Deep in the heart of a nature preserve, a billionaire is dying from cancer. The specificity of the cancer goes unmentioned, as do the location of the preserve and the source of his wealth. They’re not important. What is important is that a large electromagnetic cloud conjured by the unicorns renders cell phones inert and causes technology to malfunction when you need it most. Seems like a poor place to put a state-of-the-art compound in a spare-no-expense situation to save a dying man.
One of the many frustrations of Death of a Unicorn, written and directed by Alex Scharfman, is how shockingly literal it is. The billionaire on death’s door needs unicorn blood to live — that old chestnut — and he’ll do anything to live another day. And not for reasons, but because that’s how wealthy people behave, right? He’s not a character; he’s a type. One cut from the same cloth as Mark Ruffalo’s broadly gestured demigod at the center of Mickey 17. Saturday Night Live skits feel more nuanced.
Anyway, the story: The titular unicorn dies — sort of — when spineless family attorney Elliot (Paul Rudd) and daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) strike it with their car. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, they shove it in the back of the SUV and continue to the billionaire’s compound where Elliot is to iron out the details of the estate. Odell (Richard E. Grant) is the terminal patriarch, Belinda (Téa Leoni) is the reverential wife, and Shepard (Will Poulter) is the requisite smart-ass son with a drink and drug problem. If that might make Unicorn sound like a satirical creature feature, reader, you wish. A bad remake of Jurassic Park with crappy CGI unicorns hits closer.
As visually bland as the unicorns are, the human characters are somehow worse. Like Odell, Belinda and Shepard are equally broad types with no personality and plenty of bad jokes. Meanwhile, Ridley voices concerns, but no one listens. Most frustrating is Elliot, who is willing to sell his soul for a handsome sum, only for the script to try and redeem him by laying the blame at the foot of his dying wife’s wish. I’m sure a lot of wives on death’s door implore their husbands to take care of the children. Only Elliot is dense enough to think this is what she meant.
Then there’s the whole third act where bloody violence cleanses and sanctifies the nuclear family, the compound staff bound by duty but constantly displaying moments of false agency, and, and — and I can’t. It’s too dumb, and the world is too beautiful to go on thinking about this stupid movie. Pass.
ON SCREEN: Death of a Unicorn opens in theaters March 28.