The reviews are coming in for first lady Melania Trump's documentary — and they're about as bad as could possibly be.
"Melania," bankrolled by Amazon in a controversial move that had many theorizing the movie's mere existence was a bribe to funnel millions into the Trump family's pocket, already had danger signs going into its debut, as theater after theater showed almost entirely unsold screenings, and even the movie's billionaire benefactors didn't bother to show up to the premiere.
But the handful of reporters who showed up seemed to have very similar messages: the movie is awful.
"Melania moves through the action like a listless automaton, talking constantly but saying nothing, squired from Mar-a-Lago to Trump Tower to her final destination, the White House," stated a review from The Guardian's Xan Brooks. "It’s dispiriting, it’s deadly and it’s spectacularly unrevealing. Ratner’s film plays like a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest in which a button-eyed Cinderella points at gold baubles and designer dresses, cunningly distracting us while her husband and his cronies prepare to dismantle the Constitution and asset-strip the federal government."
Ultimately, the review concluded, "the fun’s not infectious and the guests are a nightmare, and two hours of Melania feels like pure, endless hell," giving the movie one star.
It was a similar story at The Mirror, where Mikey Smith called the project "an absolute, all-time stinker" and "a bad film made by bad people about bad people."
"You feel very keenly every moment of its 1 hour and 48 minute running time," wrote Smith, who noted that there were four people maximum at his showing, and one appeared to be another journalist. "A good two-thirds of that 108 minutes is spent watching Melania Trump leave buildings and get in a car, then get driven around in the car, then get out of the car and onto a plane, then get flown around on the plane, then sometimes get off the plane and into a different car. This is the very first thing you see in the film, and it’s repeated a good six or seven times."
"If you’re hoping Melania will have a ‘so bad it’s good’ energy, I’m afraid it does not. Melania is not Cats," Smith concluded.