I find it incredibly sad to see sexist, amateur writers creating dross like this - eating up good budgets whilst some talented writers get nary a penny to produce their stuff.
Some things that really get to me about British productions at the moment. Sexism (including misogyny and misandry) and racism. Many directors especially on the BBC productions of things like Doctor Who get caught up trying to give a nod to the British equivalent of the US "token black guy" and that is a "token Asian or Middle-Eastern female". The fact that she appears to be over-praised and rude are about the only two authentic aspects of this kind of stereotypical person in the UK. In fact, every stereotype is there. The leering older man who is accused of "using the same line word-for-word on me when I wouldn't give him a blowjob", the cheerful trolley woman who is used to lure the zombies away from the group, the scared and life-endangering young man who panics and lets the zombies in, and the nervous yet competent female assistant.
The main issue with this whole film is clearly a lack of directorship. One of the jobs of a director is to steer the "direction" of a film to give a realistic and accurate illusion that the people we are watching are actually really there and in their life-and-death situation. I can suspend disbelief with the best and worst of people, but when the opening scene shows a pixelated animation for bloody special effects, I should have known what was coming. Dialogue confusingly juxtaposes between contrasting emotions in a some of schizophrenic conversation that rarely matches the scene, the actor's persona, or the whole narrative.
Then there is the acting itself. You see people who are either first-time actors, or have struggled to get work and have not been vetted properly by the casting crew. They even appear to laugh at some moments. I suspect that the fact that the film had no less than 5 people appearing as directors suggests a failure to agree on artistic vision.
The only good actor I could find who seemed believable was ironically the most extreme character - Agent Proteus - played by the talented Leo Gregory who must have had a bad patch when he accepted this script. I've seen him in some other movies and he can turn a turd of a script into a diamond.
Which underlines another important point - there are a lot of damn good British actors out there so why are we stuck with this bunch? Whose fault is it for this film being so lame?
Until we start setting the bar a bit higher and being more critical of our work, we're never going to see the likes of Trainspotting come out again. The time of the Millenials is upon us. Sadly we seem to have given them too much credit and they've given us apathy and a lack of interest in anything challenging. Is it that we are so scared of being accused of bullying because of the politically correct brigade that we've ended up not daring to point out absurdness or badly created media?
We can do so much better than this. It's one I suggest any readers stay very well clear of. (Innit' fam?!)
