This film is such a shame. It had everything going for it, decent production values, visually interesting and a unique idea. All of this gets turned into a missed opportunity by a poorly executed script full of cliques, casual misogyny and lazy dialogue.
The main problem is that main characters (the brother) are just boring. The film doesn't give you a single reason to like or care for them. They're not unlikable people but they're far from being interesting or emotionally engaging enough for you go on this journey with them. Nor are they cool or charismatic enough for you to live a power fantasy through them. On top of this, all the minor characters are totally interchangeable and forgettable (which the expectation of the goofy girl).
The main plot (until the monster plot takes over) is about the leads working out whether or not to sell their family farm. Something you don't really want for a film that's touting it self as as 'the biggest Australian action film of 2016'. I'm guessing they didn't catch the absurdly silly 'Gods of Egypt'.
You would think that this plot would just be a mcguffin so a family drama can unfold between the brothers but
nope. And this's the problem. Internally, you have no idea who the two leads or what they really want. Don't get me wrong, characters in these type of films needs to be too deep but they do need some dept. Even Max is the 'light on plot' 'Fury Road' had internal desires and motivations. I.e. testing if he could trust and connect with humans again. These characters are just uninspiring cliques who spurt plot points until the monster turns up.
The first two acts just have too many 'talking head' scenes that could have been edited right down. But in its defense, the third act is pretty good. It's where all the action, CG and set pieces are but by the time it came around, I'd I'd stopped caring.
To be honest, the film really didn't bother me too much. We've all seen bad films. What inspired the review was the Q&A after the film in which the director spend the entire time attempting to humble brag about how great he and his film is. He used every opportunity to mention that it was a "Good, fun action film" It's really not. It's a technically sound, bloated film with a bad script.
It also made it perfectly clear he's an 'independent filmmaker and not Hollywood". I think that was clear to everyone from all the actors from 'Home and Away'.
And he really going to leave his mark on the Australian film industry; not with scripts like this he isn't.
The film fails at it's aspirations of being a light and fun popcorn film. Everyone clearly has talent and were trying there best. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but there are so many other great Australian genre film you really should be watching before this.
