Subterano

Seriously!

Sometimes i just get the feeling that the whole movie industry is after my mental health. Someone could ask why? well the aswer is really simple > movies like SUBTERANO. When "wannabe" sci-fi flicks go bad this is a good sample what happens, totally lost script, bad acting, bad catch, bad cpu animations, bad sounds, and last, but not least bad atmosphere.

I do not recommend this movie nor will i ever say it is good, i will simply poke my eyes blind next time i even hear someone say "subterano", i mean HOW BAD CAN MOVIES GET REALLY?

True, the special effects are a little lame in this low budget Australian movie, and the location for most of the action -- a parking garage -- is pretty cheap.

But, darn it. I was entertained.

One thing, though: This could be a good children's movie if all the four-letter words were removed.

In a future society apparently ruled by virtual games, Conrad (Alex Dimitriades), the leader of a revolutionary group called "The Orphans of the Revolution", escapes from the guards when he was going to be executed, and with the support of his girlfriend Grace Stone (Tasma Walton), he goes to the last level of a parking garage trying to escape to a sanctuary. However, the garage is shutdown by a crazy teenager that has developed a new version of a deadly game called Subterano, and Conrad and Grace, with four teenagers, a security guard and an elder accountant have to play the game and fight to survive.

What a crap is the screenplay of this low-budget movie! Indeed it is a silly game, with no development of the characters, the place and time, and even their motives, being a complete mess. The imbecile writer uses a shallow situation, indeed a rip-off of "Logan's Run"and "The Running Man", and a director uses some computer effects and makes this movie. The good point is the beautiful unknown actress Tasma Walton, who has a good performance. In the end, if the viewer shuts-down his or her brain, it may be a watchable movie for killing time only. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Subterrâneo" (Ünderground")

Eleven people are trapped in an underground parking lot, where they must battle their way through it against lethal toys in a real-life virtual-reality game. I rented "Subterano" for no reason in particular, having never read anything about it but passing it hundreds of times on the video store shelf (Lets just say I have a lot of free time on my hands), but upon checking IMDb after renting it I found predominately poor reviews. Perhaps it was because I didn't expect much, I thoroughly enjoyed "Subterano". It may owe one-too-many nods to 1997's brilliant "Cube", and the futuristic clothing may be pretty silly, but there's plenty to like here.

For a low-budget movie, writer/director Esben Storm has done a great job with the film visually. Despite being filmed almost exclusively in a parking lot, the lighting is interesting and attractive (Lots of filters are used in this film to good effect) and there's enough tense action that thing never get boring.

The acting is surprisingly good for the most part, John Clayton and Alex Dimitriades being the best here. Everyone else is good too, but some of the characters could be rather annoying at times (The baby-faced teen girl being a prime example).

The special effects are good. Most direct-to-video films resort to cartoony and unconvincing CG, but here the computer effects are actually quite good, and there are some fun, gruesome death scenes (I'm not going to give them away) here and there. Thankfully, the gore isn't CG.

It's not a perfect film by any means, the script can be thin in places and the music is terrible at times, but "Subterano" was a fun, fast-paced sci-fi thriller that's certainly a stones-throw ahead of the brainless, CGI-laden "sci-fi" films produced by Hollywood these days. Give it a chance and you might like it.

6.5/10.

...since all of the originality this script needed really IS "buried!" At least it is another opportunity to see the chiseled talent of Alex Dimitriades at work, though a bit of a letdown after his career-making performance in the searing indie HEAD ON.

Set in a future where VR video games aren't just a way of life, but have infused nearly every aspect of pop culture, (in other words, not all that different from today), Dimitriades plays one of the underground rebels of a faction known as the "Orphans Of The Revolution." It all gets kind of "JUDGE DREDD-meets-THE-MATRIX" from here, so I'll just skim over what passes for the "finer points." Having escaped an execution date with the help of an old flame (Tasma Walton), both renegades find themselves in the wrong place at a VERY wrong time, trapped in the parking deck of a high-rise with several other unlucky people.

Because living in this high-rise is the part-time sociopath/full-time "daddy's boy" who has just perfected a VR game called...you guessed it, SUBTERANO. Sonny has one of those dysfunctional relationships with his dad, and therefore has channeled all his hate, frustration and aggression into a game that has now transcended its VR origins and become part of the real world...and the captives in the parking deck must now play for their lives, or suffer the deadly consequences.

It certainly sounds more interesting than it is, and it isn't hard to believe that it actually sat on a shelf two years after its completion. I always wondered how movies would begin to reflect the tech advances in special effects achieved with THE MATRIX, and in its own just-okay CGI work, SUBTERANO reflects the very beginnings of the beneficial influences reaped by low-budget projects from the much superior forerunner.

Unlike CUBE, to which SUBTERANO bears more than just a passing resemblance, the characterizations are not as fully realized, so to the actors' credit they do at least manage to keep us interested before the "game" dispatches most of them. The dialogue at best never rises above soap-opera level, which makes one wonder how much time was spent on the script development as opposed to the special FX (which obviously gobbled up most of the film's meager budget.) Once you get past the somewhat tedious set-up in the first third of the movie, SUBTERANO does get curiously watchable afterward. A few trims here and there would probably make it more palatable for kids with a PG-13 sensibility. As it is, it's a fairly harmless piece of late-night fodder when nothing else is on.

(Note to Alex and Tasma: fire your agents and get new ones.)