Absolon

I watched this movie mainly because of the actors that were in it, namely Lambert, Perlman, Philips. The plot is not entirely original (which ones are?) but interesting in detail and certainly good enough to support a good movie. Had the budget been bigger, this move could have been so much more. Fight sequences are the worst part - silly and unbelievable. If you removed most of them the movie would be much better. The cast are mostly good actors but the script and other aspects of the movie let them down - they mostly do the best they can with what they have been given. Lou Diamond Philips would have had more impact if he had toned down his performance - its too over the top. I tend to blame the script/director for this rather than the actor. He certainly has the looks and talent to play a great bad guy - but hes not great here. Of the three name actors he comes out worse. (If you want to see what he can really do Courage Under Fire.) Perlman does well in his rather limited role. Lambert is OK some of the time, but rather wooden the rest. Brook is great too look at and sort of OK but the script gives her no opportunity to stretch herself. I liked the actress who plays the Scotts partner - an interesting performance. She looks great too. I hope to see her more often (I resisted the temptation to say "see more of her" - it could be misconstrued). In many ways a bad movie but it has some unexpected good points that kept me watching despite the lows. One commenter on this forum says watching this movie is a waste of time. Perhaps, but then really watching any movie is strictly speaking a waste of time. This is especially so today, when hardly any modern movies have anything but laughable plots. There are many worse ways to waste your time than this movie.

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.

In the future, all money has been obliterated in exchange for a chronic medicine which treats (but doesn't cure) a universal plague that everyone suffers from. However when an actual cure for the plague is produced, the government wants to kill the scientist due to the shock it would have on the economy, Christopher Lambert, Lou Diamond Phillips and Ron Perlman are aboard to make this more watchable than it would be. Absolon is a straight to video movie (Obviously) which I watched on the Sci-Fi channel, for some reason I have an uncanny ability to seek out the STV movies independent from them and some how avoid their made for Sci-Fi movies, consider it luck I guess. However this being said Absolon is a competently made B.movie but it is also clichéd, unexciting and dreary. Lambert is actually not too shabby and there are moments when you suspect that the movie is going to open up and get really interesting but alas it never does. It always comes close to a boil but it loses steam due to an uninspired gunfight or something gratuitous to it's plot. Had Absolon concentrated on it's futuristic dwellings this would have been good, however because it lacks atmosphere the movie feels ordinary and by the numbers. Still fairly watchable in a low expectations kind of way.

* * out of 4-(Fair)

At the start and the end of the movie, an old man is telling the story many years in the future.

In 2007, the Neurological Degeneration Syndrome virus is first isolated. Eventually, because all the rain forests are cut down, the virus, transmitted through the air, kills 5 billion people. Only after a treatment called Absolon is found is the disease stopped, but Absolon is not a cure. And everyone needs it to live, and everyone gets it from a company called UPC. In this new world of the future, the only currency is time. Every time someone pays for a product, the price is referred to in minutes, hours, days, etc.

A scientist who has found the cure for NDS is murdered, and Det. Norman Scott and his partner Ruth (who seems to take hair care advice from Kelly Osbourne) are assigned to the case. Since UPC seems to have a monopoly on the product the whole world needs in order to stay alive, it would be in their best interest if the cure were not found. And the WJD seem to be like the FBI, but they are evil.

Det. Scott spends most of his time with Claire, a scientist who is also working on a cure. Occasionally, they are funny. UPC head Murchison and his goons (who include Walters) want them to fail and are willing to kill. And there is a new twist: Scott is given three days to live as a result of an experiment he didn't know he was participating in. This makes the search for the truth more urgent.

This started out as a really bad movie, and while it later showed promise, it never really improved, with two exceptions. Ron Perlman did a very good job as the head villain, and there was one other actor who really showed talent. He played a doctor (or at least some sort of medical professional) who took care of apparently homeless people and was raising two orphaned boys as his own.

Most of the other acting was mediocre or bad. Kelly Brook at least looked good, and she had her moments. Lou Diamond Phillips, despite being a respected actor, didn't show his ability here, in my opinion.

The movie showed little evidence of being set in the distant future. There were computer voices telling people to wake up in the morning, how much "money" they owed when they paid for products, and how much "money" they had left. One virtual reality scene had excellent visual effects (as the return to the "real world" was made, that is), but that seemed to use up the entire visual effects budget for the movie. We were supposed to pretend the cars weren't from the current decade, though cars have looked pretty much the same for years and I suppose it would cost too much to change them to look futuristic. One truck which didn't run looked like it would be nearly 100 years old.

It wasn't the worst movie ever.

Review on the movie "Absolon (2003)"

As always with any movie that casts Christopher Lambert I approach with trepidation. This is because his films, other than the original Highlander, always seem to be of B grade or less quality. Absolon only further reinforces that reality. The premise of the plot: that some major corporation is controlling the supply of a drug that is required for sustaining life is interesting enough. The execution of the plot and the production of the movie are poor at best. Here are examples. 1. The soundtrack is poor (pitiful and boring is a better description) 2. Lou Diamond Philips performs at his usual bad actor level. Every time he tries to act like a tough guy is deplorable. 3. The time period was after 2012 yet the sets were decorated with modern items, at times even old items: old cars, old telephones, old signs. Very little effort or expense was made to give the impression of a future world. 4. Overused and insipid clichés: a. Girl blowing smoke from barrel of a shotgun after killing someone. b. Worn out scene of last second salvage from a ticking time bomb. c. Black lady constantly applying lipstick in futile attempt at sexy and tough. 5. Fight scenes are unbelievable, too choreographed and too long. A metal pipe to the rib cage will drop a horse, but not our protagonist (even after he has already taken a few blows to the head). 6. Sidekick female doctor with a big set of tits (actually a really nice rack) is so obvious an attempt to add sex/beauty to a movie that hopeless lacks everything else. You have poor actors (Lou Diamond Philips, Christopher Lambert, Ron Perlman), poor background music, poor sets, poor plot execution basically you get a poor movie. On a scale of 1 to 10 this one gets a 3.5 at most.