Absolon
(2003)
Director: David De Bartolome
Cast: Christopher Lambert, Lou Diamond Phillips, Kelly Brook
I have never
pretended that this web site of mine is unbelievably popular, and I
don't think it ever will be. But at the same time, I think I have
managed to somewhat stand out from many other movie review web sites,
because my focus is on movies that other web sites often don't pay much
(if any) attention to. But I do go to other movie review web sites all
the time for fun or research purposes, and I have learned a lot of
things from them. One of the biggest lessons that I have learned is
that everybody not only has their own opinion, they have their own
perspective that heavily influences their opinion. It happens all over
the world, and I'll give you some examples. Years ago, I read somewhere
(I forget where exactly) that when video stores were still abundant all
over the world, there were some video stores in foreign countries that
apparently thought so highly of Canadian films that they reserved a
specific section for them. When I read that, I was quite bewildered.
That's because I and many other Canadians consider Canadian cinema to
be quite the suckfest and not deserving of such admiration and
attention; more often than not they were put in the "foreign" section
of our video stores. Another
example of perspective comes from, of all places, MAD Magazine. I loved
MAD Magazine as a youth, but while I as an adult still picked up a
copy to read at my local bookstore now and then before the magazine's demise, I thought that it was not quite as
funny as it used to be. But I once read an interesting statement from
one of the magazine's staff about this. He said that people who started
reading the magazine as a youth from any
era during the magazine's run, when becoming an adult, would have have
the same opinion as I stated a few sentences ago. As an adult, you have
a different perspective than when you were a youth.
While I am speaking about MAD Magazine, I might as well
use it to make another point about perspective, though the kind of
perspective I will be talking about is a certain kind that stays year
after year. Years ago, MAD Magazine did a parody of the movie Grease
(titled "Cease"). If memory serves me right, in the last panel of the
parody, the characters sang a song that poked fun of the (then) present
day attitude towards the 1950s, that being the widely-held belief that
life was much better then than now. The song brought up several
pressing issues people in the 1950s had to face, and proved that the
past had many problems as the present day had. This kind of thing is
true today; I am sure many people nowadays look back to the 1980s and
think it was a swell time, when there were actually a lot of problems
back then. This kind of perspective is interesting, but what is also
interesting is when people look into the opposite direction - the
future. I think you know already what I'm about to say, but I'll say it
anyway. It seems that when it comes to thinking about what the future
will be like, the vision that more often than not comes up is a vision
that is extremely negative. Movies like Soylent Green
and Equilibrium
have portrayed the future as bleak and depressing. This is something I
know I have talked about this before (though I don't recall where
exactly), but I think I, after writing over 900 reviews for this web
site, am allowed to repeat myself every once in a while. After all,
when Roger Ebert was alive and active, he used the George Carlin line,
"What does cocaine make you feel like? It makes you feel like more
cocaine" several times over the years.
Now that I can be excused for repeating myself, I can
get to trying to answer the question as to why the perspective of the
future tend to be very negative. The most obvious answer is that it is
easier to mine drama and plot from an undesirable situation. If a
character in a movie has a good life and lives in a pleasant
world,
chances are that things will in short notice become very boring for
viewers. I think another reason why the perspective of the future is
often downbeat is that to a degree it makes viewers feel better about
their present day lives. If audiences see people suffering, their own
personal problems seem small in comparison. So you may think that when
I picked up the set in the future movie Absolon
I was prepared to feel good about my own present self. However, I also
knew before watching the movie that it was Canadian. So with those two
opposite extremes, I was actually prepared to feel mediocre from the
movie. Anyway, the plot: We learn that in the near future, a virus came
out of nowhere and killed most of the human population of Earth. It's
possible that the entire human race might have been killed if it hadn't
been for industrialist Murchison (Ron Perlman, Hellboy),
whose company came up with a way to halt the virus straight in its
tracks. That came with a drug called "Absolon", though the drug must be
taken by people on a regular basis to fight off the virus. Some time
later, a scientist working for Murchison is found murdered, and police
officer Norman Scott (Christopher Lambert, Highlander)
and his partner are assigned to investigate and find out who the
murderer is. But as Scott and his partner investigate, they eventually
find out that the murdered scientist was involved in some kind of deep
conspiracy - one that involved the possible salvation of the human
race. As you probably guessed, soon Scott is on the run from
Murchison's goons, who are lead by corrupt law enforcer Walters
(Lou Diamond Phillips, Lone Hero).
Scott has the support of the murdered scientist's co-worker Claire
Whittaker (Kelly Brook, The Italian Job), but will
that be enough?
As you probably know, Canada isn't exactly a place that
is thriving with science fiction movies, especially ones that are good.
For every decent effort like Xchange, you
get a ton of efforts like The
Shape Of Things To Come. I exchanged three Canadian dollars to get the DVD
of Absolon,
and after watching it I was in pretty bad shape. From the
shabby-looking text from the movie's opening credits, I knew instantly
what I was going to get in the 95 minutes that were to unroll. Although
the movie did have some United Kingdom support according to its
credits, it seems that all the foreign talent managed to do was ensure
the movie got widescreen photography. If you have seen your fair share
of Canadian television dramas from the same era when Absolon
was made, you'll know how this movie looks and feels. While there are
the expected Canadian trademark times when the movie looks too bright
when it should be darker (and vice versa), the photography for the most
part looks extremely washed out, with dull and unvibrant colors and a
soft texture to everything instead of more detail. I realize that the
world of this movie has been severely run down by a virus, but all the
same a bit more pop to the photography would have been much easier on
the eyes. But even then, the feel of this alternate universe would have
suffered with additional problems. No doubt due to the limited budget,
we are told that mankind had stocked up on supplies for 100 years
just before the virus, which may explain why virtually all the
technology on
display is at the same level as the time period when the movie was
made. There's precious little in the way of futuristic props, or even
special effects, and what little that does manage to be displayed
wasn't that particularly good looking in 2003, and looks even worse
today.
Absolon
was the first motion picture directed by David De Bartolome, and he has
not directed another motion picture as of the date of this review's publication.
Watching the movie, it's easy to see why. Certainly, he was hampered by
a very low budget, but it also seems that he was held back by himself,
seemingly showing no enthusiasm for what he was filming. This is
especially evident in the action sequences. Action scenes often only go
for very short periods of time, and even in the shoot-ups, punch-ups,
and car chases that go on for a longer period, everything feels
extremely mechanical and by the numbers. There is no energy or
excitement generated, and De Bartolome doesn't even make an effort to
hide crew members' reflections being showed, or that a garbage truck
has suddenly stopped moving when the protagonists jump into it from a
"busy" highway overpass. De Bartolome also can't seem to muster enough
enthusiasm in his cast, though in fairness he was saddled with
Christopher Lambert in the lead role. In the past I've usually thought
that Lambert basically coasts by on charisma, but here in Absolon
he doesn't even possess that. Here he acts like he was waken up from a
deep nap just 30 seconds before De Bartolome shouted "action", and he
sounds and acts extremely tired while not seemingly comprehending
what's going on and everything he should be doing in the scene.
Needless to say, Lambert generates no chemistry, heated or romantic,
with his female co-star Kelly Brook, who also seems a bit bewildered.
Lou Diamond Phillips does put in somewhat more effort, coming across as
a bit more polished, intense, and professional than his co-stars, but
Ron Pearlman as the chief bad guy has absolutely no bite or even bark,
maybe because it's clear that all of his scenes were shot in the same
room... and probably in the same particular day.
I have a feeling that the severe lack of enthusiasm by
the director and cast of Absolon was in
large part due to the weak screenplay written by Brad Mirman (Truth Or Consequences,
N.M.).
Somebody in the production should have at one point realized the movie
needed a severe rewrite, since there are many glaring problems in the
narrative. Such problems include an eventual and troubling revelation
of Brook's character that is brought up, but then is instantly
forgotten about and never
brought up again, as well as the fact that there are many nagging
details like how the police got a hologram video of the murder that
starts the investigation. Just as bad is the whole so-called
"conspiracy" portion of the movie; although I didn't give too many
details of the plot for Absolon,
I am sure that like myself, anyone who has seen their share of movies
with conspiracies will figure out what is going on and why even before
starting to watch the movie. Making matters worse is that the
characters in this unoriginal storyline don't have any spark that might
make it easier to sit through this umpteenth telling of an old basic
formula. Lambert's character's past is hardly touched on... and quite
frankly hardly seems to influence what he says or does. Phillips'
character only has two (very) short scenes before he starts gunning for
Lambert's character. And as you can imagine, Pearlman's character
doesn't have a chance to show any dimension apart from the basic greedy
businessman persona we've seen too many times before in other movies. Absolom
is not a movie - instead it's an excuse to keep its participants in
front of and behind the camera employed for a short while, and not much
more than that.
(Posted March 20, 2023)
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See also: Carriers, Equilibrium,
No Blade Of Grass
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