If you'd like to be surprised by the The Platform film, I don't recommend you to watch the trailer beyond 1:16, because it gives away too much of the plot.
El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019) - Watch the trailer on YouTube
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video © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
The The Platform (2019) is a futuristic thriller film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.
Product: El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
Original title: El hoyo (English: The Hole), English title: The Platform
Series: -
Setting: future Earth
Product type: Film, Genre: futuristic thriller, Style: sci-fi, futuristic, thriller
Release: Premiere: 2019.09.06 (Toronto International Film Festival), Release: 2019.11.08
Reviewer: Kadmon, Type: Male, 40s, Preferences: Immersive, logical story, consistent setting, prefers surprises to spoilers, prefers establishing elements before referencing them
Watched: very recent (2021.01), first time
Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Weak (2- out of 3 points)
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This is my review of The Platform, a futuristic thriller movie from 2019. It's about a man entering a prison with strange rules. The The Platform film is watchable, I recommend it to fans of the genre.
El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
image © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
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Review (spoiler-free) - The Platform, movie (2019)
I've heard multiple times about the movie, often as a recommendation to watch it. The premise didn't sound that interesting, but when I had the chance to watch it, I gave in. I might have watched the trailer when it came out, but I didn't remember anything of that.
The The Platform movie is about a man entering a prison with strange rules.
Interesting idea, but even the story concept is weak, and then the execution doesn't get anywhere. The consistency is okay. There are no character arcs. There are plenty of logical problems, most of them come from the logical faults of the basic concept.
The movie was able to raise my interest and maintain it until the end, so that's a bonus. However, the lack of a proper resolution made the story somewhat pointless.
The cinematography was good. Although the whole story plays out on the same set, the lights and the camera work made it look visually interesting. The action scenes are good, easy to follow. The depiction of violence is brutal and realistic, it really shows that was one of the focus of the creators.
We don't get to know the characters, just some very basic information about them. The actors were good.
The music (by Aranzazu Calleja) is good.
Everything was good in this movie, it was the script that was lacking.
The Platform is a watchable futuristic thriller, I think fans of the genre will enjoy it.
My experience
I was not satisfied with The Platform (2019). I enjoyed watching it, but the story was full of problems.
Rating: Average (2 out of 3 points). The Platform is a watchable film.
Enjoyment: Weak (2- out of 3 points). The Platform is has some interesting parts, but I didn't like the story.
Rewatchability: I'm not sure. I think it's mostly the surprise of the story that makes you feel interested.
Chance of watching it again: Unlikely.
Chance of watching a sequel: I'd probably watch it.
El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
image © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
Will you enjoy this?
If you like mystery or thriller movies, you might like The Platform.
If you can get through the first half hour of the movie still interested, the rest will be similar, although it will start to make less sense.
If you don't mind illogical elements in your movies, you can enjoy this.
If you hate subtitles, you don't have to worry, as the movie is already available with English audio dub.
If you prefer visuals over story, this movie is probably not for you.
If you hate depiction of naturalistic violence, you should probably avoid this movie.
Watching for plot points
If you are interested in futuristic stories, I think it's worth watching the The Platform movie for the plot points.
Should you watch this on your own screen at home, or is it worth going to the cinema?
The visuals probably look better if you watch it in cinema, but I think you'd get a similar overall experience.
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El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
image © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
Review with spoilers - The Platform, movie (2019)
I liked the looks of The Platform movie, but the story was weak.
According to the creators, the movie was intended to depict the workings of a capitalist and also the communist societies, but actually it only depicts human cruelty and stupidity. So, if you haven't seen a cruel or a stupid human, you might get something out of this movie.
In reality, in a capitalist system, the upper levels would get access to all of the food, and they would be able to give food to those who provide services for them, in an amount they feel fit. In a communist system, everyone would be forced to provide services for the leader of the food chain, but they would be promised an equal amount of food (even though there might be some exceptions during the execution). None of this appears in the movie.
Cover
The cover of the movie is okay, it doesn't say much, but it doesn't spoil the movie.
The trailer
The trailer is okay, although the ending spoils some major parts of the movie.
If you prefer spoilers, it's a great trailer for the The Platform film. If you prefer to avoid spoilers, it will make the movie less fun for you.
Promise of the first scene
We see some fine food getting prepared. Then we see a man waking up in a cell. I'm not sure if this was a dream, or the man is a cook, or how is it related. I have no clue how will this continue.
Execution: I'm not entirely satisfied with the fulfilment of the promise. While it makes sense to show the cooking somewhere during the movie, starting with it didn't help the viewer experience.
Plot summary / Synopsis
A guy (Iván Massagué as Goreng) wakes up in a cell with an old man (Zorion Eguileor as Trimagasi). They are Level 48 of a vertical prison. There's a platform that moves through the hole in the middle of their cells, bringing them food. The amount of food they get is based on their luck - the prisoners on the upper floor get the whole table worth of food, and the lower levels get whet the people above them leave for them. This means that on the lower levels, they don't get any.
There's a woman (Alexandra Masangkay as Miharu), who always go down to lower levels on the platform, in search of her child.
The next month, the guy and the old man gets taken to a very low level (Level 171), so the old man ties the guy up, to use him as a potential food source. A woman arrives through the platform, saves the guy, and allows him to kill the old man. She treats the guy, feeds him some of flesh of the old man, then leaves.
The next month, on an upper level (Level 33), the new cellmate of the guy is the female administrator of the prison, who checked him in. She tells the guy that she has terminal cancer, and she volunteered to come here to help improve the situation. She tries some methods, but the others don't seem to listen to her.
The next month, they are brought to a very low level (Level 202), so the woman hangs herself. The guy eats her.
The next month, the guy is on an upper level (Level 6), with a black man (Emilio Buale Coka as Baharat). They come to the idea, that they'll get on the platform, and don't let anyone to have food until Level 50, and from then on, they start to share food to the prisoners. One of the lower prisoners come up with the idea, that they will should a message to the upper management. They will save a cake all though the levels, and when the platform goes back, they'll see that there's an untouched cake. On the way down, they see the woman getting killed by prisoners. On Level 333, they find a child, so they decide to feed the cake to the hungry child, and send the child back, instead of the cake. By the time they got there, both of them are seriously injured, and the black man dies.
The guy takes the child with him to the lowest level, where he gets out, and watches the child being taken up by the platform.
The setting
The story is set in the future of Earth, with advanced technology. The platform works with some kind of magnetic technology, or probably uses anti-gravity. There are no supports, it just floats. Upwards it's able to move in a very fast way.
El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
image © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
The prison
There's a vertical prison. There are two people on every level, and an elevator shaft in the middle.
The platform starts to move down from the top level, where they put it full of food. The platform stops for some minutes on every level. The inmates on the top levels have a chance to choose from the items. As the platform moves down, the inmates get the food that was left by the previous levels. On the lower levels, they practically don't get anything. The food cannot be taken away from the platform, if they try to take anything, they get killed.
The platform moves at a slow speed when going down, so anyone can get on it. When moving up, it's very fast, the G forces would probably kill a regular human.
Every month the pair of inmates are taken to a random level.
If an inmate wants to climb up or down, it doesn't seem to be against the rules.
The message of the story
I'm not sure there's one. I have a feeling that the creators intended to send some message, but that was not clear for me. "Life is unjust"? "People don't care about the welfare of others"? "It's okay to eat the flesh of humans, if there's no other food source"? Something like that.
The structure of the story
Most of the scenes of the The Platform film are played sequentially, following the same storyline. There are a couple of flashbacks inserted, about the admission of the protagonist into the facility.
There's no single viewpoint character, as there are multiple interludes, but through the main storyline, there's a viewpoint character, Goreng.
It has an unusual arc of the dramatic structure - introduction, action, but parts of the introduction is inserted into the story through flashbacks, and there's no real resolution.
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Things I liked
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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?
I haven's seen anything from either of the script writers (David Desola & Pedro Rivero). I'm not sure I'm interested in their works based on this movie.
This is the first feature movie of the director (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia). While he probably got the most out of the script, I'll be more cautious about his next films.
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El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
image © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
Analysis of the story - The Platform, movie (2019)
I didn't like the story, the problems of the plot prevented me from enjoying The Platform.
Problematic elements
The protagonist: We don't get to know the protagonist, nor understand his motivations. As the only thing we get in his movie is his character arc, it would have been really useful to see who is he. Due to the lack of this knowledge, the whole story is somewhat pointless.
The kid: I'm not sure the inclusion of a kid with Down's Syndrome with murderous intents was needed.
First, they are not depicted in films often, and the past two stories I've seen them (Alone and The Platform) depicted them as evil.
Second, as I know multiple kids with Down's, it's really unlikely for them to be evil. They can be stubborn, they might even get aggressive, but there's no real incentive in them to be evil.
Third, in the setting, it looks that the inmates need to request to be put into the facility. Someone with mental disabilities is probably not the best candidate for this place.
The setting: The setting doesn't make sense.
There are only two rules they enforce in the facility, and that's they can't keep food once the platform leaves their level, and that they can't smoke. Otherwise they can do whatever they want.
It seems that the facility was there for at least 8 years, but probably for 25 years. It also seems that the inmates can leave the place after 6 months or a year. Yet, the protagonist (and the world) seems to be oblivious about the whole place. Do the inmates forget what happens? Are they brainwashed? Or are they just killed or put into another facility after leaving this place? If entering the facility is a one-way road, then why would anyone volunteer to be entered?
It seems that they only clean up the place once every month. This means that the whole place will be a festering mess after a couple of days of the clean-up. The inmates will be infected, and as they don't seem to get medical attention, they will die pretty frequently. By the larvae growing in the corpse, it looks that insects are able to get into the facility, that can carry infections around.
There are 333 levels, and even the lowest level has an occupant, it means that every month 666 people are entered into the system. As only the first 50 levels get food, it also means that at most, 2/3rd of them survive the month, not counting the murders and the suicides. That also means that the whole place stinks after the first week due to all those corpses.
Eating the guy: Why does the old man start to eat the guy just a minute before the platform arrives? He seems to be a logical man, who only eats people as a last resort. He could have waited a minute, checked the food, and if there were really nothing left, then start to cut him up.
Giving food: It was just stupid that they give the food to the kid in the end. The kid will die anyway, they've just gave her a last supper. Yet, they managed to cancel their original goal, giving it up basically for nothing.
The ending: Ending the movie with the kid dying is probably not the best finale for a story, but by the time we got there, it didn't bother me as much as it would have in another film.
The dead of the kid is not shown, but if she survives the G-forces of the ascension, she'll surely die when she gets crushed by the ceiling.
Another problem with this ending is that it is probably nothing new to the crew of the facility. In the past couple of years they've probably seen dead people carried up on the platform. I have to admit that the dessert would have been also just smeared across the ceiling any way, so that wasn't a good idea either. So, basically, whatever they did, it didn't change anything for either the crew nor the inmates.
(Update: The director said that the guy dies due his injuries before reaching the bottom level. We see his hallucinations before he dies. I feel this makes the movie even more pointless.)
Unanswered questions
- What does the child do there?
- If the child they've found in the end was the child the girl was looking for, how was the child able to survive in this environment for this long?
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Possibilities of improvement
- Add some kind of resolution. Even some kind of hint in the end about changes could be better than nothing.
How it could have been better?
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Behind the scenes
Thoughts about the reviews of others
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El hoyo / The Platform, movie (2019)
image © Basque Films & Mr. Miyagi Films & Plataforma La Película A.I.E
Uses for the film - The Platform, movie (2019)
Plot
- Vertical prison, with a moving platform in the middle.
- Resources are distributed by moving the platform from the upper levels to the lower levels.
Scenes
- Scenes can be used to depict a futuristic prison in a cruel system.
- Scenes of violence could be used to depict violence between prison inmates.
- The kitchen scene is a great way to show fine food getting prepared.
Designs
Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas
The vertical prison: The characters are locked up in a vertical prison like the one in the movie. They have to survive for X months before they are let go. Or they could try to escape. They could get on the same level in the start of the game, but it could be more interesting if they start on separate levels, and they need to coordinate their work that way. I'd probably add a lot more rules to the facility, otherwise the players will play the system, and rule the facility on their own. For example they could bring in jetpacks of their own, or climbing equipment, ladders, if they know what are they preparing for. It could be somewhat more interesting if they had additional goals. For example, they have to find a specific person they have to bring to a specific level (for example, to speak to someone, or to get an item hidden on that level) to achieve their goal. They have to defend and feed that person until he finishes the job.
Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas
Vertical combat: If you don't have access to a very tall model, that also allows you to play properly, the playing area could be set up horizontally. Indicate the floors with vertical walls, and the models that touch those walls with their base, are standing on that floor. You can decide that only the middle of the walls have openings, so the models can only climb up or down at the indicated areas.
The attacker side tries to achieve their objective. First, they need to reach a specific level, to gather some item or person, than they have to reach another level with that item or person, and spend an action to achieve the objective. After that, they can retreat.
The starting zone of the attacker: 1-2: the bottom of the area. 3-4: The top of the area. 5: The middle of the area. 6: The starting zone of every squad is on a randomly determined level.
The exit zone of the attacker (d6): 1-2: Their starting zone. 3: The bottom of the area. 4: The top of the area. 5: The middle of the area. 6: A randomly determined level.
The defender side deploys their models anywhere on the playing area, except for the starting zone of the attacker. Then the attacker deploys their forces. The attacker wins if they achieve their objective, and leave the playing area with more than half of their units surviving. The defender wins if they stop the attackers from achieving their objective, while more than half of the defending units survive.
Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)
Prisoners: Human-sized modern human civilians.
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Similar stories - The Platform, movie (2019)
Movies
Alien 3 (1992): In a futuristic setting, there's a prison. The prisoners get in a desperate situation, but there's no escape.
Fortress (1992): In a futuristic setting, there's a prison. A man tries to get out of a prison.
Lockout (2012): In a futuristic setting, there's a prison. A man tries to get out of a prison.
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Frequently asked questions - The Platform, movie (2019)
Will the The Platform movie be available with English audio dub?
The Platform is already available with English audio dub.
Is the The Platform film based on a book or comics?
No, The Platform is not based on either books or comics.
Is the The Platform film a remake or reboot?
No, the The Platform film is neither a remake nor a reboot.
Is there a post credit scene in The Platform? Does The Platform have end credit scenes?
No, there's no post credit scene in The Platform.
Where can I see The Platform? What is The Platform playing on? What streaming service is The Platform on? Where can I watch The Platform online? Is The Platform available on Netflix? Is The Platform on Amazon?
As of 2022.02.06, The Platform is only available on Netflix.
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Resources - The Platform, movie (2019)
Official
The Platform: Official website.
Basque Films: The Platform: Official article.
Netflix: The Platform: Official article.
https://www.instagram.com/miyagifilms
https://twitter.com/ElHoyoLaPeli
https://www.facebook.com/El-Hoyo-movie-101630944557373/
https://www.instagram.com/elhoyolapelicula
Information
IMDB: El hoyo / The Platform (2019): Database article.
WikiPedia: The Platform (film): Database article.
Letterboxd: The Platform 2019: Database article.
Rotten Tomatoes: The Platform 2019: Database article.
TVTropes: Film / The Platform: Database article.
Creation
: Concept art article.¤
Reviews with no spoilers - The Platform film (2019)
: Review video about the The Platform film with no spoilers.¤
Reviews with spoilers - The Platform film (2019)
: Review article of the The Platform movie, with spoilers. Includes a very detailed plot summary.¤
Analysis - The Platform movie (2019)
: Analysis video, explaining the finale of The Platform.¤
Matthew Barrett: The Platform: Netflix’s latest dystopian portrayal of inequality
https://www.theoxfordblue.co.uk/2020/04/22/the-platform-netflixs-latest-dystopian-portrayal-of-inequality/
?
https://www.bilimkurgukulubu.com/sinema/film-incelemeleri/metafor-yagmuru-the-platform/
https://www.facebook.com/bilimkurgukulubu/posts/3979239595449508
https://twitter.com/bilimkurgukulup/status/1244670959992426500
https://twitter.com/PardusPars/status/1244723524780130310
https://geekvilag.hu/featured/a-fogyasztoi-tarsadalom-legmelyen-a-platform-filmajanlo/
https://www.facebook.com/geekvilagblog/posts/828558861005651
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Buying the product - The Platform, movie (2019)
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Have you seen the The Platform film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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