Absolon - Virus mortale

I think this movie has enormous potential as a cult film. I was baffled by the first half of the movie. I found myself laughing out loud at the second half. You could almost hear the director coaching the lead actress - "Okay, in this scene you are once again feeling warm and feel the need to take off your jacket and arch your back." I half expected the actors to start laughing at themselves as they all seemed to be reading the terrible dialogue off cue cards. I would like to think this movie was made in under 24 hours and there was no time for writing, reading, or memorizing a script.

Even though the story was basically over after an hour, the plot dragged along - just to make this into the feature-length category. Even the actors and cameraman seemed bored with the actual plot. I have never seen a movie make more ridiculous use of sunglasses, hair extensions, and gratuitous chest shots.

I dare you to sit through the whole thing.

With a plot that's lifted a great deal from The Omega Man, Absolon is a decent science fiction film about a post apocalyptic world where our lack of concern for the environment has nearly wiped the world out with a virus.

Said virus was said to be lurking beneath the Amazon rain forest which we completely wiped out and it in turn did a job of humankind. Those that survive depend for their survival on a drug called Absolon. Like AZT with AIDs, the drug inhibits the virus, but affects no cure.

One thing that this crisis has caused is a collapse of all governments in the world. We've finally achieved one world because there aren't enough of us to worry about racial or religious or language differences. What is now society is just haves and have nots, haves being defined as those who have access to as much Absolon as the need.

Local cop Christopher Lambert is put on a case involving the killing of a scientist who was on the track of a cure, The world police is also interested, but when Lambert starts asking too many questions especially after the case appears solved, they get nervous. Real nervous because their head cop, Lou Diamond Phillips tries to kill Lambert and he's on the run with scientist Kelly Brook.

The film moves along at a nice pace and quite frankly I'm surprised no one has seen the parallels in this film with the current AIDS crisis. There is another good performance in this by Ron Perlman, better known now as Hellboy, who is the industrialist controlling the supply of Absolon. He is one evil dude.

It's not a great film, but I don't think Absolon quite warranted the trashing it got from some reviewers.

OK - seen this one this afternoon with my girlfriend. As usual, Brad Mirman delivers an interesting Cyberpunk-like script (even if some plot- holes are "intriguing" - to say the least), as usual, Christopher Lambert is the only one in the cast to be a little bit involved. The photo is okay too and the score has its moments (even if the "Absolon Theme" by Howie B. is almost without interest). Some good FX (very few in fact).

But for his directional debut, David Barto overused already outdated effects (slow/fast effects in the editing for example), made some serious continuity mistakes (the car chase in the 2/3 of the movie for example) and directed it like a poor TV-movie. That's it : Absolon is no more than a (very cheap at times) TV-film : the female cast is terrible - even if enjoyable to see, Lou Diamond Philips looks like he's not really enjoying his part (he needs a new agent) and overplays it, Ron Perlman plays it simply bored (i'm sure he was on the set one day only : he always stays at the same place). Some secondary characters are far more better (dialogues, characterization), that is counter-balancing a little bit but not enough to save the film from oblivion.

I'm very sorry to type this but some things are definitely missing here : a cast, a budget (twice would have been enough i think - how much it cost : no more than 5M$ i'd say), some more concerned "stars" (with the exception of Lambert), a good editor and finally a director with some idea and motivation.

The biggest mystery about ABSOLON is how the filmmakers managed to get 33 people to register and then give the film a perfect "10" score. It's ridiculous, of course, and I'm willing to bet even star Christopher Lambert would agree.

ABSOLON is yet another low-budget film with minimal resources, and yet it seems unaware of this fact since the movie is set "sometime in the near future". I.e. Things are just similar enough that the filmmakers can get by, but there are differences such as a VR and an artificial intelligence computer that lets us know it's "the future". Of course the VR only shows up in the first 3 minutes, and the artificial intelligence computer is basically a woman talking through a speaker.

ABSOLON is not an awful movie, but it is a bad movie. It's basically a string of cliches and "Evil Corporation" formulas thrown into scenes of Lambert dodging assassins led by a cheesy Lou Diamond Phillips, now trying to make himself the King of Low-Budget Cheesy Villains.

Skip this film.

3 out of 10.

As far as direct-to-video sci-fi, it hardly gets worse than Absolon, and that's saying a whole lot. As with about 97.9% of the people who have seen this movie, I rented it because Christopher Lambert was in it. This movie was bad even by Christopher Lambert direct-to-video standards. The plot is a ludicrous story of viruses and big business in the "future". This future doesn't look very futuristic, but this is explained away in the prologue by telling the viewer that because so many people died in a plague, the world's population has enough goods to last another 100 years. I guess that's why everyone drives 2001 Tauruses and Explorers then, not budget constraints, right? Lambert comes out OK here, as he once again rises above his awful material to give what is at the very least an acceptable performance. Other than that, watch out. Lou Diamond Phillips hams it up like never before, and even Ron Perlman is stunningly awful in his small role (I guarantee he wasn't on set for more than a day or two, as his character never leaves his desk, and about halfway through the movie he stops interacting in person with the other characters, instead using video conferencing). Additionally, I'm pretty sure that in this future, anyone can be a cop, because one of Lambert's fellow cops looks like she is about 10 minutes removed from a Ramones show (with dark red streaks in her jet-black hair) and another appears to be wearing some sort of Indiana Jones Halloween costume (fedora included). Kelly Brook is gorgeous as Lambert's love interest, although her acting talent is limited as is her willingness to do nude scenes apparently. I've never felt so teased by a female character's lack of nudity in my life.

The direction is awful, I'm sure half of the people that read this, if not more, could make a better movie. Barto uses some of the most ridiculous editing techniques I've ever seen, including an incredibly obnoxious fast-forward/slo-mo combination that hurts my eyes every time it comes on screen. Even worse than the direction is the music. It's one thing to have the John Carpenter-esquire simplistic synth score, it's quite another to try to make it sound complex. The score was obviously recorded entirely on a synthesizer on "Strings" setting to emulate an orchestra, and the effect is hilarious, giving every second of music in the film a Casio Keyboard quality. This is not the only problem with the sound, however, as I swear there was one point in a chase sequence when Brook moved her mouth as if speaking and no speech accompanied it.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen, and maybe THE worst, but I'm giving it 3/10 because it is unintentionally funny to the point of actually being watchable all the way through, if only to wait for the next misstep.