2307: Winter's Dream

From the very beginning, you can already see how the acting is, simply, horrible. The chemistry they tried to create between the squad members is so so so painful to watch that I had to turn off the tv. Could not get past 20 minutes.

It seemed like a good plot/concept but the execution makes it unwatchable.

As to setting a premise, and then violating at every turn = 100 But then: As intelligent entertainment = zero As for quality acting = zero As for budget to make = must have been close to zero As to ability to raise audience heart rate through enjoyment = zero As to appropriateness of title = zero Seriously, other than indulging the creator's personal interests and desires, how could one, in good conscience, put this out as anything but an insult to an audience? Best left as a "home movie".

The film is set 300 years in the future in a post-apocalyptic world that has completely frozen over. It begins in an underground city, which is the world's last remaining population centre. Noids (or Mules), which are genetically modified humans, are bred to work. A number of the Mules have "gone rouge", and one Mule, involved in one particular event, leads to a military team of four people being sent on a mission across the frozen wasteland to eliminate him.

This film has some problems. Some of the acting is a little poor. There are plot holes. It sometimes seems that essential dialogue is edited out of scenes. I get the impression that the film has been cut down a great deal. It moves far too quickly. At the beginning of a scene, long shots and positioning shots, instead of being lingered on, flash before us for an instant. There is also some fairly untidy camera work. It also seems that the whole film has been dubbed and everyone sounds like they are speaking in a small room, which I think might actually be the reason you get the impression of poor acting.

That said, this is a credible movie. The story moves on at such a fast pace that the film's 101 minutes could easily stretch to 130. The film certainly has its foundations in good, solid sci-fi. The Mules could be straight out of Brave New World. There are some great plot twists. There are some decent sets. The effects are, with some exceptions, quite good as well. I got the impression that towards the end, the film seemed to sharpen up a little. The plot, especially the ending, was very good.

If you can forgive this film its failings, and it has many, you have a pretty good sci-fi yarn. Very similar to, but not quite like, anything that has gone before.

300 years in the future, after the whole planet is frozen over, Bishop (Paul Sidhu) is asked to hunt the renegade android ASH 393 (Branden Coles). The high intelligence and supeerhuman strength of his opponent makes that an extremely hard task in a hostile environment. Besides, Bishop's general hasn't told him the whole story before he sent him on that mission...

Produced for less than a million dollars, the movie is quite ambitious for its low budget. Its frozen future world reminds me a little bit of Robert Altman's 'Quintet', but unfortunately '2307' enjoys its gun battles in trash movie style too much and has only actors with limited capabilities while suffering a bit from pretentiousness. The best supporting actors are Timothy Lee DePriest as Ishmael, whose harmonica playing is another reference to western movies, and Arielle Holmes as Kix, the most fanatical member of Bishop's team. What we finally get is a movie that fits into the 'Cyborg' subgenre of the 80s/90s Terminator rip-offs, but with a modern design and a better story that most of them.

Formulaic pseudo-post apocalyptic film, with terrible action scenes and the flimsiest excuse of a plot, carelessly patched together by common myths infesting actual movies.

There's really little to none redeeming value in this.

1)As sci-fi it doesn't even compete; it raises no questions, introduces no new ideas, creates not even a shadow of an actual futuristic setting.

2)As a thriller it has no tension; nobody can summon the willpower to care for "characters" who systematically act out the most inane choices and the amateurish direction doesn't help.

3)The backbone of the plot is so.. safe, it feels like a sham. I'll occasionally stomach the pseudo-intellectual doctrine that passes for liberalism in Hollywood these days as long as it is attached to a 100M production. But in an independent production - and a sci-fi to boot - I expect to be presented with the unpopular opinion, the 'truth' that lacks recognition or exposure, not to be spoon-fed the mainstream dogma!

In any case there were a couple of decent lines - maybe even competent - so I'll give it a 2.