Iron Lung
First off, wowee it’s literally insane that i went to a theatre to watch my childhood youtuber on the big screen in a movie he produced.
Second, this movie was pretty fun! I know it’s hard to adapt short games into full films, but I liked the direction they went with the world building and action scenes. I like when a movie world builds through characters and environments that don’t need to over explain because they already know. It’s up to the audience to figure it out. But then they don’t explain enough. What’s the difference between Eden and the C.O.I.? Is Eden a person? What is each group fighting for?
Another thing was the dialogue. The only two characters in this keep changing personalities. I don’t get who Ava is. One moment she’s a stoic leader, the next she’s apologizing and begging. She’s almost too sympathetic towards Simon. The flashbacks were pretty useless and the slo-mo scenes were all silly looking. Cutting out like 30 minutes would have really helped the pacing. The beginning and end were great but the middle drags on a bit too much.
But let’s talk about what this movie gets right cause there’s also a lot! I’m a big fan of contained films and I love the story. The cinematography was also very beautiful. Every shot felt like it mattered and the lighting was so so beautiful. The blood and gore at the end was perfect for this movie, and I actually really enjoyed the ending (after the silly slo-mo scenes the rest of the movie played out really fun). I LOVED the use of the camera in the movie and they really captured how it felt to use in the game. The old systems, the slow wind up and reveals, the grainy black and white picture that hides an eyeball. They get that lonely feeling pretty well (however there’s so much going on it doesn’t build up to it as much), and they nail the feeling of humanity giving up. The transmission they get from SM8 was done amazingly. Both the acting and the dialogue were terrifying.
Overall I did really like this movie but there were some things that I had to point out. Again it’s insane this movie was even made in the first place!