Cyber Wars

I watch a lot of movies, generally seven to ten a week. Few of them are very good, even though I try my best to pick the diamonds from the swill. I failed on this one, it's not only lame and derivative, but not even interesting.

The heroine was drab and a bad fit for the part of a cyber warrior. She looked like a soccer mom acting in a neighborhood production. Bad casting there. I suppose they gave her the part because she was in the Matrix series, and Star Wars.

The storyline was lame, the special effects were the same ones you've seen over and over, the acting was mediocre at best. Nothing original or innovative in this film. It's hard to get into the plot and next to impossible to care what happens to the characters.

In the grand scheme of things this film probably does not deserve a 7/10 - which places it with countless other "better than bad" films. A movie like this is all about expectations going in. High expectations? Not a great movie. Low expectations? Well, this movie is a pleasant surprise.

There just are not many solid cyberpunk inspired films these days. Classics like the original Matrix and Bladerunner are singular standouts. Movies like Hackers or Brainscan are more the norm. Certainly there are stinkers like Johnny Mnemonic that has too much in common with a bad episode of Earth Final Conflict (an already terrible TV show). Avatar reminds me of the made for TV movie Cypher, though it is not as good as this little known film.

Avatar is a movie made for the film buff who has seen FAR too many movies. The director clearly has a vision, it keeps a solid consistent pace, and despite what other reviews here state, there is a great deal of ideas and content to like. Perhaps this is an easy movie to hate on, but reviews here that state that "the story is bad," and "the acting is bad," don't give clear reasons to back up their claims. If there is a clear weakness, it would be the casting. I don't mind looking at Genevieve O'Reilly, and one may believe Dash's (yea, thats her name) intelligence, but not the street hardened marksman that the viewer is supposed to buy into. Standout performances would be Joan Chen as an surgically and chemically "enhanced" 90 year old woman, and Kay Siu Lim as Julius. Julius is completely believable as a master of the net, someone who has given up their humanity for a life in cyberspace. I also liked a couple of the other "game masters" in their limited, but clearly fun roles.

At its core, Avatar is a mystery movie with a cyberpunk backdrop. I feel it could have been improved with noir characteristics of seedier characters, dark relationships, and perhaps more of an antihero. Regardless, the viewer is introduced to a "head hunter" or modern detective who specializes in the apprehension of identity thieves. I have to admit the telling of the story is much better than the story itself. I enjoyed following the main character through her quest to first find an identity thief, then dig deeper into the real story when it becomes clear she is just another pawn in a much larger game. The story suffers from anticlimaxes - points at which the story needs more impact, but somehow the importance of these moments are missed.

And yet I still enjoyed the film as a whole. Its fun, has style, and though not in the same league as so many other big budget films - still has much to offer in ideas and concepts, which deserve attention.

A decent movie with a good cyberpunk theme. A very Gibsonesque world complete with wetwiring, neural links, the matrix and even a holo-dolphin being used as an semi-sentient afterlife avatar. The main character is a tough independent women caught up in a world of technocratic intrigue playing a short hand against tough odds. So the scenery is familiar to fans of cyberpunk and anybody who has read mid 80's Gibson.

Of course the world has moved on and in 2010 the film seems oddly dated. For a more current take on cyberpunk look to Vexille or Paranoia 1.0. This aside I give it kudos for portraying a more honest 80's idea of a virtual world than maybe something like virtuosity. The themes are solid, if a little cartoonish and flat.

Main gripe would probably be the lead role. She just did not seem to engage with the role. The material may not have been there but I have seen good actors giving a lot more with a lot less. She never seemed hurried or overly perturbed even with the bullets flying and people dieing in front of her. A gunshot wound was just another cheap squib and her acting was not up to the task of making you believe it was anything other. The threatening claustrophobia you would expect from a good techno or cyber thriller was absent.

Supports were better and gave a solid B grade performance.

One of the other problems was a noticeable inconsistency in the sound. Some parts were noticeably poorly miked and there were differences in tone and sound continuity. A distraction but not so bad. The music was good and had the right feel.

Also the lighting never seemed right. The whole film was too bright. Cyberpunk is film noir at heart and there should have been more play with shadows and colours. There was plenty of scope for light play. Scenes where subways lights go out could have been played for darkness but they were not.

That being said I still enjoyed it. There are not too many movies of it's kind. A Gibonesque story can be hard to pull off even with the best actors, production crews and serious money to throw around (Johnny Mnemonic). The Matrix as envisaged by Gibson always looks a bit cheesy (think lawnmower man) and as I said in 2010 there are real threats from networks that make the 80's cyberpunk themes seem pale (drone war planes, hikikomori, identity theft, net surveillance, rfids and GPS positioning).

Think of this film as picture postcard from a day at a Gibson beach. Your not really there but it looks nice enough.

It was once remarked by B-movie producer Roger Corman, that Singapore would make a great place for a science fiction movie (Corman had co-produced Saint Jack, the only Hollywood movie to date filmed entirely here). And it's true, as we do have a number of locales that look futuristic enough for on location shoots, and more so if given the special effects treatment to spruce things up. The opening shot of the city skyline is something familiar, yet on the other hand, something rather artificial about it - It's not Singapore, it's a fictional city state called Sintawan.

Avatar probably and unwittingly set itself a high benchmark to meet right from the start, by having that text crawl (cliche) explaining the setting of the world upon which the story is based, talking about Simplants and the police - pitting itself against cult classic Blade Runner. Director Kuo Jian Hong (daughter of the late Kuo Pao Kun, this movie is dedicated in his memory) might have high hopes of Avatar emulating and meeting those standards, or to achieve an indie following, however the fundamentals of having a proper storyline was already flubbed.

It tried too hard to be intelligent, rather than sticking to the "keep it simple stupid" rule, especially if one is thinking of cramping plenty of tech-no-babble into less than two hours. Unlike The Matrix which seamlessly gelled simplified philosophy into its narrative, and more so as an afterthought rather than assaulting your senses while the story is being told. Speaking of The Matrix, there were also some reference to the giant network storage of persons' identities, a Cyberlink (probably an advanced form of the Net), as well as a subplot involving the police up against a group of rebels, amongst others. Avatar suffered from trying to explain too much in too little time, and will make you switch off when listening to "important" mumbo jumbo you don't' care about, regarding some teleportation technology and identity doppelganging using biological science early in the movie, before shifting gears into presenting some huge conspiracy theory about playing God in the Game (oooh).

Briefly, we follow the exploits of the best (Singapore, oops, Sintawan everything also must #1) bounty hunter in the business of Simplant capture - Dash MacKenzie (Genevieve O'Reilly), an ang moh, as locals don't have street cred to be leads in the movie. Actually, most of the local actors, prominent ones I must add, were relegated to playing supporting or cameo roles in this production, folks like Lim Kay Siu, Neo Swee Lin, Kumar, Gerald Chew, Richard Low and Kevin Murphy (from S11, didn't know he was that active in previous local productions, the other one being City Sharks, but bit role as well), The other main lead was an Asian actor Wang Luoyong (huh?) who played cop Victor Huang, in pursuit of Dash, and under circumstances beneficial to both, begin an uneasy partnership which blossomed into some hokey romance.

I think by now any self respecting (I say this in jest) local movie would somehow have a scene set in coffee-shops / hawker centers to get that seal of authenticity that it's made in Singapore. Diners should have no qualms that in Avatar's future, our favorite makan style of choice is still around, with shady covert dealings taking place right underneath hungry bellies. Other locations easily identified included the Expo MRT station (no more EZ-Link cards, your palm is scanned instead), inside MRT trains, Bugis Junction, the area around Empress Place, Little Guilin at Bukit Gombak and even Hotel 81 (yes!) which seemed to retain its perceived sleazy purpose in the movie.

The acting's all very stiff, probably from the cast's lack of belief in what they're actually doing, and the unbelievable lines they have to say. For a production of the time, it's probably still stuck in a mindset that it is better to engage B/C-graded caliber ang-moh actors than to choose jolly good ones from our local scene. Not that I'm against foreign talent, but in my opinion it's quite a pain to see them going through the motions here, spewing lines of dialog which are and sound so artificial, made worse by their accents.

Avatar looked like a million dollars, alas it felt like a cheap telemovie. The effects were decent though, but for scenes with extended CG or CG created backgrounds, it ended up a bit raw and looked unpolished. The costumes looked lush, especially Joan Chen's figure hugging and cleavage enhancing outfits. Some shots were done creatively, obviously so to cover up the lack of a bigger budget to get more gizmos mentioned, implied or are actually used in the film, like vehicles - you never actually see them zoom around the city.

So is Avatar worth watching? Yes, for that lesson on how not to make a science fiction film. One wonders if The Gene Generation will work out successfully, which also casted another Hollywood B-movie specialist Bai Ling in a lead role.

This film was based on William Gibson's SF writing, but he isn't mentioned anywhere in the credits. A challenge to watch, because the dialogue is often muted. If the audio track had been recorded better it would be a better film. The story is not bad, and the ideas are intriguing, but alas, they came from somewhere else...sort of a youth oriented film for younger fans of SF. Maybe a film that would have been better done by a big studio. Better than most trashy Cyber-Punk movies set in the proverbial post apocalyptic garbage can, this future is clean and orderly. The female lead is not that bad, but the film resounds with so many ideas that came from William Gibson it is like watching a mini cornucopia of the SF writers work all rolled into one film, that is written by someone else.