REVIEW: Da Possessed includes punch line about Vhong Navarro mauling incident

Vhong Navarro is back on the big screen after figuring in a mauling incident last January. (A fact that is turned into a punch line in the movie).

So is this movie comeback worth your time and money?

In Da Possessed, Navarro is Ramon, a perpetually nervous mama’s boy who tries to bail his family out of debt by working as a landscape artist for a big casino project.

While on the job, he falls for his supervisor, a yellow-miniskirt-wearing girl named Anna (Solenn Heussaff) whose chief job is to boss around a bunch of construction workers into finishing a huge casino in six months.

While digging on a spot in the worksite, he inadvertently disturbs the grave of three vengeful ghosts who would later introduce themselves as Kemerut (John Lapus), Anga (Aaliyah Belmoro) and Dado (Empoy Marquez).

Ramon’s life (and love life) is turned upside down when the three decide to use his body to exact revenge on Anna’s foster father Don Demetrio (Joey Marquez).

What could have been a promising story was ruined by a general incoherence of subplots, character identity and pacing.

Da Possessed is an exhausting two-hour romp of random gags and camp entertainment forced into a movie by a cast of veteran comedians who had to exhaust their talents to give it shape.

The film manages to entertain because of its impressive cast which includes Smokey Manaloto, Matet de Leon, Beverly Salviejo and Lito Pimentel. Their chemistry as Ramon’s dysfunctional family members would work even if they are transplanted to another movie.

Even showbiz newbie Solenn Heussaff, the designated eye candy of the movie, can catch up with the rest of the cast even if only for her tried and tested willingness to look silly.

Joy Viado and Beverly, in particular, stand out for their “agaw-eksena” moments in the film.



Joy Viado (left) as the aunt of Solenn's character and Beverly Salviejo (right) as the mother of Vhong's character


But for all its spirit, Da Possessed suffers from a lack of a concrete storyline—wasting half of its screen time gags that do not move the plot forward or least explain the background of the numerous subplots that were introduced rapidly one after the other with no rhyme and reason.

How on earth, for instance, did Ramon and Anna fall for each other in the first place? It just happened after a weird kilig expression on Ramon’s face and a fade transition. And how on earth did the property-grabbing-slash murder of the ghostly trio actually come to be?

Even the identities of the characters are not fully established. Except for Ramon, the outrageous and wacky antics of the other characters like Anna, her aunt (played by Joy Viado), and Don Demetrio are not justified.

There is even a Bollywood portion, while entertaining, is not entirely justified either.

Granted that the humor of the movie is based on camp and kitsch, too much of it mucked up the movie, twisting elements into the proverbial Gordian knot that is impossible to unravel gracefully--or at least, with sense.

Camp for camp’s sake has been haunting recently-churned out Philippine comedies that I wonder if this will be the spirit of the comedy age. I hope not.

Emerging from the theater after seeing Da Possessed feels exactly like that: like you were overtaken by something that is nothing.

Well, at least I got a good laugh out of it.



Ed's Note: The "PEP Review" section carries the views of individual reviewers, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the PEP editorial staff.