Arctic Void

Three writers and not one could come up with an actual ending? What's worse, is that this film could've so easily been epic. It had excellent directing, amazing cinematography, beautiful landscapes and settings, spot on score, and the cast and performances were great. For a low budget indie film, this can school even some experienced filmmakers on how to create the perfect suspense and environment for its genre. Even the writing was great until about the final act. There were no plot holes or technical issues, then the ending just got sloppy and boring. Seeing the little special effects with the animals brings the tension and suspense level right up, and you know it's building up to something huge, and then, boom!, a total let down. Budget can't be the excuse, because imagination is free. It's seems more like the writers got bored and/or lazy. Such an easy fix and what a shame. Sadly, it's only a 7/10 from me, all going to the first three-quarters of what was almost a perfect film, and it could've easily been more, if there was a little more effort.

Two men who produce a nature TV series hire a cameraman and head to a remote Norwegian village to shoot an episode. While on a passenger vessel with a colorful cast of bystanders and crew, an unknown event causes all but the 2 friends and their cameraman to go missing without a trace. What happened and what will happen to our protagonists?

The premise of the movie is quite good, however the script is lacking in plot movement and development. The dialogue is also quite bad. The most disappointing thing was the low effort put towards writing good reasons for plot points to occur. This kind of movie also really shows how difficult it must be to write believable and natural-sounding dialogue, because these people do not speak to each other like normal humans would speak to each other. Events happen because they have to happen, not because any character has a realistic reason to make something happen. The amount of time spent "walking around looking befuddlingly puzzled" is WAY too long. They truly did not have to spend so much movie time watching each of the 3 characters walk around not knowing what is going on.

Having said that, none of the shortcomings take this movie down to a 1 or 2 star level. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and every shot adds to the general atmosphere of the serene setting. The basic idea is also pretty good. Without spoiling anything about the ending, it's not quite fair to say that "nothing happens" or that the ending is a non-ending. I would have preferred if less time was spent during the "we don't know what's going on" phase of the story, and the movie spent maybe 20 minutes at the end exploring what they are introducing as the explanation for the event. Again, no spoilers, but while I think they were going for a purposeful cliffhanger ending, I think it comes across more like a "lazy, no time to write plausible, real answers" type of ending.

I won't watch it again because it was too boring throughout without enough of a satisfying ending for the viewer. However, I wouldn't stop a friend from watching it if it came on TV.

My quick rating - 5,3/10. The scenery in this one was excellent. I have to assume filming in such a place has to be dirt cheap but the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere while watching this is like an additional character. The feel of this is very much like an episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. 3 guys shooting film for their travel show are on a ship to Svalbard, Norway when a mysterious power outage occurs and the rest of the people on board for the tour "vanish." This leaves the trio to try and figure out what has happened and venture off to the only town they can spot from the ship which also happens to be abandoned. The acting in this one is fairly bland since rarely do either of them actually attempt to show any emotions. It is hard to tell if it was just a lack of dialogue or just painting them out to basically be in shock. The bit players are given hardly any time to develop, which is a shame since Rune Temte as Jim, the tour head, was on the way to stealing the show here. This moved by rather briskly at 82 minutes and as I mentioned, could've been trimmed down a bit more if they were shooting for a TV show slot. It does lack any twist or surprise though which I was hoping for since my initial thought of what was going on happened to be correct. And I am not trying to say I was getting really creative with my guess either. #jackmeatsflix.

At the end of this movie it says This film was shot in 16 days by 16 people. That's pretty amazing considering it had an interesting plot, a very unique location for filming and the acting was just fine. The camera didn't bounce all over the place and the movie wasn't shot in the dark so you couldn't see what was going on. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and cared about the characters. Then, the ending. Or lack thereof. I don't know who thought up the ridiculous ending, but someone, anyone should have laughed and said, "No, really. How are we ending this story?"

A movie should fulfill it's promise. The script, acting, direction, lighting, and photography are better than most foreign films, and even the sound holds together. Americans (myself included) prefer more closure than the ending provides. And I'm still unsure whether or not I understand the ending. But the truth is that for a Saturday afternoon on a cold winter day, it was beautiful to look at, held attention, better crafted, and far, far, better edited than much higher budget productions. The credits state that it was filmed with 16 people in 16 days and there are some interesting names in the 'Special Thanks' credits that are encouraging, and might explain that success. So IMO the movie fulfills its promise even if the crew didn't carry the story to a comforting end.