In fact, discounting a few painfully
awkward dialogue scenes, The Neon Demon's first half makes the film seem like Refn's most surface - level - satisfying work since Drive.
The music occasionally, almost out of luck, sets the right mood, but most of the time just makes for
awkward dialogue scenes and a composition clash of sound and visuals.
Not exact matches
Deliberately
awkward moments which are funny at first, are allowed to drag into eternity;
dialogue scenes run on; and it takes far too long to get to the punch - line.
What follows is a seemingly endless string of expository
dialogue exchanges and flashbacks (including the first instance of a slap across the face eventually leading to a deeper understanding between two characters — after Jared forces himself on Melanie during their first meeting — and an
awkward scene that attempts to romanticize Jared's insistence that he wouldn't make Melanie feel entitled to have sex with him even if they were the last man and woman on Earth).
Some
dialogue scenes between Spider - Man and the Green Goblin are
awkward because of the costuming.
There are occasional technical glitches (sporadically duff edit points,
awkward framing in a few of the key
dialogue scenes) but you get the impression that Favreau doesn't care about proficiency as much as he does vibrancy.
Gone are the
awkward laughter
scenes of Final Fantasy X and the Macarena references, replaced with the highly stylised Ivalice - ian
dialogue and fluid, believable voice acting.
Whether it's a localisation issue or just the game's style, cutscenes also feel overly long and
dialogue not natural enough in flow —
awkward pauses, silences and irritatingly slow
scene transitions (all of which are not skippable) bring down what otherwise are, for the most part, interesting developments in the main storyline of protecting NLA.