with a straight face.
This summer's most anticipated tentpole looks destined to become summer's biggest disappointment: a cautionary tale about what happens when hype outpaces execution.
"Omniscient Reader: The Prophet" opens in theaters July 23.
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