The Legend of Ochi: All Magic, No Heart

Why do we love fantasy? I’m sure there are a million ways you can answer that question, but if you ask me, it’s because we were made for more than this world. As our faith tells us, we were made to desire things our earthly existence can never provide, and fantasy taps into that innate yearning for more. In that sense, the genre is almost like a tiny foretaste of heaven, so naturally, I was pretty excited for the new fantasy movie The Legend of Ochi. I bought a ticket for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance, and I couldn’t wait to be transported to this new world and see what magical thrills it had in store.

The Legend of Ochi was written and directed by Isaiah Saxon, and it stars Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, and Willem Dafoe. In the film, Yuri is a girl who lives on a small, somewhat isolated island in the Black Sea, and on this island, there’s a species of furry, almost baboon-like animals called ochi. Yuri has been taught to hate these creatures for as long as she can remember, but she learns the truth about them when she comes across an injured baby ochi that’s been separated from its family.

The girl takes the animal back home and patches it up a bit, and after she wins its trust, she heads into the wilderness to bring her new friend back to its own kind. The next morning, Yuri’s father finds her bedroom empty and realizes she’s gone, but he doesn’t know why. He thinks his daughter has been kidnapped, so he and the kids who hunt ochi with him drive out to the woods to find her.

If you’re a big movie fan, that plot synopsis probably sounds a bit familiar. It’s a time-honored storytelling template we’ve seen numerous times before, most famously in the sci-fi classic E.T., and The Legend of Ochi doesn’t add anything terribly new to that basic blueprint. Sure, it has a few small details you might not see coming, but for the most part, the plot is exactly what you’d expect from a film like this.

The Legend of Ochi tries to draw you in with the way it tells its familiar story, but unfortunately, it doesn't succeed. To be fair, this movie isn't all bad. The ochi themselves are always fun to watch, as they’re brought to life brilliantly by a blend of puppetry, animatronics, and actors in suits.

Anybody with an appreciation for practical effects is going to enjoy every second of these creatures’ screentime, and when you see the baby ochi at the heart of this story, you’re going to love it even more. It’s not quite as cute as, say, Gizmo from Gremlins or Baby Yoda, but it’s pretty adorable in its own right.

The beautiful world these animals inhabit and the camerawork that captures that world are also delightful, but visuals and inhuman creatures can only get you so far. The Legend of Ochi also needs to impress with its human characters, and that’s where the movie falls short.

Let’s start with the lead. Helena Zengel plays Yuri, and the girl does a decent job with her facial expressions. But when she opens her mouth, her dialogue sounds stilted and unnatural. It took me out of the film almost every time I heard her speak, so I had a very hard time buying into her character.

In contrast, the supporting performances in The Legend of Ochi are fine, but the writing leaves a lot to be desired. To take just one example, consider Finn Wolfhard’s character. He’s a teenager named Petro, and to call him one-dimensional is generous. The kid mostly just follows Yuri from a distance without actually doing anything until the final few minutes of the movie, so you get the impression that a lot of his scenes were left on the cutting room floor. You can’t help but feel like there should be more to this guy than simply being Yuri’s silent shadow, and that suspicion makes his lack of depth even more bothersome.

I’m not going to bore you with the details of why everybody else in this film is similarly flat and uninteresting, but I will tell you that even when some of them experience a change of heart at the end, their development is completely unearned. It’s like they flip a switch and they’re suddenly completely different, and for me, that was the rotten cherry on top of this horrible sundae of a movie.

I simply couldn't bring myself to care about any of these characters or their journeys, and that ruined the entire experience. Sure, The Legend of Ochi looks beautiful, but no amount of visual spectacle can make up for a lack of humanity. This film is a textbook example of all style and no substance, so unless you just have to see it for yourself, I suggest giving it a pass.