In A Heartbeat Review

So just recently, the short film "In A Hearbeat" was made available and as of this recording, it was the #5 Trending video on Youtube. The movie has been hyped up for quite some time and it's finally out for us to see.

By looking at this promotional poster, you can pretty much get the idea what the short film is about. Ginger-haired boy has a crush on the Cool Guy and you get this anthropomorphic heart who's all giggidy on the whole thing it wants to make the shipping of the two happen.

What I didn't expect was that the heart was actually Ginger-Head Boy's own heart who bursts out of his chest and having a life of its own, then chases after Cool Guy unapologetically showing its affections. Ginger-Head Boy tries to stop his own heart to save the embarrassment.

I have a question about that, believe me. Shouldn't Ginger-Head Boy be dead after his heart bursted out? I know it's just make-believe, but still even an 8-year old can tell if your heart gets ripped out, you should be as dead as Kano's Fatality in Mortal Kombat.

Moving on, the whole fiasco got everyone's attention, Ginger-Head Boy feels so bad, his heart becomes broken, quite literally, and leaves the school. Cool Guy finds him, gets his heart back together, then the two sat next to each other while their hearts glow and formed into one. The End.

Yes, it's THAT short. And quite frankly, that is my biggest rant on the film. It has a lot of potential to be a great romantic short that it just fell apart! Ok, so a guy trying to win a girl's heart, or in this case, another guy's heart, is trope-ish. But if it's well written and well executed, it's gonna do wonders and no one will rant about it. But because the film is so incredibly short that there is virtually no build-up and it just falls apart after the halfway point! There is just no room for the viewer to invest in the characters! I WANT to care for these characters but the film doesn't give me a solid reason why I should other than do it for the movie's own sake!

What I would do, if I were to write this film (I'm not a writer, but if I were...), I would make the runtime go longer. Ginger-Head Boy's heart, instead of being this ultra-affectionate thingamajig, would be more of a matchmaker. Help the boy get closer to the guy; build a relationship; do a number of funny moments along the way; the two get closer; THEN we get to the broken heart part; THEN Cool Guy repairs the heart; THEN we get the ending. If that were to happen, I would appreciate this film a lot more.

The message is there. If you really love someone,  there's nothing wrong with that, no matter who that person is. It's just that the film is too short and the execution less than average that the message has very little impact.

I'm disappointed. I'm really, really disappointed. In A Heartbeat had a LOT of potential to be a really good film, and the animation is incredible you'd think it's from Pixar. But it just did not make the cut for me. I'm not saying it's bad film as it's not. But I won't call it as one of the best animated shorts out there either. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give the animated short, "In A Heartbeat", a 3 out of 5.