Project Eden

Two thirds of this was an OK mystery thriller - low budget - but suddenly it lurched into a different genre, which I will call "Pseudo religious mashup weird (But in a bad way)" I wasn't going to post this, as I prefer to share good experiences, but eventually decided a warning was appropriate! A grudging 2 - mostly for the Imagine Dragons outro music! :)

Incredible rubbish. I really don't know what else to write about it. The prompter won't let me stop at just incredible rubbish. It tells me my review is too short but there is nothing else to say about it.

When Evelyn Green (Emily Fradenburgh) is three-month-pregnant, she receives a letter from the American government informing that her husband Adam died in the war. She delivers the baby Thomas, who is catatonic and has been interned for six years. The doctors tell her that Thomas will not recover and suggest that he should be submitted to a euthanasia. Out of the blue, Evelyn is visited by a stranger, Ethan Varick (Peter Christian Hansen) , who tells her that he had a daughter with the same disorder and the government killed his wife and daughter. Further, he tells her that two men posing as FBI Agents will look for her on the next morning, and that he will be in a place in town waiting for her. In the morning, agent David Roth (Mike Dopud) and his partner come to Evelyn's home and snoop around looking for Ethan. She flees and meets Ethan, and together they find evidence of a man in the north of the country that might have information about the conspiracy of the government involving Thomas. But the relentless David Roth is chasing them down and will not give up.

"Project Eden" is a movie with a promising story about government conspiracy most of the time. Suddenly, when Evelyn faints, it becomes a mess and changes the genre with a great confusion. Further, there is no ending of the story, and the viewer is disappointed to see a film without conclusion. Was it supposed to be the pilot of a series? My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Projeto Eden" ("Project Eden")

There's enough good photography, well edited, occasional profound sound, and well above average acting, with personable leads, villeins and characterisations, well cast, to make this a reasonable enjoyable experience provided your expectations are not beyond indie. The plot is at first paper-thin, with what seemed to me to be holes, with a script to match, but not so much you'd call it a B-movie. The opening sequence, for example, isn't recalled at all in the picture, and is, I suppose, some sort of segue way? (forgive my lack of vocabulary there!) Unfortunately it's a little predictable with things happening a tad slowly until the third act when the viewer can start to reengage, with profound plot twists and unexpected new horizons. It reminded me a bit of Vanilla Sky. It's that sort of 'what's going on'. As this movie leads to a second instalment I have to reserve judgement from here. The concept is sound, but, like many indie films, one often wonders if the project got the go ahead too early, and may well have benefited from more pre-production.

95% of the movie was Evelyn on the run. Last 5% was hogwash. Basically no ending.