Eternity is the most apt movie title possible: the movie is so painful it feels like it is never going to end. In fact the the movie is so bad that it actually causes a certain amount of discomfort that renders the viewer susceptible to some form of post traumatic stress that lingers for days. Eternity may as well have been sponsored by psychiatrists as a means of procuring new business. In fact even Ed Wood may have been impressed as it gives "Planet 9 From Outer-space" a run for its money.
The South African film industry has shown repeatedly that it can produce movies of a very high standard but I fear this one may well have set it back by a good couple of years.
The acting is so insipid it might well have been enacted by puppets ala "Team America" and quite frankly the casting director would be greatly recommended to remove this movie from his/her CV. Even the prominent and substantial SA actors are ripped to shreds by a screen play that should have rather been used as a door-mat. Thankfully, most of them have VERY minor roles save David James who appears to have to been instructed to over-articulate, gesticulate and every other "ate" as if it were a stage production. Coming off the heals of "District 9" one can only be disappointed and wonder why he took the role in the first place.
Aside from being insanely contrived and jumping on a well overburdened horse of vampire tales, Eternity just looks cheap and unpolished. The overriding feeling is a constant sense of absurdly abstract and desperate extrapolation - as if the movie was made whilst being scripted - which renders the viewer uncomfortable and quite frankly confused. The editing for example is so poor that in one scene one can notice blatantly that the camera lens had not been wiped clean leaving dirty smudges reminiscent of a cricket game with a rain delay.
To make a successful action movie about mythical beasts requires a number of key ingredients - the primary one being budget. Throughout the whole movie one feels that the actors are but a few clips away from picking up the cameras themselves and creating a docudrama such as "The Blair Witch Project." In fact had the movie attempted to be gritty and unrefined then it would have helped it somewhat... if barely. Instead "Eternity" just looks cheap with terrible effects and action sequences that might as well have been made in a teenager's basement playing a first person PC game. And moreover, when one factors in the percentage of the movie dedicated to "action" including completely irrelevant and inane montages, it is stupefying that they are so bad as the dialogue is barely non-existent - save a few hisses and scowls from the actors in unconvincing make-up and the mind-numbing conversations between the male and female protagonists.
There are two redeeming aspects of the movie. One is an unexpected but mightily appreciated occurrence at the end. The other being that one of South Africa's most respected and accomplished actresses has a very fleeting role in the movie - which intentional or not was an excellent career choice.
Eternity tries to be a South African "Twilight" on what could only have been a shoe-string budget and as such it flops like a whale as it strikes the ocean after a brief moment of flight folly. How the script was ever given the green light is beyond my comprehension.
A film of meager budget needs to create substance in its own way and one of the best examples of this is "Lost in Translation" which is a narrative that engages on the most natural of levels. Had "Eternity" spent less time trying to be an action movie and more time developing a real story line and real and relatable characters then maybe, just maybe, it could have been about OK. As it stands it is the only movie I have ever considered walking out on and in retrospect should probably have sneaked over to another cinema and watched a 3D movie even without the glasses.
