And Soon the Darkness

A woman goes missing on a bike trip around Argentina and her friend desperately searches to find her.

This is a fairly familiar tale as two naive girls find out the hard way that if you're traveling around a strange country you need your wits about you.

The Argentinian setting at least makes a pleasant change from normal USA thrillers and there is some nice cinematography. Amber Heard does a good job as the woman looking for her friend evoking the sense of desperation you'd feel looking for someone in a foreign country. Karl Urban as the man helping her is likable if a little wooden.

Based on the relatively low IMDb rating ( currently 5.2) I wasn't expecting too much. In truth although nothing outstanding this is fairly engrossing and at times tense thriller. It does at least try and spring a few surprises that you don't see coming.

The ending is fairly predictable but this is still a fairly enjoyable ride.

"And Soon the Darkness" tells the story of two American girls on bicycle trip in Argentina who fall prey to a sinister captor.One of them suddenly vanishes and the other one must find her friend before it's too late.I am a big fan of extremely chilling Robert Fuest's original set in sunny France and this unneeded remake is nowhere nearly as suspenseful.In fact it's very dull with one-dimensional characters and the lack of surprises.The banality of the plot is simply overwhelming.Admittedly the scenic scenery of Argentinian countryside looks beautiful and desolate.The ruins of a town that flooded years ago and was abandoned provide some spooky atmosphere.Unfortunately the majority of the film is tedious and annoying.5 out of 10.Watch creepy British original instead.

Good things first, some very nice cinematography of the landscapes. Cool looking deserted town that looks like something from a nuclear holocaust. Now that's out of the the way, on to the bad...

Clichéd characters. The Ellie character is just plain annoying and whilst I'm not a prude her behaviour just invited trouble - she's in an unknown country surrounded by strangers and acts like a complete whore. The good guy character hints at some promise but is taken out of the equation too easily. No inventiveness applied here, nothing you haven't seen a million times. Plus the female leads look like famine victims, especially Ellie - neither of them would have had the strength to fight off any kind of attack. I don't know if this is what Hollywood considers sexy nowadays but if so you can keep it.

Only rent if there is absolutely nothing else.

And Soon the Darkness is a serviceable "vacation gone bad" thriller. The two lead actresses are VERY pleasant to look at. They bike and sunbathe and run very prettily. But the story is so predictable that it's almost comical, the bad guys and plot twists are apparent from the very beginning, and the protagonists make decisions so stupid that they almost seem to ask for the situation that they get involved in.

You should be very familiar with this kind of plot by now. A pair of attractive young American tourists (Odette Yustman and Amber Heard) get separated from their bike tour group in Argentina, meet some suspicious people, get separated from each other, and then one of them goes missing. They're not the smartest of tourists, that's for sure. 

Even if you can stand the by-the-numbers plot (for Odette Yustman, I can accept a LOT of clichés and obvious plot twists), And Soon the Darkness isn't a very thrilling thriller. There's not a lot of creativity or imagination to it, it's just the same movie we've seen before with some new faces. Watch it if you're a fan of Yustman or Heard, but don't expect a lot.

Two young attractive girls are biking through Argentina. They miss their bus to leave and stay a bit longer, when they get into a fight one of them leaves the other by herself. Big mistake, the girl gets herself kidnapped. Now her friend must try to find her.

The film never tries to elevate the genre that it is in, nor make it interesting. And Soon The Darkness manages to follow the footpath of every film before it, thus making it boring and predictable. First we have our two female characters. One is obviously a trouble maker and the rebel, while the other is more conservative. Guess which one gets herself kidnapped and which one has to rise to the occasion to get her friend back? The two female characters are played by Odette Yustman and Amber Heard, they fit their roles of attractive young females. The roles don't call for anything beyond that really.

The biggest letdown, had to be Karl Urban. His character is somewhat pointless. He doesn't advance the plot, his story line is left unfinished and Urban himself seems to be bored with the material. I like the guy, but he needs to pick better projects than this. Now that I have my biggest letdown out of the way, let me tell you where else this film went wrong.

The main reason for the girl getting kidnapped is due to the character's stupidity. The two girls get into a verbal argument, one storms off leaving the other. Who would leave their best friend in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country? On top of that, they state earlier that they were part of a bike tour group, but got lost from the pack? These point in the film had me scratching my head.

The film doesn't really know what it wants to be either, it reminded me a lot of Turistas. These characters are in a beautiful location, the film knows this and it is shot fairly well. There are bits of torture, yet the film never steers into that Hostel, or Saw territory. It comes off as very tame, I'm surprised it is even restricted. The film can easily be a PG-13 flick.

There are no surprises, you know from the moment you see the characters, who is responsible for what. The film tries to be clever to throw a curveball, but as I mentioned before, we have seen this type of film before and it's obvious where it was going. The film even lacks suspense. The kidnapping scene is poorly done, the climax is also a third rate cat and mouse game. The film fails to create any tension and that was a key element missing from here. Too many things were left unanswered for me. The two people who ran the hotel, do they know anything? Are they in on it? Does the wife try to warn them, but the husband put her in her place? Who knows.

And Soon The Darkness peaked my interest, but is failed to excite me. If Karl Urban was not in it, I would never have bothered with it. You should do yourself a favour too and skip it.