Missing, grossing $13 million at the box office and a score of 84% rising on rotten tomatoes premiered in theaters on Jan. 20. The visuals, writing, acting, and suspense in this movie are top-notch; Certainly, the CGI and animations made this movie unique from other high-selling and considering this is one of the first movies to premiere in theaters this year, it can only anticipate what better movies like it is to come. 

Missing takes watchers on an adventure of what a particular view of the internet is like; real and fake news, opinions, media influencers, and social communication. The movie uses the perspective of a computer screen to spotlight June Allen (Storm Reid), an 18-year-old girl, who shows overreliance on the media to find her mother, Grace Allen (Nia Long) once she’s been kidnapped on a vacation. 

The movie begins with a memory of June’s deceased father and her mother, suggesting June’s ceaseless grief throughout the movie. In a flash to the present, the movie transitions, presenting June beginning to get ready for a house party after being notified by her mother that she’s going to Colombia with her new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung). Tapping away at her keyboard, June mindlessly accepts to pick her mother up from the airport after hearing she’ll receive $350 beforehand… Along with an absent babysitter.

And so, after the weekend, June late-remembers to pick up her mother. She finds a website to hire a house cleaner and goes on her way to the airport. After what were hours of waiting, June gives up and leaves the airport, but with suspicion; After an amount of research and sending texts of concern to her mother, she goes back on the website and finds Javier Ramos (Joaquin de Almeida) to help her. The movie continues with June’s clever ways of surfing the internet and assistance from Javier for clues. Eventually, her mother ends up legally missing and makes it to the news. June is met with many different opinions– fake news and opinionated articles and found more resources to reveal security footage that proved Grace and Kevin getting kidnapped. 

June makes connections to more characters who either help her or twist up the plot just a bit more. Beforehand, she had done some research on Kevin, whom she hadn’t suspected as the reason for her mother going missing unexpectedly. Little did she know who he really was; After doing a lot of research to the point where it ended up illegal, she finds multiple connections with criminals and other women. He’s used fake identities to hide himself, before he came forth with using his real name, Kevin, and whether or not he’s changed as a person once he met Grace.

So many more secrets begin to unravel in the movie; with plot twists and turn some people wouldn’t believe unless they saw it themselves. But overall, I believe this film was so well put together; The writing, CGI, acting, editing, and character development collaborated to form this outstanding film, well directed by Will Merrick and Nicholas D. Johnson. Missing was certainly a movie I was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did; As I was walking into a CMX to watch a random movie playing at the time I did, I came across this playing at 6:50 pm. By the time it finished, I could already tell this is a movie I’d love to watch again.