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Nice Concept but Muddled Storytelling (WARNING - SPOILERS)

posted 16 years ago by avetissian
6 replies | jump to latest

I attended the Arizona premier of "The Gene Generation" at Tucson's Loft Cinema, a gala event ably hosted by the good people at the non-profit independent Loft and attended by the film's cast and crew.

This concept piece had a nice idea but got lost due to poor story telling, along with under-developed characters. It was also far too derivative, liberally lifting visual concepts directly from such films as BladeRunner, Sin City and numerous other films.

The paper thin plot is of one Michelle, seductively played by Bai Ling, an assasin in the city of Olympia, which has been segregated from the rest of humanity due to a genetic incident at HaydenCorp (can you say "UnbrellaCorp"). The 3+ minutes of plot exposition at the beginning of the film, done in voice over by Christian (Alec Newman) a former scientist for HaydenCorp now also trapped in Olympia, did little to help establish a clear story arc. Michelle's job is to kill "gene hackers", people who try to obtain genetic material from others in order to get clearance to leave the city (a weird conglomeration of Gattaca and Casablanca plot elements). We only see her commit two such assasinations during the course of the film so we get no sense of whether she enjoys this or is in the least bit conflicted or even whether her targets are really bad guys. It isn't until much too late in the film that it is clear that she is trying to earn enough money to buy her and her younger brother Jackie (Perry Shen), who inexplicably does not share her accent, out of Olympia. Jackie, a degenerate gambler, has gotten on the wrong side of debt with local club/casino owner Randall (Daniel Zacappa) who plays the role in a Dennis Hopper-esque over the top performance. Jackie steals a genetic device from Christian in order to get funds to clear his debt, thus bringing the characters together in a terribly contrived story line. A romance develops between Michelle and Christian, the only point of which appears to be to allow for a gratuitous and enormously unerotic sex scene featuring Bai Ling's nipples, which I found to be terribly uncomfortable given that the star was sitting three rows behind me. Throw in a confusing cameo by Faye Dunaway (who appears to have been paid for a half day film shoot and voice over work), muddy sound (which in fairness may have been the theater), plot contrivances such has having Christian removed from the story by 36 hours of unconsciousness as a result of a simple round-house kick to the jaw, a genetic effect which has octopus tentacles sprout from people with no explained reason, overwrought punk club scenes look like they were filmed with a consumer grade digital video camera, and this film was a mess. Except for Jackie and his sidekick Mouse (Ethan Cohen) the characters lacked sufficient dimension to care about.

My 15-year old son, whom one would expect is the target audience for a film of this type, didn't even like it. A direct quote from him "It moved slower than 'There will be Blood', even the fight scenes were boring." Not a good sign.

I believe this film would benefit from less reliance on effects, more complete development of the principal characters and a complete sound re-edit before LionsGate trots it out to the local cine-odeon-mega plex, where they cannot depend upon the tattoed and pierced neo-punk goth scene kids to give it the benefit of the doubt. And lest anyone think that the last comment reflected any kind of prejudicial judgement of the film on the basis of the audience I have a liberal collection of tattoes and gauged ears myself.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Thornwind 15 years ago

In his defense (Pearry's) they cut about 45 minutes off of it so they could tag it as an action film.
Hopefully he'll have more control over Necromantia.

[–] abstract_daddy 15 years ago

Even though the setting and style are derivative, they could have turned this into a straightforward action movie instead. Bai Ling in those outfits, just beating and shooting the *beep* out of people? Hell yes. But the movie is an unfocused mess with no direction or point, and there isn't a whole lot of action either. Most of the budget was wasted on unnecessary CGI shots and effects, and what you have left is characters just travelling between a couple of rooms and not really accomplishing anything or moving the plot forward. And then they all abruptly end in the same place and kill each other. Huh.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

tru dat , All the external shots were useless and confusing for me. I could never work out where anyone was

[–] Naldoman 14 years ago

I think your review is 100% on the mark, and I don't have any piercings or special fondness for "steampunk" whatever that is.

- Resident Evil
- Blade Runner
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
- Alien

Whatever...all the visual swipes are so blatant it's hard to get a grip on what THIS story is supposed to be about. In every scene, I had the urge to scream "Once more, with FEELING!" because there seemed to be no effort at acting or characterization in the performances.

I'm glad you suggested an audio re-dub because I couldn't hear half the dialogue clearly, and the other half of the time, the environments lacked background noise and ambience -- the club scene in particular.

I guess the only question that remains is did Bai Ling give you a nipple-slip at the theater? Maybe that would have made it worthwhile....

[–] maturity 8 years ago

Randall is the most loathsome, disgusting and vile villain ever. His dialogue centers on urine and excrement - threatening to make Jackie be his bitch and eat out of his butt until he chokes. I loved when he told Jackie "you've pissed me off too many times, so now I'm gonna piss on you." He's low class scum of the highest order and makes Jabba the Hutt seem classy.