Despite the fact that I loathed Kuso, I decided to give this sci-fi horror movie from director Flying Lotus a chance. Writer Jonni Remmler makes his feature debut here, and the nicest thing I can say is that it feels very much like the work of someone making their feature debut.
Eiza González plays Riya, a woman who finds herself in a very difficult situation when she awakens to find that all of her colleagues have either gone missing or been killed. This would be problematic anywhere, but Riya is working in a space station on a distant planet. There's not really anyone around to quickly come to her aid, although someone else (Brion, played by Aaron Paul) does make an unexpected appearance.
I don't want to sound like a broken record here, and I am keen to see Flying Lotus do something that fully works for me, but this is a film made by a director who is unable to effectively mix his own artistic vision and sensibilities with the genre moments that he ends up fumbling. The end result is something that will please nobody, with a weak script undermining any of the moments that could have been more interesting and a number of visual flourishes that are buried under poor editing choices, some bad lighting, and a constant feeling of apathy.
The sad thing is that the cast here could have done something good with better material. González is a decent lead, although you wouldn't know that from the roles that she has picked over the past few years. The same could be said of Paul, who has yet to find himself a film role that comes remotely close to his superb TV work. Iko Uwais isn't used in the way you might expect, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing is how he is completely wasted, as are both Beulah Koale and Kate Elliott. Flying Lotus himself also appears onscreen, but I'm not going to judge his work as anything more than a cost-saving measure. That's all you have, a handful of people for the core cast, and that would be all you need if the main premise was strong enough. It isn't though.
I remember many years ago when I was desperate to find another videogame to scratch that Resident Evil itch. I ended up playing OverBlood. It wasn't very good, but there were moments when it was superficially close enough to Resident Evil that I decided I could be happy with it. That took some willpower, and that was back when I was younger and much easier to please. I'm older and a bit more jaded nowadays. And if I want something to scratch that sci-fi horror movie itch then I have much greater knowledge, and many more resources, than I had when I was spending more time playing on a videogame console than trying to work my way through every movie ever made.
I'll give it a bonus point or two for the FX work, and an ending that tries to reward those who have been patient enough to get there, but that still leaves it as something I rate disappointingly below average.
4/10
If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do
consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A
subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share
