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chuck-silva
Reviews
15 Till Midnight (2010)
Good scifi poorly executed.
The premise of the movie has the makings of a great scifi movie.
Unfortunately, this isn't it.
Amateurish acting and god-awful dialog overpower the almost acceptable photography, special effects and music and drags this film down to very pits of movie hell. And that's just the first 5 minutes.
Playing the part of the main character, Lukas Reyes, actor Brandon Slagle's delivery is totally devoid of the main ingredient that makes up even a merely good actor's repertoire--the ability to deliver up lines without appearing to be acting. The subtext of his entire delivery from the beginning to the end of this film is "I'M ACTING!!!" in capital letters and, yes, three exclamation points.
Part of Mr. Slagle's problem may have been the total lack of any character development. Not only is the main character not believable, he's pretty much devoid of any but the most rudimentary emotions making it hard to empathize or sympathize with his problems.
The rest of the cast is merely mediocre, brought on no doubt by Mr Slagle's poor performance and, again, the total lack of any character development at all.
In addition to poor acting and non-existent character development, there's the dialog. Some scenes in this movie were so long and drawn out, with no meaningful relationship to the development of the plot that I found myself wishing that someone would drive a car through the house just so I'd have something interesting see. Much like this review, this film could have been half as long as it is without any loss of context.
A couple of the previous reviews of this movie have mentioned an "intellectual storyline." If there is an intellectual storyline in this flick, it is buried under a pile of bad acting and dialog so deep that no professional well-digger or archaeologist will ever be able penetrate it.
As for becoming a cult classic. The only place this film will ever be a cult classic is in some future resurrection of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" or whatever takes its place.
I was hoping for better treatment of a concept that's been around the science fiction world for umpteen years and a plot that has been--one version or another--in at least a half dozen science fiction stories.
Summary in four words? It REALLY does suck.