"Freaks": Unoriginally Like the Rest

Over the past seven years or so, the box office has been ruled by the superhero movie. Studios from around the world have jumped onto their attempts at the genre, which is not surprising considering the multi-billion dollars the Marvel Cinematic Universe has won its studio. With the most popular comic book characters relegated to just a handful of studios, it leaves filmmakers with the task of pure originality for their own superhero ventures. Freaks: You're One of Us is a German film faced with that very task, a success that I don't feel has been accomplished since 2012's Chronicle or, the ironically titled, 2019 film Freaks.

Freaks opens with scenery of the dangers of powers left unchecked, with an evacuated school, police on the scene, and a bloody desk seemingly thrown through a wall. That provides our introduction to our protagonist, Wendy, in her formative years before a flash forward to her as an adult with a family. Burdened with a low-level service job and eviction notices, who is led by an unlikely source to discover that her medication has been suppressing her superpower. Along with that, there appears to be a larger conspiracy at play, discovering that there are others like her who may be forcibly hidden from society. As Wendy uses her powers to help solve some of her problems, she also befriends her coworker, Elmar, who has a superpower of his own. Together, they face the question of whether these abilities are a blessing or a curse and how they will let these abilities shape who they are.

As I alluded to prior, when a wealth of source material is not available, filmmakers are tasked with finding originality. In Freaks, you will find very little, if any, of that. The entire film feels very cookie cutter, with every supposed high-point and character arc easily predicted. At the movie's core was a story of the oppressed versus their oppressors and how people treat those they fear and that core is wrapped in a hollow shell of superpowers and obsession.

Every character had just enough depth to fill the silhouette of the symbol they portrayed. Wendy and Elmar represented a simple duality of how trauma and new power can either purify or contaminate one's purpose. Every other character existed only to support those characters struggles, which is most noticeable with Dr. Stern. At times the main antagonist, she is severely underused and bland, considering she represents the overall conspiracy to oppress super-powered individuals. As was made popular with Marvel's movies, Freaks even carried an end-credits scene that made a, once again, easily predictable reveal that only surprised me by not offering the reveal sooner.

It's ironic to title a movie Freaks, only to turn it into the most generic version of itself, with nothing different to offer. Bland characters, cringe-worthy dialogue, and a highly predictable plot leaves Freaks as another generically ruined Netflix Original. If you're looking for a film with a more grounded superpower approach, I would suggest the aforementioned Freaks or 2016's Midnight Special.

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