Movie Review: Brave The Dark (2025) seen in theatres

Drama: not recommended for young children; scenes which depict and discuss poverty, scenes depicting abusive family members, some violence, scenes which depict attempting to cope with loss, scenes with teenage relationships ending due to parental disapproval, scenes depicting law enforcement and child abandonment, scenes with tobacco use, scenes with drug use, minor scenes with alcohol use involving teens, minor scene with teenage partying, minor and brief sexual content, emotional scenes, brief scene of attempted suicide, some medical images and discussions throughout

This movie follows a high school teacher who takes in a poor student who has been living in his car for two years following the death of parents when his grandparents are shown to be abusive. A court order requires the boy to return to school despite him having a job with the threat of going back to jail if he doesn’t comply. The teacher must then deal with apprehension and reluctance from the other faculty members as they fear for the safety of other students based on the violent history of the student. Despite this, the teacher maintains that he is able to see the good side of the student despite his shortcomings and chooses to keep him in his care despite the faculty’s objections.

This is yet another movie where I was mislead by the trailer for it. After watching the preview for the first time, I thought he would be much more violent than he was in this movie and have a character similar to the boy in “The Boy Next Door” where upon him being reinstated to school, he begins assaulting everybody which forces the school to fight for their lives. Unfortunately, this did not happen and actually, the guy seemed pretty laid back for someone who was supposed to have such a checkered past. This is even more apparent through the scenes in which he tries to get his girlfriend to take him back as he claims to have changed despite his arrest. Also, he never once confronted guys who came on to his girlfriend after she rejects his advances, (at least to the point of what would be expected from a person who is supposed to be violent.) He is shown to be too calm for a person in the nature of his character. Throughout the movie, it seems like all the seeds are planted for him to assault someone but for some reason, they never pulled the trigger. He basically does nothing and allows people to take advantage of him which is a complete 180 to what the trailer implied would happen. The problem is that this assumption is what lead me to seeing this movie in the first place as I was looking for a change from the normal rom com and it’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie where a supposed violent person assaults everybody. I would have thought that at least the sight of someone stealing his girlfriend, not to mention the fact that herself and her father threatened him to stay away from her would have triggered at least a fist fight. Also, scenes where he is shown to be arrested are no different. He is submissive to the point where this movie is almost unwatchable. There was something that I thought would potentially boost the rating of this film but to be honest, it was so bad that I forgot what that was. Overall, this movie, like most which I’ve seen recently was a complete waste of time and a lot of hype for nothing. This movie was a bad disappointment which just goes to show that I need to pick better ones to see especially if I’m going to pay to see them. This movie follows in the same category as another one I’ve recently seen called “One Of Them Days.” This film was the first to receive a completely negative review as it’s rating was below 0. Well, this movie is the second to manage this type of rating. If there’s any good news to end this review with, it’s that the next few reviews I do will be of movies that I have at home…ones that I purchase and/or watch on a streaming service and as history will show, I do not buy movies I know I won’t like and I certainly won’t be buying this one. My reviews have got to get better and I know it will going forward.

Movie rating -10 out of 10

Next movie review: Say It Isn’t So (2001)