This is one of those stories where you may end up watching to the end to see what happens, and then feel disappointed that it ended in the most obvious way possible. It's unclear whether the filmmakers endorse the fatalistic ideas of the villain, or ran out of ideas, but I found myself wishing they had embraced the randomnness and irrationality expressed by one of the other characters, rather than marching to the finish.
After a while, the core concept of the film also strains believability - it's basically the predictive science of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation, but applied to individual humans - exactly the way Asimov's series speculated it wouldn't work. To give it credit, the film addresses this point, and for a little while you can almost believe it would work in this situation, but after a while, it gets silly.
The style and execution though, are totally fun. The film seems to be going for some mashup of the Twilight Zone, film noir, and maybe even surrealist films like Maya Deren's, and fully embraces the ability of modern CG to extend sets and render the darkest shadows and moodiest glimmers of light possible. The acting and camera work are both in your face, overdramatic, to what could be a campy degree, but it feels refreshingly different from our current era's conventions. While everything is clearly artificial, the rough edges never get in the way of the story.
When the credits roll, you'll see the same few names repeated over and over - maybe unnecessary, but it drives home the point of how much low budget, small crewed film making can achieve these days. I just wish they'd taken a few more risks and explored their ideas further.
After a while, the core concept of the film also strains believability - it's basically the predictive science of "psychohistory" from Asimov's Foundation, but applied to individual humans - exactly the way Asimov's series speculated it wouldn't work. To give it credit, the film addresses this point, and for a little while you can almost believe it would work in this situation, but after a while, it gets silly.
The style and execution though, are totally fun. The film seems to be going for some mashup of the Twilight Zone, film noir, and maybe even surrealist films like Maya Deren's, and fully embraces the ability of modern CG to extend sets and render the darkest shadows and moodiest glimmers of light possible. The acting and camera work are both in your face, overdramatic, to what could be a campy degree, but it feels refreshingly different from our current era's conventions. While everything is clearly artificial, the rough edges never get in the way of the story.
When the credits roll, you'll see the same few names repeated over and over - maybe unnecessary, but it drives home the point of how much low budget, small crewed film making can achieve these days. I just wish they'd taken a few more risks and explored their ideas further.
