Ares

Ares is not the kind of film I'd normally watch, I've just had a spate of good luck with French cinema lately so hoped for the best.

It tells the story of a struggling futuristic France where 15 million people are unemployed and even more homeless. Prize fighting has become big business and our story follows a washed up fighter reeled back in by big pharma and their legal enhancement supplements.

Despite the subject matter this isn't the brainless macho action feature you'd expect, it's fairly smart and paints a grim dystopian future where people are desperate while the top 1% manipulate them.

I appreciated everything they did here, though it's certainly not my kind of film that made something out of a very played out formula.

Good writing saves it to a degree and I'd say this is a watchable affair for anyone who likes their action films with a hint of intelligence.

The Goood:

Well written

Fairly smart little film

The Bad:

The brainless aspects still exist

Not as polished as it could have been

Ares is an interestingly prophetic sci fi film from France.

Given the rise of corporate control and big pharma, its not too much of a stretch to envision a dystopian future where people are cannon fodder for drug dollars.

This is an action film first and foremost but its an intelligent one. The premise it starts from offers up one possible grim future that's quite plausible and builds from solid, rational foundations.

Perhaps the only downside of this film is it does feel a little abrupt at times, with an ending that could have had more impact had it been handled with a little more care.

Nonetheless, this is a quality production I can recommend. Seven out of ten from me.

That's the kind of picture that the Hollywood crap factories will unfortunately never give us, concerning the characters, the scheme and especially the ending. A very very pessimistic but realistic tale about the future of the human kind. This scheme may make the audience think of George Orwell's 1984 or Yves Boisset's LE PRIX DU DANGER. A true depressing portrait of an anti hero, a man who has nothing to lose after his sister death, a desperate man ready at anything to save his nieces against a powerful and gigantic pharmaceutic company which wants to rule the world. That's a gloomy and brutal, bloody story, not for the squeamish. Ole Rapace already played in another anticipation stuff, a mini series, SECTION ZERO, which I have already talked about and where Rapace gave a similar performance. He is an underrated actor, very convincing.

Like Blade Runner it's a dystopian future, and in this is mass human experimentation by heartless corporations, as well a brutal prize fighting. But it's not a martial arts movie. It's a movie about the sacrifices that one man makes to try to save his family. I thought it extremely well done and compelling, and somewhat sad. There is a hint of the original French revolution throughout, which is interesting. The setting is Paris.

So many crap movies out there get high ratings and movies like this one are down voted and buried. I saw this movie but accident on my cable TV an boy am glad I didn't change channel. Thumbs up to the makers.