worldof2080
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
11 years
Reviews
Darkest Day (2015)
Decent homage to the genre
This film is quite an achievement is one very important respect. It hangs together well as a feature length movie - not bad for an amateur, zero-budget production. The story flows, the locations are good. Set pieces work by and large. Very impressive and quite enjoyable. On the downside, it is entirely bereft of any original ideas, being basically a rehash of the 28 franchise, right down to using precisely the same motifs and tropes we all know (and love?) This does not bode well for the film-maker. He needs to find his own groove if he is to have future success. Take some chances, dude.
The major flaw is the director's casting of himself in the lead role. The lead is bland, passive, has bad posture and is largely silent. He also has the haircut of a 6 year old boy. One can't help but be baffled by the attractive women falling for his 'charms' and the possibility of, for instance, him charging an armed soldier and strangling him to death, which seems ludicrously implausible. It would have been far better to sit back and let an actor with lead looks and lead charisma take the role. This vanity is compounded when our gallant lead makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end in order to save humanity. Sort of like Jesus.
Wandell and Bolter stand out as the two most convincing characters. Pretty good acting from both rescues the film much of the time. Wandell has a great time with his role and his character is the most rounded. I'm not sure whether he got lucky here, the part being written with a bit more depth that the others, or whether he took his material and ran with it. Bolter's character isn't as rich but she does as good a job as she can with what she has. We might see them again, and no bad thing.
As is often the case with amateur productions there's a tendency to be self-indulgent with editing. The film could lose 20 minutes and be better for it. There's quite a lot of pensive looks into the middle distance towards the end of the film that got me yawning. It might have been better to have got in an editor who wasn't in the film as such people tend to be happier about slicing away at excess material. Always remember, don't hesitate to kill your babies! The editing is good otherwise, as I didn't really notice it - the ultimate sign of good editing.
Overall, well worth a watch. I would advise the director to take more chances and forget a career in acting (at least as a lead). Amazing that he could pull all this together though, so keep up the perspiration and increase the inspiration. But lose the haircut ;-)
The major flaw is the director's casting of himself in the lead role. The lead is bland, passive, has bad posture and is largely silent. He also has the haircut of a 6 year old boy. One can't help but be baffled by the attractive women falling for his 'charms' and the possibility of, for instance, him charging an armed soldier and strangling him to death, which seems ludicrously implausible. It would have been far better to sit back and let an actor with lead looks and lead charisma take the role. This vanity is compounded when our gallant lead makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end in order to save humanity. Sort of like Jesus.
Wandell and Bolter stand out as the two most convincing characters. Pretty good acting from both rescues the film much of the time. Wandell has a great time with his role and his character is the most rounded. I'm not sure whether he got lucky here, the part being written with a bit more depth that the others, or whether he took his material and ran with it. Bolter's character isn't as rich but she does as good a job as she can with what she has. We might see them again, and no bad thing.
As is often the case with amateur productions there's a tendency to be self-indulgent with editing. The film could lose 20 minutes and be better for it. There's quite a lot of pensive looks into the middle distance towards the end of the film that got me yawning. It might have been better to have got in an editor who wasn't in the film as such people tend to be happier about slicing away at excess material. Always remember, don't hesitate to kill your babies! The editing is good otherwise, as I didn't really notice it - the ultimate sign of good editing.
Overall, well worth a watch. I would advise the director to take more chances and forget a career in acting (at least as a lead). Amazing that he could pull all this together though, so keep up the perspiration and increase the inspiration. But lose the haircut ;-)