diamond in the rough

Quirky and idiosyncratic, this sci fi film showed that films can still be made by auteurs with a unique point of view.

While the sets and design echo many other sci fi films, what got me was the unpredictability of the script coupled with the offhanded and sharp nature with which various characters interacted -- it seemed real, in a weird way, like they acted outside the script, like they would act when placed into a future setting where the things we take for granted today are just not there anymore. In that sense, it seemed visceral, and lively, as opposed to the typical hollywood excretion, which always seems too polished, with interaction only along certain limited thought templates.

Beyond that, considering how low the budget was, it was impressive the thoroughness of world building the film achieved.

Scriptwise, despite a few early snafus -- the seemingly pointless shooting of the robot, the typical back and forth with the boss banter, the set up with the wife, -- the film ended up gradually pulling me in, wanting to find out what will happen next.

Clearly, the worst part was the the acting by Bandera's former wife, she sounded like a playboy bunny trying to describe quantum physics, without really understanding it herself, but based on what she might have read on the back of a cereal box.

The other part I was not so enamored of was how all the robots basically looked the same, hard shells, no movement of the faces -- of all robots one would have thought the love bot would have had some animatronics and a fleshy exoskin. Seemed like lazy industrial design, but then maybe the auteur of the film wanted to portray the everyman nature of the bots, and it ended up driving the look after that, even to the detriment of some logic.

Overall, this is a much stronger and more visceral movie than I expected. I have been disappointed lately by a bunch of low budget sci fi -- The Last Days on Mars, The Colony, Europa Report, etc -- as well as lots of high budget pap -- Oblivion, Prometheus, Cowboys and Aliens, the Total Recall reboot -- but this film surprised me in a good way.

Not quite District 9 in terms of blowing people away, Ibanez is a subtler, more skilled director in many other ways, shining with regard to characters and scripts, while Blomkamp is not as skilled in handling those elements.

If you have doubts about this film, if you like thoughtful sci fi -- this is about the meatiest sci fi film of the past few years.