The Black Phone Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs
2. The Wildly Uneven Pacing
While on paper The Black Phone's 102-minute runtime might sound totally reasonable, it's how you use those minutes that counts, and in this case it's all over the place.
Though the first act provides a sturdy setup, it also feels a little too padded out and overstuffed for its own good, such that we don't actually dig into the supernatural phone concept until the film is getting shockingly close to the mid-way point.
Getting to the dramatic meat quicker and trimming down some of the subplot-related fat - which we'll expand upon shortly - would make this film feel like a much leaner, more efficient genre vehicle.
As it stands the first act is too long and the third act conversely feels a bit rushed. Another editorial pass could've helped smooth over some of these pacing hiccups, even if some issues clearly go back to the script's structure.