Michael's Movie Grade: C+
A pretty good but far from great Neo-Noir.
The best thing about this movie is the sci-fi world in which it takes place. It is clear the filmmakers put a lot of thought and effort into this world. While it certainly shows echoes from worlds in other sci-fi movies, there is enough here to make the world feel like its own. This world is very cleverly thought out and even upstages the film's story at times. Not only is it creative but it looks beautiful, making this film a joy to look at. The story itself is a rather typical film-noir story and there is nothing that we haven't seen before. However while lacking the depth of the best film-noir inspired stories it does its job quite well. We become emotionally attached enough to care and want to see what happens next. Because of this the film never bores, even when its faults are most evident. Adding to this is that there are some plot twists that are actually pretty clever and unexpected.
The worst thing about this movie is the dialogue. There is a lot of clumsy dialogue that even great performances from the cast can't make work. This dialogue at best sounds forced and at worst pretentious. The narration is the worst contender giving the film an unneeded and unearned feeling of self importance. There is not enough depth here to make such dialogue necessary. This film also tries to insert commentary on contemporary issues, but this commentary is never used well enough to make us think about these issues in a new light and can feel intrusive when brought up in dialogue.
This will not live up to the film-noirs of old, but it has enough to keep an audience entertained for its runtime.
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