Not sure why this felt more like a TV movie than a actual film, could be the odd, ever present sense that it is futuristic and backwoodsy at the same time. It is geared for teens, so things are over explained and that takes a fair bit away from a good story.
The story here revolves around the abduction of children from a port town by drones. The one having the children abducted can't dream, so he connects his brain to the kids' brains so that he can participate in their dreams. Ron Perlman's character is out looking for his lost little friend and eventually uncovers this massive plot. The film is saturated with rich villains, colourful children, and high contrast lighting. Oddly enough, Perlman delivers very few lines in barely understandable French.
It's a fun, rather humourous film despite its dark subject, but I found it a little difficult to follow.
IMDB
The man scans documentary footage of what is our present day of people trying to fight the trend towards obliteration. Some good stuff in terms of alternative energy, but discouraging in how very little traction their efforts make.
IMDB
"The head and hand need a mediator, and that mediator is the heart!"
A collection of special rag dolls seek to redeem the world from a tyrant robot in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The dolls are mostly naïve, childlike giving the film a great tone.
Official Site | IMDB
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.There are plenty of great visual effects and the story is actually very good, though some of the lines are a mite cheesy. For an action movie there is a lot less melodrama and tough guy stuff than I expected.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The film is a convoluted mess of B-actors, cheesy lines, mediocre special effects, and lines from the Book of Revelation. The end of the world is nigh and what is important is promoting a porn star's new line of products - an allegory for how the world is more keen on entertainment than the really important events that are happening around us.
The plot takes us into a sci-fi world of televisions, elections, and guns in modern day Los Angeles. We are given an introduction that essentially says Big Brother is watching, something corrupt is going on, and the apocalypse is on. It's an interesting premise, but anyone who wants to spend hours dissecting the mess is crazy - there are several much better films on the subject that are worth much more consideration.
Truth: Our minds are being fed crap and are therefore too full and busy to consider reality.
Official Site | IMDB
We enter the world of southern California 7 years from now. A new drug, Substance D, has taken over much of the population through addiction followed by death - allowing for emergency levels of government surveillance. Some believe it is the government itself who is manufacturing the drug.
Both the acting and animation (done by drawing directly over the filmed images) are excellent - a huge step forward from Linklater's Waking Life (the story is much better too!). There are sequences of the drug buddies having fits of paranoia and sequences of police surveillance that appear to be diametrically opposed - life and death or death and life depending on how you see things.
The story is smart and every scene feeds you just enough to guess where it is all heading.
Official Site | IMDB
In Battlestar Galactica, there is an attempt to cultivate the characters, but I still think the story has come first. Granted, this is expositional in type as it is to launch a TV series and so many archtypes - strong woman leader, errant father, rebellious son, rebellious soldier, British bad guy, evil temptress... In television you don't really have a choice as viewers need to have the option to tune in and out of the series without losing too much of who the characters are.
What does drive this show is the story - or rather the background to the story. Human civilization has come to an end (or very nearly) because of something humans created. There are only 50,000 folks around (500 of whom are imprisoned criminals). Now what? What do we try to hang on to? How important is each human life? How important is survival? What are we willing to sacrifice for the greater good? Battlestar Galactica does a fine job of presenting the questions in a compelling and dramatic way. I didn't get swept away emotionally by some of the sad scenes (leaving refugees behind, girl on a spaceship about to be zapped), but rather asked myself if I could have made those hard decisions.
A few things that disappointed me. I found the younger actors to be too good looking and very American. It's too bad a ongoing network series can't achieve success without it's George Clooneys, Katie Holmeses, and Jennifer Anistons. I can see the appeal, but it throws up a big red flag of "this is fake" for me. I was hoping also that the sets would look a bit more like the ones on Event Horizon - more earthy, lived in.
I did enjoy most of the acting, though as I mentioned earler, the typecasting sort of limits that.
Overall, I think it was a great set up for a TV series. I would follow it and I think the character development would grow to a point that I'd be disappointed that someone got snuffed out (lost their contract with the SciFi Network).
A thanks to Pat for introducing me to the series.
Official Site | IMDB
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