Daemonium: Underground Soldier

Daemonium is a strange film. It sets out to do something ambitious: tell a story about good versus evil in a strange world slightly different to our own in an inventive way. Does it succeed? Sort of.

The story-telling here is non-linear, and jumps around. This can be brilliant if done well. In this case, it sort of works, however the pieces of the story don't quite fit together at the end, which denies the audience the moment of revelation when everything fits together. At the same time, there clearly is a set timeline there, which leaves the audience frustrated by the plot rather than with a sense of wonder at the bizarreness of it all, as with Un Chien Andalou.

Some of the visuals are great. There's one scene where a character has a vision of what has happened in the past, and the way it's shot actually manages to emulate the visual feel of TV programs from the past, such as Star Trek. The visual theme also feels consistent throughout the film.

Most of the film is okay. The acting is all either good or okay, with none standing out as particularly bad. Some of the fight scenes are entertaining and exciting. However, towards the end the quality of these scenes begins to drop significantly. The big final fight scene in particular is a big let-down, looking more comical than dramatic.

The camera-work needs improving. There is an overuse of Dutch angles, particularly in the opening scene, some of the editing is too choppy, and shakey camera shots happen far too often.

So overall, I'm not sure about this one. It has some interesting ideas and has the guts to try them, but it's let down in several places by bad camera-work, or plot inconsistencies. So I give it a 6/10, because there were a lot of good and inventive ideas about both the story and execution. However, not all of these paid off, and other elements, such as the final battle, weren't given the attention they needed.