2009 faux-documentary
Rating: 12/20
Plot: Documentary filmmakers uncover a secret organization that's involved in moon inhabitation, time travel, and sunglasses.
This certainly isn't short on ideas. This is the only film from writer/director Matthew Avant, and I suspect it's because he shot his wad and used every single idea he ever had. It actually nearly all comes together in a way that's almost satisfying, but it's ultimately a little too sloppy and too predictable. It really seemed as if Avant had trouble making up his mind about whether he wanted to make a found footage flick, since those are all the rage, or a fake documentary, and this sort of settles somewhere in the middle of the two. So although the myriad of ideas are intriguing, a conspiracy theorist's wet dream, it just doesn't work.
These sorts of movies live or die with the acting, and the work in this is inconsistent. It's at its best when the actors playing scientists or researchers or former cult members are providing interview snippets. You could see those and maybe believe this is a real documentary. When it gets into the found footage area, however, it's not always convincing. I don't think the leads--the documentary filmmakers or the older gentleman who gives them a lot of information--are terrible. In fact, the older guy who plays the former cult member and moon inhabitant is really pretty good. Some of the sunglassed, Agent Smith-looking heavies and especially the overly-frantic talk show caller took me out of the experience.
Something else that took me out of this experience was the music. There was far too much music in this, and there arguably should have been no music at all.
I'm semi-impressed with what Avant was able to do with probably not a lot of money, but a lot of its issues could have been fixed during the writing process.
No comments:
Post a Comment