This review has revealing SPOILERS in it. Do not read if you have not seen the film!!!
When I was a schoolteacher, many of my English students would write a potentially good story but then run out of ideas towards the end. They would then resort to the 'and then I woke up, it was all a dream' scenario to wrap things up quickly. As a teacher I found this, not only boring but very lazy writing. Needless to say, I discouraged this type of ending in all creating writing exercises.
But what have we here? The writers of Archive have done exactly the same thing! They have quickly wrapped up a very long and quite boring film with the good old standby 'it was all a dream'! But to be 'clever' they said let's make it his dream, not hers! Lazy writing and would get an F in my creative writing class.
Nothing wrong with the acting performances. In fact, Rhona Mitra was exceptionally convincing. It's just the lazy writing that gets me. Or was it some executive poking their sticky fingers into the script? I can hear them now, "you know, it's nearly 2 hours long and we must wrap it up as soon as possible, otherwise we'll lose our audience (and our takings)." Perhaps we shall never know.
When I was a schoolteacher, many of my English students would write a potentially good story but then run out of ideas towards the end. They would then resort to the 'and then I woke up, it was all a dream' scenario to wrap things up quickly. As a teacher I found this, not only boring but very lazy writing. Needless to say, I discouraged this type of ending in all creating writing exercises.
But what have we here? The writers of Archive have done exactly the same thing! They have quickly wrapped up a very long and quite boring film with the good old standby 'it was all a dream'! But to be 'clever' they said let's make it his dream, not hers! Lazy writing and would get an F in my creative writing class.
Nothing wrong with the acting performances. In fact, Rhona Mitra was exceptionally convincing. It's just the lazy writing that gets me. Or was it some executive poking their sticky fingers into the script? I can hear them now, "you know, it's nearly 2 hours long and we must wrap it up as soon as possible, otherwise we'll lose our audience (and our takings)." Perhaps we shall never know.
