This movie had a great trailer, good actors, and a skeleton of a great story idea; however, when thrown together it just doesn't seem to mesh as well, which is unfortunate because the first 40 minutes of this film are top notch. When things start to come together, it becomes less so.
The story revolves around Breslin (Dennis Quaid) brought onto a case due to his forensic dental expertise about a series of murders that eventually involve the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the book of Revelations. Each death being somehow meaningful to each of the horsemen, Breslin slowly but surely puts the pieces together as each one is made known by his or her color and category.
In the film: War is red, Pestilence is black, Death is green, and famine is white (white being the leader). However, if one were to read the scripture, white is supposed to be pestilence and black famine, though there is no reason given nor even necessary why this was switched. What started to bother me was that as each horseman was revealed, they were all relatively the same age (a bunch of 18-20 year old young adults). This made the film implausible, as they were able to assemble together expensive rigs, possess extensive medical knowledge that confounded the forensic coroner with years of training, own several computers and media equipment, and be untraceable to law enforcement. I could have bought it if they had developed it a bit more.
The real flaw for me was that I saw the ending coming. They put way too much time and development into a particular storyline for it not to eventually lead somewhere, and it turns out I was right. That was a bit of a downer. But I loved the acting in the film, kudos to Ziyi Zhang for showing us that she can play a creepy villain, and the rest of the horsemen did their job well. I did feel Quaid was a tad too much and a little goofy with his "bad cop" approach.
The film is enjoyable though not memorable. It has elements of Se7en in it, but it just didn't quite reach it's greatness. Maybe if they had hired the same director.
The story revolves around Breslin (Dennis Quaid) brought onto a case due to his forensic dental expertise about a series of murders that eventually involve the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the book of Revelations. Each death being somehow meaningful to each of the horsemen, Breslin slowly but surely puts the pieces together as each one is made known by his or her color and category.
In the film: War is red, Pestilence is black, Death is green, and famine is white (white being the leader). However, if one were to read the scripture, white is supposed to be pestilence and black famine, though there is no reason given nor even necessary why this was switched. What started to bother me was that as each horseman was revealed, they were all relatively the same age (a bunch of 18-20 year old young adults). This made the film implausible, as they were able to assemble together expensive rigs, possess extensive medical knowledge that confounded the forensic coroner with years of training, own several computers and media equipment, and be untraceable to law enforcement. I could have bought it if they had developed it a bit more.
The real flaw for me was that I saw the ending coming. They put way too much time and development into a particular storyline for it not to eventually lead somewhere, and it turns out I was right. That was a bit of a downer. But I loved the acting in the film, kudos to Ziyi Zhang for showing us that she can play a creepy villain, and the rest of the horsemen did their job well. I did feel Quaid was a tad too much and a little goofy with his "bad cop" approach.
The film is enjoyable though not memorable. It has elements of Se7en in it, but it just didn't quite reach it's greatness. Maybe if they had hired the same director.