I'll be reviewing this from two main perspectives.
As a film enjoyer, this obviously fails in almost every cylinder. Editing was noticably rushing, many scenes felt jarring to cut onto, many inconsistencies. Writing felt way too convoluted, it felt like many ideas were pushed onto the story regardless of any idea of a theme. The film focuses far too much on recreating stand up bits from Jo Koy, which would be great if the cast felt like they had chemistry with each other. Conflicts are poorly handled, they are introduced and then quickly removed to move onto the next conflict. I thought the film would utilize the concept of the struggling comedian more, but it does not seem like Joe Valencia is at all a struggling comedian. They don't focus really focus enough on the family's love for each other, because all we see (up until the last 10 minutes or so), is their pettiness. The themes were muddled, comedy unbearable, and pacing out the window. The only enjoyable parts were the occassional actually funny moment.
As a Filipino, I find a lot of the chaos funny. However, it feels very much like a watered down perspective of the Filipino person's life. It only focuses on the "crazy wacky family". It doesn't actually focus on anything beyond that. The usage of tagalog is noticably forced. When the actors/actresses spoke tagalog, it was clearly mistranslated and was poorly spoken. The handling of Catholicism was odd, because its so integral to Filipino culture, yet is so poorly handled. Usage of Halo Halo as a symbol for the Filipino family would be nice, if the person saying it was not the girl. The girl is explained to have a father that left and a mother that works too often. So it doesn't make sense for her to say it. The portrayal of familial abuse across Filipinos is also terribly handled. They skim over it in the last 10 minutes. Most of the resolution is handled in 15 minutes tops. There's such a focus on what the writer finds funny and cool, to the point where they forgot to make a film.
As a film enjoyer, this obviously fails in almost every cylinder. Editing was noticably rushing, many scenes felt jarring to cut onto, many inconsistencies. Writing felt way too convoluted, it felt like many ideas were pushed onto the story regardless of any idea of a theme. The film focuses far too much on recreating stand up bits from Jo Koy, which would be great if the cast felt like they had chemistry with each other. Conflicts are poorly handled, they are introduced and then quickly removed to move onto the next conflict. I thought the film would utilize the concept of the struggling comedian more, but it does not seem like Joe Valencia is at all a struggling comedian. They don't focus really focus enough on the family's love for each other, because all we see (up until the last 10 minutes or so), is their pettiness. The themes were muddled, comedy unbearable, and pacing out the window. The only enjoyable parts were the occassional actually funny moment.
As a Filipino, I find a lot of the chaos funny. However, it feels very much like a watered down perspective of the Filipino person's life. It only focuses on the "crazy wacky family". It doesn't actually focus on anything beyond that. The usage of tagalog is noticably forced. When the actors/actresses spoke tagalog, it was clearly mistranslated and was poorly spoken. The handling of Catholicism was odd, because its so integral to Filipino culture, yet is so poorly handled. Usage of Halo Halo as a symbol for the Filipino family would be nice, if the person saying it was not the girl. The girl is explained to have a father that left and a mother that works too often. So it doesn't make sense for her to say it. The portrayal of familial abuse across Filipinos is also terribly handled. They skim over it in the last 10 minutes. Most of the resolution is handled in 15 minutes tops. There's such a focus on what the writer finds funny and cool, to the point where they forgot to make a film.