Directed by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Distributed by: Vertical
Written by Nick McCann
20/100
People always wonder how a director they hate seems to keep finding ways to get movies made in any capacity. Paul W. S. Anderson is a cornerstone of that notion. It doesn’t matter if it’s Capcom video game franchises, remakes of Roger Corman drive-in classics, or the literary works of Alexander Dumas. His idea of entertainment has been consistently lame, incoherent, or both. His latest upholds this standard.
It’s a post-apocalyptic hellscape by way of George R. R. Martin’s imagination. A teeming world filled with witches, cowboys, religious zealots, monsters, and so on. Unfortunately, Anderson’s direction doesn’t make any sense of it. The biggest problem is a lack of world-building. Unless it’s told so with boring exposition, there’s never a sense of how the land carries on and affects everybody. It’s a lot of genre-bending that fails to meld together in an appealing way. That’s in addition to an annoyingly reinforced ticking clock, dodgy plot points, and style choices that are ripped from whatever’s popular at the moment. All the best parts of “Mad Max,” “Dune,” and “Game of Thrones” done without the essence that made each an epic.
Those with a knowledge of Anderson should always expect Milla Jovovich to be placed on a very high pedestal courtesy of her director husband. She’s got all the skills without any faults or vulnerability. Nothing feels like a challenge to her, and her character leaves little to endear her to besides occasional pathetic quips. Terrible dialogue doesn’t help her either, let alone everybody else on screen. Nearly each performer is guilty of trying too hard to sound mystical or stoic, instead coming off more laughable than a hardcore DND campaign. Only Dave Bautista comes away mostly unscathed, easily the most competent of the bunch. He’s trying to give some depth and lift his character past the cliches holding him down.
If you come away appreciating anything from this film, it’s the time and value of visual effects artists. One look at the many CGI landscapes in this film will tell you they just opened up Unreal Engine and placed props frivolously. Why else would a wind farm be placed next to some nuclear cooling towers and have World War 2 anti-tank barricades surrounding them? Just saying the world was ruined doesn’t excuse inane production design or lack of character in the locations. Not to mention a combination of overused lens flares and overly darkened areas.
That’s just one element making up some of the worst action scenes of the year. On top of the poor effects, the camera work and editing are entirely incompetent. Poorly framed shots flash on screen with barely any time to comprehend what’s happening. Fight choreography isn’t much better, showing off some silly stunts that get made more exaggerated with frequent and unnecessary slow motion. It’s typical Anderson, misplacing style where it didn’t need to be. Yet it does make for some hilarious sights.
What you end up getting is a confusing mess that’ll have you scratching your head until you feel brain matter. It has laughable action, dumb dialogue, and CGI on par with most shovelware video games. All this is just so Anderson can make his wife and wife alone look cool yet again. I hope it was worth it.
“In the Lost Lands” Trailer
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