Collider (2013) Reviews

• Pitch Black This Ain't

  nammage2018-10-28

  What failed for me was the straight acceptance of the characters of their situation. That's the main flaw (for me) of this film and/or mini-series. The fact they accept it so quickly (a minute, at best) was mind-boggling (though for one of the 'kidnapped' it's understandable.) 80% of the world has been wiped out, there are these mutant creatures that have no explanation of who/what they are but in a nice (sarcasm) rip of another film, they're somewhat explained but not really. So, the elements of the story is: five (or six, I forget) people are transported to the future of 2018. Apparently, the Hadran Collider transported these people from around the world into an abandoned hotel (all of which speak perfect English), and they have to get back to to Collider to travel back to their own time period to save the world, oh and there's a scientist who not only just so happens to be a time-traveller himself but also happens upon the hotel where all these people are located but is later explained by a theory of his near the end of the film/series. So, this is a rip of many things but two things in particular: the film 'Pitch Black' (which I've somewhat explained but will explain further) and a theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho's of time travel; though their theory is more about being able to send messages to the past/future rather than people; which they posit could never be realistic, and their theory - in their and almost everyone else's opinion - is a long shot, at best. The plot: six people (really five, one dies by mutant attack) have to get from the hotel they're in to the Hadran Collider. They have to travel by night because of radiation and/or because it's so hot outside and there isn't enough suits for everyone to travel in the daylight in which will directly burn their skin off. So they travel in tunnels (why at night and not whenever? who knows...) but have to deal with mutants. Were they people, are they aliens? Who knows...it's not explained. Sound like the film 'Pitch Black'? You know...except for the mutants which in 'Pitch Black' were alien creatures. I think they rushed the beginning. If they expanded that, didn't rip off other films and TV shows etc., and made it more science than fiction, I think it would have been great. Oh well.

• Promising idea, but not well executed

  capcanuk2019-01-15

  The basic idea behind this film (series?.. I watched it in 4 "episodes" on Amazon) was intriguing, and the small budget didn't seem to hurt it too badly. It was an interesting take on a time-travel story, with the characters merely shifting a few years into the future to discover a world on the brink of collapse. However, and there's always a "however" to these reviews: Technically, the film suffered from being almost constantly shot in darkness. To the extent that events occurred that were completely lost in the murk leaving the viewer to wonder what they missed. The editing was also choppy, in a few spots creating what felt like holes in the story as we saw events switch back and forth too rapidly. This last one is a pet peeve of mine , so please take it with a grain of salt: I REALLY dislike shaky-cam. There were far too many "running down corridors in pitch black using weak flashlights" scenes that were filmed as though the cinematographer was in the middle of an epileptic seizure. The actors ranged from a bit better than "truly awful" to "not bad at all". However (there's that word again) the writing of the characters left more than a lot to be desired. There were too many idiots doing idiotic things for the group to have been "random" (which is implied from the start). Every single person in the group was deeply (some severely) flawed. These were not normal humans, they were caricatures. A film can get away with including one character like this, but making ALL of the characters have melodramatic backstories was pushing it. Especially for such a short film. There are "monsters", which we never really get to see (see previous comments regarding shaky-cam and choppy editing) nor are they ever really explained. And a word of warning: there's no end, really. We don't quite know whether events are repaired at the end or not. I didn't regret watching it, but I am grateful for Amazon's "fast-forward 10 seconds" button, because some scenes were interminable and pointless.