The Journey: Absolution

I watched this film to play along with the "How Did This Get Made" podcast. Sometimes, the movies they do have enough about them that they're entertaining - not this time though, as this was truly dire.

30 years after a cataclysmic event has left most of the world uninhabitable, Ryan Murphy (Mario Lopez) joins the elite soldier training programme, ran by the formidable Sergeant Bradley (Richard Grieco). Murphy has an ulterior motive though, as he's looking for Liles (Charles Mattocks) a friend of his who joined the programme a few months earlier. As Murphy conducts his investigation, he discovers that, even amongst these soldiers, there is an elite tier, trained by Bradley himself for a secretive objective that only Bradley truly knows.

I mean, your tolerance for this might depend upon how forgiving you are for the fact that its an extremely low budget enterprise. The sets look cheap, the special effects, both practical and digital are poor, stunts are limited and the standard of acting in general is bad. Lopez never was much of an actor and though his charm works at the start of the film, where everyone hates him and he just has to be smug and annoying, but when he has to care about things, later in the film then he starts to struggle. He's like Marlon Brando compared to Grieco though, who's maniacal Sergeant Bradley has a plot reason for being a little unusual, but his decision to scream "for the love of Pete" every two minutes is as baffling as it is annoying. Other characters do swear, and die, and have sex, so why he chooses that particular juvenile phrase is really annoying.

Confusingly, given that they're supposed to be on an isolated base in the Arctic - the soldiers smuggle a couple of girls into the base, one of whom is played by Jamie Pressley, who is the only real positive about the whole film. She's really quite young here, but the only one capable of delivering a decent line read, let alone portray any emotion and it's really not surprising that she would have the best career of anyone in this one. Even she though can't defeat the mind-numbingly terrible, strewn together storyline that this film has, where huge great plot points that the film takes time to establish, then are ignored by the film when they need something different to happen. Then the ending... what?

An awful time that I really don't recommend.

This movie will probably excite only two groups of people: fans of latin hunk Mario Lopez and individuals who like to see scantily clad, well-built young men.

The movie purports to be sci-fi but the plot is confusing and unrealistic even for sci-fi standards. The dialogue is predictable and the actors try to make it serious but you can't do much with "you don't wanna ask questions" and other frequently used dialogue lines.

Mario Lopez stars and tries to act but the script forces him to behave and talk like his Slater character on "Saved by the Bell." Even his lead-up dialogue to his love scene with Jamie Pressley is predictable. The scene leaves you watching them talk and then all of a sudden they kiss and are in bed together. Lopez's impressive physique is seen frequently, along with numerous other handsome men, so if you like hunky men, it's not bad. But, having seen his ability to do more than just mouth lines in "Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story", fans of Lopez will be disappointed that he's in another Slateresque tough guy, I can kick your butt role.

Richard Grieco and Jamie Pressley are also wasted in this film, although Grieco is humorous at times. However, you can tell he's trying to "act" dramatic and the effect ruins the lines.

If you're looking for an interesting story, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for dramatic sci-fi action, you'll be disappointed. And fans of Lopez will hope he finds a better script for his next project.

This movie has the hottest men running around, training, fighting, all in Jockey pouch brand thigh-length boxer briefs. The typical military fighting fantasy is lived out. It is very hot! Too bad they wear briefs or thongs under their boxers.

I usually start one of these with a brief plot summary. I think I'll skip that with The Journey: Absolution. Like the film's title, the plot is pretty much an indescribable, nonsensical mess. Something about a secret military training facility in the Arctic. Mario Lopez is sent in (I think) to investigate reports of a missing soldier. And then, out of the blue, the plot switches to full on sci-fi with aliens trying to come through an interstellar gate to take over Earth or something. Whatever! In reality, though, the movie's main purpose seems to be to show a bunch of hunky, good looking, sweaty guys in their underwear. It was more like watching a Calvin Klein commercial than a movie.

Beyond the ridiculous lack of a coherent plot, just about everything else is equally bad. My chief complaint is the acting. Mario Lopez is plain old horrible. His accent comes and goes and his delivery is beyond awkward. Richard Greico is so bad he's laughable. He over-acts every scene like his life depended on it. As for Jaime Pressly - she's in the movie (and that's the kindest thing I'll say about any of the acting). In short, The Journey Absolution is a complete disaster.

One last thing, I did get a chuckle out of the number of times Pressly's character was able to sneak into the top secret military base. That's some awesome security!

2/10

Who did they think they were fooling by including clearly superfluous women in this? This film is obviously the fantasy project of a rich daddy, a tax write-off, or both. Whatever your orientation, if you care somewhat about filmmaking, you won't even be able to enjoy the parade of bodies on display because EVERYTHING is so bad about this film that it's tainted by awfulness. Watch pro-wrestling instead. The acting will still be bad, but at least it'll be entertaining and exciting, and you'll get to see attractive, muscular people.