Challengers has some challenges. Most of them can be forgiven, but the ending betrays the viewer to the point that it overshadows the rest of the movie. My opinion of a film has never been so negatively impacted with so few seconds remaining. Unfortunate, because there was a lot to like here.
This was a lot of fun and felt fresh through and through. For me, the 2+ hours passed by like nothing. I enjoyed most of the dialogues, of course the camera work, the soundtrack and the overall vibe. The final 10-15 minutes made me smile nonstop, this was just really good cinema. I personally also loved the ending shot. Left the theatre with a big grin and a good feeling.
Boring as hell, no interesting plot.. waste of my time .
I could have survived without the tennis ball POV and the super close-up of the knee injury
All I could think about this entire movie was just how awful it must be to watch a tennis match live and to have to keep turning your head side-to-side for 90 minutes.
We go inside the mind of three dedicated tennis players fighting each other on and off the court.
An absolute delight for the audience since the performances of the three leads were so good. We have to read into the subtle expressions and behaviors of the three, the nuances of the scene, and context of each flashback and forward almost including us in the game. There is no winner or loser, everyone's just having fun.
I was ready to give it a 7 because the flashback of the night before was dragging but the following scene was a solid payoff. Ultimately, I loved the Matrix style cinematography for the tennis scenes and the strong acting. Minus points for the gopro shots, ew. But love the perverted camera, definitely doing something for the bisexuals. And especially loved how believable the aging up and down of the leads were in each scene. Ending was so satisfying, and the movie was fun all around with a sick OST.
Everything is about tennis - except tennis, which is about sex.
The fuck did I just watch. Tennis porn?!?
Absolutley, no way it ended like that. This film is a spontaneous tension/tennis court. The casting for starters was chefs kiss. All I could see was tennis players. Once you reach the credits, you realise you watched basically nothing, that felt like everything. Pure exhilaration from the score, exhaustion from the cinematography and editing, and exclamation from the writing and character arcs. The acting was phenomenal, especially with such a smart script. The best tennis movie by far. I mean, they took a 'simple' match of tennis and amplified it by a million.
Bursting with sexual and competitive tension, Challengers is hilariously camp at multiple moments, but feels wholly unique in the story it's telling and how it presents it. A stark improvement to Bones & All, Luca Guadagnino is able to construct this time hopping drama in such a way that never feels jumbled or hard to follow, and manages to keep the stakes high even when he rips you back and forth across multiple years in the timeline of these characters. The core message of competition and desire being the driving force behind greatness and personal investment is refreshing, and the finale is such a great climax to this strung out edging session that it's hard not to feel the rush of release as the credits roll. Horny to be sure, but exceptionally constructed horniness nonetheless.
Oh and Zendaya is unfathomably hot in this. Unfathomably. I didn't see it before but I see it now.
What is the point in watching a movie only for it to have no proper ending.
It's like going to the trouble of buying food, cooking it, preparing it, and then using your imagination to eat it.
Like watching a tennis game of things I hate: sports movie -- relationship drama --sports movie -- relationship drama --sports movie -- relationship drama --sports movie -- relationship drama --sports movie -- relationship drama --sports movie -- relationship drama...
All capped off with a ridiculous ending (no spoilers, but the music was hilarious!)
The actors were all hot and amazing, but the rest was giving made-for-ESPN Nickelodeon.
Two beta cucks simp for Zendaya.
My favorite movie of 2024 so far. Yes, over that other movie that Zendaya stars in. There are so many elements of Challengers that are at the top of their game. The score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Finch is electric, absolutely enhancing every single scene as the rhythm thunders and vibrates. The acting by the main trio is fantastic, but Zendaya especially is the best that she's ever been. Given a character like Tashie who is clearly hiding a lot behind her exterior, she is able to emote so well without any verbal dialogue, allowing the audience inside the character's head without having to spell it out. The cinematography is breathtaking as well, with plenty of excellent shots and angles that took my breath away. Just when you think you've gotten a grasp on the style, he throws a ball with a ton of topspin right at you. I could have used a little less slow-mo though, especially at the end. Guadagnino is at the top of his game, taking what could have been a fairly linear and straightforward story, slicing and dicing the structure into something far more labyrinthine, and not once losing sight of what matters. This movie is sexy and intense, and a lot of people will talk about the character relationships between the trio (as they should). However, to me, what stands out the most and what made me fall in love with this movie is the exploration of how these three different characters view success in their field of tennis and what each of them is willing to do to achieve that success. Truly a fantastic film.
Challengers was an exceptional piece of cinema. The storytelling, score, editing, brilliant performances, and the emotionally charged screenplay with its dramatic twists were all remarkable. My favorite part was Josh O'Connor's performance—he was outstanding.
This last shot is probably the best thing Luca Guadagnino has ever done, among other shots in the movie, and the score with those acid basslines hits hard.
A terrific flick, no doubt
They should all sleep more hours before the tournaments
Good story, great cinematography, excellent music, fantastic editing, but too long, too long, and too many flashbacks, more than needed; it would have been flawless if it had been 75 to 90 minutes.
"Ugh, you are such a fucking child."
"Of course I am! I've spent my entire life hitting a ball with a racket."
An average episode of Elite. So incredibly restrained, safe and frustrating. Like a 2h 12m seance of masturbation with no climax. What starts out as a hot and interesting 3 way dynamic quickly becomes generic hallmark romance with melodramatic beats. It becomes kinda predictable once you realize tennis has 3 rounds and so does this back and forth. The characters are so hateable I didn't care who ended up with who, they all deserve each other. Nothing too crazy on a performance level but all I know is I want more Zendaya, put her in everything please. Nice energetic score but too much of it at times. Laughable last 20 minutes with too much slow-motion and a game of tennis that just won't end.
Will I ever look at Churros the same way
I totally get the motivation behind Tashi choosing Art over Patrick. He is different than her; she is ambitious while he is calm; Tashi is always pushing her limits to get more and never satisfies with what she already has while Art settles for compassion comes from Tashi. Still, i ship Patrick and Tashi more than Art and her since why not; he is charming.Overall it was a nice movie to watch; the soundtrack was fun; scenes were amazing in terms of portraying the ambitious atmosphere. 7/10
A lot of fun, is 'Challengers'.
First of all, I gotta say, that poster is so good! Thankfully, the movie matches. I enjoyed my time watching this one, I do have some (very) minor issues with the pacing and music (that blaring club track is a bit much) but in truth they evaporate given how high quality the rest of the film is.
The cast are great. Zendaya is the obvious star of the 131 minutes, she is top notch throughout. Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist are just as impressive though, they more than hold their own alongside Zendaya. I've seen O’Connor before in TV's 'The Crown' so I'm not all that surprised or anything, though this is the first time I've see Faist act.
Aside from the earlier noted track, the music is overall excellent though. I also like how the tennis is portrayed, I'm only a casual viewer of the sport but it all felt believable in that regard. I think the run time could've been trimmed a tad, while the amount of different timelines is perhaps a little excessive. Again, mind, these are not major concerns of mine, just worthy of noting.
A terrific flick, no doubt!
Hot, Sexy, and SWEATY Tennis.
CHALLENGERS WHAT A RUSH. The subtext is sex but the subsubtext is...tennis.
I get it. I've seen the reviews that said that this movie left a lot more on the table and could have been more this or that. I don't disagree with those sentiments. But all that aside, I had a ton of fun watching this movie, and I had no right to have this much fun. This movie got away with two things that are often a no-no in my book: extended sports scenes, and time jumps in the story. The time jumps are often performed to make a story more dramatic than it really is, but in this case, the jumps completely worked. I especially enjoyed the investigation of the psyche of the various characters. In particular, the dominance on display in Zendaya's character. I thought it was fascinating to see her have a stronger will than her partner, only to be called out later as really playing it safe for having a partner that is rather submissive. For me, this was the heart of the movie. It also made it that much more maddening that people's takeaway from the movie was "who won the final match?".
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I assume this is what sports anime is like because it’s gay as hell and the woman is evil.
The plot reiterates the same old love triangle, but the direction really makes a difference. Nothing to take away from the equally solid writing, acting, and soundtrack. Still dreaming of an ideal world where this is the bar for mainstream movies.
It's an okay and fun movie, but I felt like it doesn't really go anywhere. Filming and cretain tennis scenes are interestingly done - the ball or racket trackign shots, aerial views... The story is kind of middle of the road, I think I would've prefered it if it was either a bit more toned down romance story, or if it's a more dramatic story. This way it offers a little bit of both but neither part of the story is satisfying.
Cast and acting is good, they all carry their scenes well.
Music is amazing, and scenes with music are really well done and easily raise my rating for this film.
7/10 - great music, fun story and theme
Kinda expected better. Z carried this movie
The 2 hours flew by! The music is perfect and that ending is so smart and intense, really surprised by how much I like this movie, even on a rewatch.
What the actual fuck did I just watch, can I get my two hours back please?
Like... Yeah, Zendaya is great, sure, although kinda conflicted because I remember her from waaaaay back, and so I just... still can't take her seriously, especially in roles like this. Her character is awful, pretty much without a single redeeming quality. The two male leads aren't any better either. I don't mean to step on anyone's toes, but wtf? A rather well-known actress as female lead - and two completely unknown guys to co-star? An absolute bombshell of a woman - flanked by two fugly flunkies? (Sorry not sorry but with the level of "maturity" the characters have, I guess I got stuck there too.) And then one of them literally says he's not one of her groupies, like, come the fuck on, cringe much? The whole setup is so laughably unbelievable it barely even qualifies as cringe, and it doesn't get any better as the story goes on, either. If you can even follow that, because it's jumping back and forth in time and space all the damn time. With some very random 1stperson footage added in for good(???) measure as well in the last, idek, third? quarter? whatever- towards the end, we even get to see things as the ball! Not that that makes the tennis itself believable, I'm sorry, but just... no.
And through all this, nothing really happens. The constant back and forth gets old real quick when you realise it never leads anywhere: I'd argue the most dramatic point is the knee injury, but then even that's set up very early on, so it doesn't really have much of an actual effect. All the innuendo, all the parallels, all the sweaty closeups (literally) - without crossing any line for two hours.
At least the soundtrack is great, I'd say it's actually a lot better than what the movie deserves. But one doesn't really want to watch a movie for the soundtrack alone.
The movie I watched seemed to revolve around a girl who played a pivotal role in bringing two gay boys together. However, I felt that the movie was a waste of time for me. Additionally, I was not a fan of the movie score, which featured techno music throughout. It made me wonder if the movie was meant to be set in the '80s.
Her scar switches knees mid movie. If there was no slow motion, the film would be 40minutes shorter. Waste of time.
I think it is a copy of some other language movie. Which I watched few years back. Cannot remember the name but its the same exact plot.
really great movie the characters act just like how I aspire to be irl
That ending has just lost this film a whole rating level. Off to bed, hugely peeved!
This felt like a sports movie for people who don't watch sports.
Cutting the ending like that makes the whole thing unsatisfactory.
Love watching hot sweaty men smack each other's balls.
It's a great movie. Great scenes and good tennis!
It was actually decently interesting until the dreadful ending with nearly 15 minutes of unnecessary slo-mo shots killed its momentum.
What a strange film. Parts felt like an after school special acting wise and other parts felt like a solid erotic drama. A lot of it just felt too shallow and all the slo-mo w electronica that I enjoyed early on seemed to stretch it 20 minutes too long. Can't go higher than 6.3 here.
Good movie, let down by the strident techno music, which doesn’t really fit this kind of movie.
Zen is so sweet to love
What a sexy, adrenaline rush of a movie!
Everything from the fantastic score, acting, script, cinematography, and the compelling characters made me sit up and lock onto the film. I was with it from start till finish. And the film had one of the best endings since Whiplash.
Only a film marker like Luca Guadagnino can make a tennis match look/feel dynamic.
One of the best of 2024 so far.
Terribly edited, but otherwise a good film.
Well that was a lot gayer then I expected.
Great movie though, Zendaya really gets better each and every movie. She was of the star of the show. Movie was more interesting then the trailers made it look, they gotta fire that guy.
The story is reasonable, nothing surprising, the highlights are the great scenes of the game, with incredible takes and the performances that are great and drive everything, I thought the choice to emphasize expressions and gestures was great, it made all the difference. On the technical side, I found some of the editing strange, some abrupt cuts made the movie slow to engage, the soundtrack was one of the most out of place I've ever seen, the songs had nothing to do with the scenes, at times they were louder than the lines, this hindered the experience of the movie.
5.5/10. I enjoyed it first because I like tennis and second because the story and the characters were also very interesting. Loved the conflicts, great acting but the ending was wtf and ruined the whole thing.
eh eh eh eh eh.... zendaya.... eh
A 7-star film where surprisingly the script and actors didn't disappoint, but the direction and editing did. The film's conclusion assaults the viewer's intelligence in such a way that the final rating is 3 stars and the category "Missed Opportunity and Big Disappointment."
The 2004 film Wimbledon by Richard Loncraine is a class above.
A p^ssy weasle and f^ckboy trying to impress and f^uck overly ambitious Zendaya. She see in them only a dick and a job or something similar she said in the movie.
The time-line was all over the place and thank God that actors have different hair styles so the viewers (or atleast me) can grasp on it. The ending was so stretched out that I was screaming before Zendaya to just f^cking end my mystery
And still I will watch everything with Zendaya
Also they have to live like trouple and everything would be fine
Watching the movie the odd camera angles reminded me of a book cover called me by your name, specifically repetitive shot of characters from down below. All I knew of the adaptation of this book was that Timothee Chalamet plays one of the characters. I audibly said in the movie theatre the shots reminded me of this book cover and in the end comically found out the director of Challengers and Call Me By Your Name are one in the same. Shots were so dramatic and overtop at times that they spoiled scenes, at times beautiful sure, but others like in the ending completely spoils any sort of tension or interest in the resolution. Also the "storm" scene was so overdramatic and in your face again with the "symbolism" and shots that I just wish I could fast forward the scenes in the theatre. Not to mention the obsession with Tennis was more relatable when imagining the whole movie took place in a tennis anime rather than the real world.
I was worried this might be too arthouse for me, but I loved it. Fantastic performances, interesting character motivations/dynamics, and punchy dialogue. I'm sure it's getting meme'd to death, but the consistent club-beat soundtrack definitely grew on me and added to the confrontational exchanges made to feel like an intense tennis volley. That said, maybe the audio mix could have been tweaked a tad because I was frustrated to miss a handful of lines here and there.
On of the strangest plot's of a film I've ever seen, however, it was entertaining and very well done as more of a cinema masterpiece. It follows 2 former best friends who's tennis careers revolve around chasing the same girl and it all comes to light in flashbacks during a big match at the end of the film. This is more of a sexual art of a evolution of a triangle relationship combined with the beauty of the sport of tennis. Was it entertaining? Yes. Would I watch it again? Probably just to give it another chance.
It was 4 stars for the most part but the ending was so intense, I had to give it 4,5 stars!
I didn't know much about this movie and I think the IMDb plot gives away a bit too much, even if it's the basic premise. But I thought it was more interesting to slowly find out about the relationships. I think it was a great idea to tell the story non-chronological. I also really liked the soundtrack and it looked amazing visually, especially during the storm near the end.
I don't often have a physiological response to the media I engage with. This movie truly had my heart racing. That's special and rare and I praise this movie on that point.
I've rarely left a movie theater as ecstatic as I was after "Challengers." Director Luca Guadagnino created a masterpiece with the film's finale, which features brilliantly shot tennis sequences. Not everyone seems to like the ending. I, however, think that it was perfectly set up throughout the entire movie. In other words: Guadagnino smashes his match point right on the line at the end. Some people might shout "out," but for me, it was clearly inbounds.
But "Challengers" is also a strong movie in other ways. The interplay between the three main characters (Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor) works perfectly, with Zendaya's Tashi certainly taking center stage. The plot is told through multiple time frames, but this never causes confusion. The make-up and hairstyles always make it clear where you are at any given time. I also have to praise the driving score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, even if it is perhaps a little too loud at times.
Overall, Luca Guadagnino proves that he is an exceptionally style-conscious director. Whether it's about ball sports or bedroom action, everything is perfectly staged with plenty of variety. However, the highlight of "Challengers" is certainly not the back and forth on the tennis court, but rather off it. Because that's where the whole toxic love triangle can really unfold. And that, at least in my eyes, is great cinema.
Just wonderful! The three of them put on a great performance, this film is pure excitement even though it doesn't even have a single sex scene. The impeccable soundtrack and perplexing that a film involving the sport of tennis managed to leave me super entertained. Congratulations, Luca Guadagnino for the excellent direction!!!
Pretty good film. Kind of a shame it had to be marketed the way it was because I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't heard it was good and wasn't what the marketing implied. I kind of wish they cut most of that to be honest as there is a really solid film there without any of it. Brilliant script and color grading and cinematography. Some unique and special shots in this film. Really good acting from the three leads. My only disappointment was the conclusion really. It ended on an interesting note that I was curious what would have happened next between the characters. But definitely recommend and much more than just a meme film or what meets the eye from the promo.
Trent Reznor And Atticus Ross snapped. I think I'm finally convinced Zendaya is hot. Tom Holland's a cuck. Luca went from awkward gay kisses (Call Me by Your Name) to maybe the greatest boy-on-boy kiss scene of all time. Lol I don't know.
This also seemed to tap into that weird The Room-eque phenomenon that trashy dialled to the max actually then enters this weird space where it's actually emotional. The corniness of sweaty close-ups over borderline techno music with everyone in the cinema laughing was so great!
Zendaya. Yeah no I totally get it. This movie will win awards.
And it would have been almost perfect if it wasn't for the very last shot.
What an interesting movie. It goes in hand with the directors' previous work with some wacky romantic plot, and some wild drama. The tennis segments were probably the most interesting part of the movie, though. Where it lacks in morale and plot, it makes up in some really stunning camerawork and shots. Downside is, I do feel the length come the second half of the movie.
Review by JordyVIP 8BlockedParent2024-04-25T09:57:06Z— updated 2024-04-26T17:05:06Z
Probably more mindblowing for an American audience that barely gets any exposure to this kind of material from its own industry. For my taste, Guadagnino plays it way too safe. I was waiting for it to push beyond the melodrama into something more wild or messed up, and I never really got that. He's constantly flexing with impressive camerawork, great editing and a fantastic score, but what is it all in service of? There's not a lot more to this than very basic melodrama. Tennis is used a metaphor for innuendo and relationships, which becomes a bit eye-rolling as the film goes along. On top of that it's not nearly as sexy as some people are suggesting, it feels like a lot of foreplay and innuendo without a real pay-off at any point. His camera doesn't shy away from nudity or sweat, and Trent Reznor's score puts in a lot of work in turning up the heat, but you want it to push beyond that at some point. For me it doesn't really develop into anything surprising and the conclusion it ultimately goes with feels kinda lame because of it. Still, it does a good job at intriguing you with the personal struggles of the three main characters, all of which are well portrayed by the actors. Zendaya is a bit hard to read at times, though it could be intentional with the character she's playing. There's enough merit to the complexity of the characters and technical aspects that kept me from being bored, but the entire time I kept thinking about how much more interesting this could be with someone like Paul Verhoeven at the helm.
6/10