[Review] BTOB - Movie (Throwback)

Free from the confines of my room, I'm bringing a retro review to the table. Yesterday was my sister's birthday and I asked her to give me a random Kpop idol / group. She named Peniel so here we are. At first I was wildin' how they haven't released anything since the small unceremonious song "Sorry" by a few members which was included in a Late Report one year ago. Then I remembered that most if not all of them are probably doing their mandatory military service by now.

Underrated. That's the most descriptive word I can think of for BTOB. They have excellent rappers, solid vocalists, and are pretty damn consistent in terms of their releases. While "I'll Be Your Man" is their magnum opus, I have to give massive props to "Movie" for being catchy, fun, and overall just a solid song. The rapping and singing bounce off each other excellently - though it has to be said that the rap line steals the show: Ilhoon, Peniel and Minhyuk each deliver in spades with their verses (I have a fondness for Peniel's English verse if only because my youngest sister has hilariously mastered this for karaoke purposes).

The choreography and music video are aight. You know how my standards for each of these things are. I swear I will someday just stop talking about music videos as a whole, and only mention stuff when it's too far to either the good or bad side of the spectrum. As far as dance, that may very well follow the same path as MVs but time will tell. If there's one category that BTOB is pretty average at, choreography would be the thing. But again, I'm just a potato so it's not like they're all bad dancers or anything. The visuals are colorful as BTOB tend to be both from an aesthetics and personality standpoint, though I gotta say no to Ilhoon's Joker attempt.

"Movie" is as well-rounded as BTOB is hilarious in variety (and in general, to be honest). It's an addictive dance number that incorporates their vocal and rapping strengths extremely smoothly. As an aside, sometimes I think about these throwbacks or revisits and wonder if I should bring back the scoring system - or at least maybe a grading system. I'll give it some more thought and we'll see what happens. Pace-wise I doubt I'll be able to salvage April from a content standpoint but I suppose quarantine within quarantine for two weeks will do that to anyone.