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Reviews
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (2016)
Can't recommend this.
This film was about 80% expository dialogue, 15% hammy drama and 5% action. The exposition part really drags the film down - scene after scene of two or three characters sitting or standing around explaining what's happening. I guess the editor realized this was too boring so he tried to mix things up by overlaying two expository scenes over one another (one sentence of one exposition, cut to one sentence of an "earlier" exposition, cut back to the first one, back and forth for on and on). This helps a little bit with the drag of the scenes but it also jerks the viewer between the sets confusingly. It also gets old quickly and it happens throughout the entire movie.
The hammy drama is unfortunately not entertaining enough. There seems to be only one group of actors who realized they're in a trashy sci fi with rubber monsters and acted accordingly (the prison buddies and antagonists that get about 5 minutes of screen time). All the other actors seem to think they are in the American Beauty and go for subtlety. The result is boring and a little jarring.
The action parts are actually good, but they are few and far between and they start and end abruptly as if they ran out of budget before they could properly complete them.
I don't recommend this movie. It's droning expository scenes will make your eyes glaze over and the people that made this were just competent enough to not make things unintentionally funny.
High-Rise (2015)
Failed attempt at art
I haven't read the book but judging it on its own merit I felt like this film tried to be something between The American Psycho and The Exterminating Angel. And it failed. It's lacking the subtlety of Bunuel's masterpiece as well as the wit of the latter, more modern film.
The Non-Subtlety: When Laing goes to a party above his class he is not just under-dressed, he is RIDICULOUSLY under-dressed. When he tries to help a the architect's wife with a malfunctioning control box, he doesn't just fail, he fails SPECTACULARLY. Scene after scene you get everything spelled out as clearly and unambiguously as possible and it gets tiresome very quickly. Was this not supposed to be an "art" kind of film? Was the director expecting only morons to come and see it?
The Lack of Wit: Even over-the-top films can still be enjoyable if they are handled right. The American Psycho is like that - the axe murder to the tune of Hip to be Square is fresh and whimsical, the business card scene was a FUN way to ridicule the main character's obsession. High-Rise on the other hand is just dull. I can't remember any one scene that I would want to rewatch just for the sake of it. Every one of them is just mechanistically chugging along with the plot.
On the bright side there are some interesting sets and costumes and certainly the actors are doing their best with what they are given so it's not an all-in-all terrible movie. It's just that what it is trying to do was done way better before - in the two films I mentioned above.