The Prodigy: Movie Review

So, I saw the trailer for a movie that piqued my interest and thought to myself, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a must-see right there.’ And a few weeks later I made my way to the Regal Cinemas in the rain to check out The Prodigy. Was it worth the rainy 20-minute trip to the theater? Or, should I’ve just have stayed my ass at home and Netflix’d and chilled on my couch?

Let’s get into it.

The Prodigy is about a little boy, Miles (Jackson Robert Scott), who grows into a child genius with killer tendencies. When I first peeped the preview, I concluded that this was going to be the 2019 version of The Bad Seed or The Good Son. But, this one took a turn that I really didn’t expect.

This movie stars Taylor Shilling (Orange is the New Black) as Sarah, Miles’ mother who’s on a mission to try to figure out why her only son is suddenly turning into a violent sociopath. One minute he’s her little sweetheart and she’s kissing his little face off. And the next minute, she’s getting a call from his school telling her to come get her little demon seed because he’s beating the brakes off his classmate with a pipe wrench!

Of course, The Prodigy had a few moments that made me almost jump out of my damn skin. But, it also had a few moments where I was like, c’mon now. For instance, there was this one scene where Sarah hears noises coming from Miles’ room and she goes in to check on him and finds him speaking “gibberish” (her words, not mine). He’s tossing and turning and in a full-blown argument in his sleep, while speaking a totally different language. Sarah stands there and monitors him for a while. Then, she grabs a mini tape recorder from his nightstand and starts to record him. Dude, a tape recorder?? In 2019, a mini tape-recorder with a little mini-tape inside?? In an eight-year-old’s room?? Yeah, the director should’ve thought that one through a little better.

After I got past the tape recorder, the movie started to pick up and Miles was sinking deeper and deeper into crazy shit. Then, they fucked it up and the bottom fell out and splattered all over my expectations.

In her desperation to fix Miles, Sarah made the dumbest move ever. She was too easy, and Miles knew that he could get over on her. Sarah thought she was playing chess but soon found out that she had no pieces on the board.

Also, it did leave me wondering why they settled on The Prodigy, as the final title. It’s a little boring, and it doesn’t sum up the main idea of this movie at all. Miles being a prodigy was spoken of early in the film, but it’s not the meat and potatoes of what was really going on. They would’ve come out better calling it Evil Eyes, at least it would’ve made better sense. Then, again, who am I?

Overall, I’m not gonna shit on this movie too bad. It had its good moments as well as its bad ones. But, I have to say that the performances by Shilling and Scott were pretty dope. They played well off each other and were a convincing mother and son duo.

Would I go and see this movie again? Probably not. I just wish that it would’ve given me the ending that I felt I deserved, but, instead, it fell short. Way short.

If you’ve seen The Prodigy, let me know what you think. Hit me in the comments below.