Arcadia

The concept behind the movie is one that's been done many times. It's easy to make it interesting and exciting. And yet this movie still failed. The characters and setting is flat and underdeveloped. And the ending is just... bad.

The biggest problem is the first hour or so is just bland and boring. We get a brief introduction to the main character and one person he cares about for a couple minutes and then it skips ahead six years and we're left to figure out what happened on our own through clues. Basically the whole movie relies on the idea that you already know and care about these characters and their situation... except you don't. And they aren't interesting. The only interesting characters are side characters... and they aren't that interesting either.

But I digress. After an hour of nothing really, the movie picks up a little. But then we have these two major events happen that could lead to some interesting things. At the very least we should get a glimpse of what happens after to the main character and society. But we don't. We get a very confusing scene of a woman watering plants for about a minute and it's over. There's no conclusion. It feels like the end of the first episode to a series where there is supposed to be so much more and this was just the introduction. Except it's not. It's a movie. And there should be more.

Basically, it feels like they just ran out of actors and money and time and ... everything? So they just shot this and decided that was good enough to put out.

The concept isn't bad. But unless you like sitting for a hour of boredom before getting somewhere and then not even getting an ending, it's not worth it. I'd probably be giving it one star except I'm a bit of a sucker for the concept and I did manage to watch the whole thing... But it's not good. Wasted potential.

In the future, a disease has spread around the world which leaves people dead upon reaching forty. After the chaos of wars and governmental collapses, a new totalitarian regime has risen in London which only offers a cure to its people inside the safe city of Arcadia. There is a lottery to allow people into Arcadia. Charlie works for Arcadia and is desperate to gain entry for himself and his daughter. He is assigned to capture Adam Black, a member of resistance movement 'Free Care'.

This is a British low budget sci-fi indie with some simple effects. This is mostly filmed in what looks like suburban homes and in the woods. It makes the high tech sci-fi story stall. It doesn't help with the sound quality either. The acting is best described as functional amateurism. The most important aspect is the premise of the movie. The writers are obviously trying to say something about health care. It's trying to be a high-concept sci-fi but the concept needs some more work. It doesn't really get pass a secondary questioning. If Arcadia actually exists, the world would be at its door either threatening it or begging for it to share the cure. This movie construction is simply not built properly. It's a step above film school but a big step below good festival material.

Well more an OK film and a 5 from me.

The best part of this film for me was the script and overall story. As the script and story itself was very good, certainly deserving of a far bigger budget and better design and location shooting.

I'm not going to analyze the film scene by scene as clearly there is script padding. But it's a reasonable and thought provoking realistic vision on how some may well eventually envisage the future of mankind in a way in the future when population numbers may well start to outstrip resources to feed it. Conspiracy theorists will say this will happen in the future to try and control the population.

Acting was OK, certainly a miss match of acting abilities between some of the actors (maybe reasons for that as seemed a rushed production at times). Sadly production values, well more the budget was seriously lacking with this film. And what could have been more a 7 out of 10 for me is sadly a more realistic 5.

This movie was solid.

I do not understand the low reviews.

The plot is sound, even with the deep politics. The acting is decent. The dialogue is not bad.

This film relates well to COVID-19 at its worst; so, I figure the reviews would be great from US Republicans and Democrats.

The story is great and pretty unique. The acting is good. It's a little low budget but all the elements are there. I really liked it.