★½
“Batteries not included.”
For whatever reason – presumably misguided stylistic reasons – the great bulk of the film is buried in darkness. Seriously, three-quarters of the film feels like it’s illuminated solely by natural lighting. And given it mostly takes place underground, in rooms with no windows, this is a major problem. The movie reaches its literally darkest moment during an early scene where the camera pans over an underlit set to an even more underlit door where someone has entered to deliver a message. You cannot see who it is. You just hear a disembodied voice, before the camera pans back. It’s a horrible mis-step, whether due to poor shooting, a poor transfer, or a bit of both. It largely dooms the movie, to the point where even an energetic final third is unable to rescue proceedings. For how can you begin to enjoy something you can’t see?
The story takes place in a future world, now divided into ten sectors. A small fraction of the population, known as “deviants”, have developed superpowers, becoming the subject of fear and hatred by regular humans. For popular amusement, there’s an annual competition in which each of the ten sectors capture and nominate their top fighting deviant. They are then taken to a central location and made to battle each other to the death, in a globally-televised contest run by Dominion Harvey (Roberts), which is watched by just about everyone else. So, basically: The Hunger Games crossed with X-Men. On a very, very much smaller budget.
The main heroine is Trikalypse (Gerhardy), one of the ten combatants taking part in this year’s model. Though for the first hour, it’s more chatty, as she bonds with another of the fighters – inevitably, of course, one she ends up fighting later on. But it is refreshingly female-oriented, with both of the finalists being women, as well as the super-boss that the winner then has to take on. However, the film then ends – literally going to the end-credits – just as that fight starts. Fortunately, I didn’t watch this until after the sequel was also available, otherwise I would have been very annoyed. It’s the sort of cliff-hanger you expect from a free e-book on Amazon, not an actual feature film.
Despite the lack of originality, it’s a decent concept and I’d have forgiven this, if the fights had actually been better than mediocre. Instead, as well as the lighting problem, they’re not very well-choreographed, though do have occasional moments which are somewhat effective. I was most impressed with Cruz as bad bitch Dekay, who had the presence, the look and the apparent skills, to keep me at least somewhat interested. But this was small consolation for something which, far too often, crossed the boundary into being genuinely unwatchable. It even managed to waste the talents of Bill Oberst, who shows up for exactly one scene – though at least that’s in daylight – while Tom Sizemore also manages to cameo his way through the darkness. I’m not exactly eagerly looking forward to the sequel, but it’s there…
Dir: Joe Lujan
Star: Jackie Gerhardy, Lindsey Cruz, Eric Roberts, Taylor Kilgore