I Declare War (2013)
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Reviews Counted: 32
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 10
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 1,185
Movie Info
Armed with nothing more than twigs, their imaginations and a simple set of rules, a group of 12-year-olds engaged in a lively game of Capture the Flag in the neighborhood woods start dangerously blurring the lines between make-believe and reality. Rocks = Grenades. Trees = Control towers. Sticks = Submachine guns. The youthful innocence of the game gradually takes on a different tone as the quest for victory pushes the boundaries of friendship. The would-be warriors get a searing glimpse of
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Cast
-
Michael Friend
Skinner -
Gage Munroe
PK -
Siam Yu
Kwon -
Mackenzie Munro
Jess -
Aidan Gouveia
Quinn -
Alex Cardillo
Frost -
Dyson Fyke
Sikorski -
Spencer Howes
Joker -
Andy Reid
Wesley -
Kolton Stewart
Caleb -
Eric Hanson
Kenney -
Alex Wall
Scott -
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All Critics (32) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (10)
This Canadian feature cleverly mixes archetypes from war films and coming-of-age movies, defamiliarizing both genres in the process.
Top CriticCo-directors Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson do little more than repeatedly echo the pic's theme after establishing the basic conceit of Lapeyre's script in the opening minutes.
[A] surreal, strangely effective look at childhood imagination.
The performances may be slightly uneven across the cast of a dozen distinct personalities (plus a dog), but overall the effect works because, after all, they're just playacting ... right?
Imagination is what these filmmakers could use more of, as their ingenious concept doesn't develop much beyond gimmick.
"I Declare War" captures the awkwardness of preadolescence as well as any film since "Stand By Me."
Both playful and nostalgic, it's the kind of movie that stands to be appreciated on some level by anyone who has ever pointed a stick and yelled, Powpowpow!
It's both a nostalgic ode to the creativity of youth and a tragedy of growing up, wrapped in the graying dynamics of war as playtime...
... feels more like a sociological experiment than compelling drama.
If you have a point to make, try not to make it too succinctly in the first five minutes of your film.
Its unpredictable tone clicks back and forth between the comical and the serious like the safety catch on a firearm. But no matter what you ultimately think about it, you can't deny one thing: It's not like anything you've seen before.
I Declare War plays like a C-student's final exam essay on Lord of the Flies. Any interest in the game is overridden by the massive amounts of allegory lifted straight from Golding's novel.
Lapeyre hints that a game of War might get real
I Declare War works best not as a Lord of the Flies riff but as a solid look at how close middle-school emotions are to the surface and how imaginary wars become real-life conflicts in the space of a too-harsh word.
The problem, mainly, is that Lapeyre's kids are stock types: runts, bullies, toadies, a girl with a big crush.
A tangle of realism set loose inside an arena of unreality, and it's utterly compelling drama, never slipping into a deflating self-awareness.
The film rarely takes us past its rather obvious conclusions about the potential bestial nature of kids and how that may translate to the larger battlefields.
I Declare War uses children to address issues that plague all generations, lulling you into a sense of creativity and wonder, only to lay some pretty heavy storylines that make our characters seem years beyond their true ages.
Audience Reviews for I Declare War
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"I Declare War" is a ballsy movie, that I'm surprised was able to get made in today's world. I'm glad it did, it just surprises me. The movie is basically a game of capture the flag between a group of 12-13 year old kids out in the woods. They use sticks as guns, water balloons as bombs, and real world tactics to win. But, the movie is shown through their eyes as to what they see. Which is machine guns, bazooka's, blood, and death. This is very R rated, which is perfect, because it's exactly how it should be. When I was little and played stuff like this it's exactly how I saw it. When you shot your friend you saw in your mind them get shot, that's why they call it pretend. There is a lot of cussing and violence, but again this is how real teens are when they do this. I can see why a lot of people would be put off by it, or disgusted, especially with all the gun violence in schools today. But, you have to forget that when seeing this. These kids are playing a game, a game that just about every kid plays at some point. I'm glad it wasn't a PG movie where they are nicey nice with each other. Very accurate, and very entertaining. There are some good twists and turns, and the lines between what is real and pretend get blurry. But, at the end it's a fantastic film, that will remind you of what it's like to be a kid. The good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.