Rent Zone 414 on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Bryan Edward Hill
Directed by: Andrew Baird
Starring: Guy Pearce, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Jonathan Aris, Travis Fimmel
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
Set in the near future, private detective David Carmichael is hired by eccentric businessman Marlon Veidt to track down his missing daughter. David teams up with Jane, a highly advanced A.I. to solve the mystery.
Verdict
This is a rather bland murder mystery with a sci-fi setting. It seems to be imitating Blade Runner, but I'm not sure that's right as so much of the design and exploration of themes are lacking. This movie is lifeless. The prospect of the setting is intriguing, but the execution isn't. The story could be fun as this has a ton of potential, but it's all wasted.
Skip it.
Review
Guy Pearce usually picks interesting roles, and I guess that's the case here, but this movie is so boring that Pearce can't do much here.
This seems like a b-movie version of Blade Runner, but it misses the questions that movie asked. I get this movie is on a budget and can't invoke the style and employ extensive CGI, but I don't know why this keeps showing a Ford Crown Vic cab with no effort to make the cab futuristic in a city set in the future.
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| Guy Pearce plays David Carmichael |
This includes a shocking introduction just to get the audience's attention. That was part of an interview process where David Carmichael (Guy Pearce) is hired for a detective job. His employer is a rich guy that invented or sells cyborgs. His daughter is missing. There's a lot of exposition to the point that I quit paying attention.
David must go to Zone 414 that is a district only for cyborgs. We get a scene of a shady person buying a cyborg seemingly for pleasure. It seems pointless at the time, and less so later. Zone 414 is the seedy underbelly of this city, well... it's the only part of the city I see so I don't know if that's true. It took me a minute to realize this was a robot only district, probably because I almost fell asleep during the lengthy exposition.
David seems to dislike robots. If you guessed that he's going to end up working with a robot, you'd be right. It's cliche. He first must track down Jane (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz), a robot prostitute, I think. The movie tries to develop both characters, but nothing it tried was ever interesting. This is little more than a b-movie.
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| Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz and Olwen Fouéré play Jane and Royale |
This movie could make a commentary on the state of humans and the future, but this doesn't say much. It just points out how robots are everywhere. David is the one guy that hates the future and robots.
This movie is lifeless and dull. I get this was probably a budget movie, and the sets feel like it with empty streets. It's a derivative movie that could have been better. This movie shows a cab so many times. While we see it at an overhead angle, it's clear this is a Crown Vic that wasn't dressed up to look futuristic. The reveal of the mystery comes out of nowhere. David is aided by the villain that just wants to brag about his crimes. The answer is set up poorly. It wouldn't be a bad twist if the character had more development.
It's a movie that when it ended, I just didn't care. This movie does nothing to hook you outside of the setting, and even that isn't much.
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