Rap to the Future

One of my absolute favourite things to see in 48 Hours is when a team makes a musical no matter what they get, and have the talent to pull it off succesfully. With slick beats, this time traveling jam was thoroughly entertaining as 2 FBI agents more closely resembling a crooked verion of the Blues Brothers put their prisoner to the test to dig up a time hopping device.

Some things I noted that were particularly pleasing were the excellent use of the cinemascope frame, allowing the dig site to become more cinematic in appearance, and giving the centrepiece singing moments a more operatic, grandiose feel such as the fantastic first chorus.

The costume design was basic, but conveyed the roles clearly of the characters, with the sinister/anonymous FBI agents contrasting with the orange pants wearing convict, which was also emphasized by his colourful proper rapping versus their militaristic sing talking.

References to other time travel movies were nice nods, going as deep as Terminator 3, and the payoff leading to usage of the invisbility element was nicely done.

In terms of things that I feel could have been done with more emphasis, I think there were 2 areas. The first is that the dramatic questions being asked in terms of the plot were very lightly handled, but that could be said to be just personal opinion as the entire focus was on making a fun musical. But also on that note, whilst I really enjoyed the music, it did also effectively play out as one long song, whereas multiple songs would have allowed the pacing of the film to breathe a bit better. Technically sound, with the only grip there being the start of the film where the lighting wasn't quite on point.

Story: 2.5/5
Technical: 3.5/5
Elements: 3.5/5
Overall: 3/5

Acting, filming and the lyrics to the song was great. Well done, this group has always taken an interesting spin on their genre.