Anyone moderately familiar with sci-fi films of the last 20 or 30 years may feel like they've seen the new Australian import 2067 (available on Blu-ray November 17) previously. It's a post-apocalyptic, time travel-based, eco-minded sci-fi/action flick that mines territory not at all dissimilar to works by directors such as James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, and Paul Verhoeven. 2067 writer-director Seth Larney is nowhere near that class-level, not at this point in his career. That's alright, not many filmmakers are. That said, viewers watching Larney's portrait of the journey to keep an oxygen-deprived Earth alive should be forgiven if they find themselves wishing they were watching a film by one of those masters.
Any derivativeness aside, 2067 is not an unwatchable film by any means. Kodi Smitt-McPhee (Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix) turns in a compelling lead performance as industrial worker-bee Ethan Whyte. In the climate change-ravaged Earth of 2067, naturally occurring oxygen has been replaced by an imperfect, synthetic form. Developed by Chronicorp, the "new" oxygen would be great if it weren't responsible for sickening some of its users. Smitt-McPhee strikes the right chords as a common man torn between personal priorities and a begrudging sense that his destiny may be far more important than he ever imagined.
Ethan (whose significant other is, in fact, suffering from "The Sickness," as it has been dubbed) receives a sudden, startling message from 400 years in the future beckoning him to be sent forward in time. Humanity has discovered time-travel quite by accident, enabling Chronicorp CEO Regina Jackson (Deborah Mailman) to send Ethan exactly where he has been asked to go. Lots of time travel paradoxes follow, but a fairly inventive series of invents tracks Ethan's progress as he attempts to figure out exactly what he needs to do to fix Earth's past problems.
Ryan Kwanten (of TV's True Blood and The Oath) co-stars as Ethan's friend and colleague Jude, who follows Ethan into the future. The story becomes, admittedly, rather confusing for what ends up resulting in a rather simplistic ecological "message." Stick with it and it delivers a noble statement, but its plotting keeps tripping over itself in the process. However, the effective score (by Kirsten Axelholm and Kenneth Lampl) compliments the film's impressive visuals.
Image Entertainment's Blu-ray includes commentary by director Seth Larney and a series of featurettes detailing numerous aspects of the creation of 2067.
Any derivativeness aside, 2067 is not an unwatchable film by any means. Kodi Smitt-McPhee (Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix) turns in a compelling lead performance as industrial worker-bee Ethan Whyte. In the climate change-ravaged Earth of 2067, naturally occurring oxygen has been replaced by an imperfect, synthetic form. Developed by Chronicorp, the "new" oxygen would be great if it weren't responsible for sickening some of its users. Smitt-McPhee strikes the right chords as a common man torn between personal priorities and a begrudging sense that his destiny may be far more important than he ever imagined.
Ethan (whose significant other is, in fact, suffering from "The Sickness," as it has been dubbed) receives a sudden, startling message from 400 years in the future beckoning him to be sent forward in time. Humanity has discovered time-travel quite by accident, enabling Chronicorp CEO Regina Jackson (Deborah Mailman) to send Ethan exactly where he has been asked to go. Lots of time travel paradoxes follow, but a fairly inventive series of invents tracks Ethan's progress as he attempts to figure out exactly what he needs to do to fix Earth's past problems.
Ryan Kwanten (of TV's True Blood and The Oath) co-stars as Ethan's friend and colleague Jude, who follows Ethan into the future. The story becomes, admittedly, rather confusing for what ends up resulting in a rather simplistic ecological "message." Stick with it and it delivers a noble statement, but its plotting keeps tripping over itself in the process. However, the effective score (by Kirsten Axelholm and Kenneth Lampl) compliments the film's impressive visuals.
Image Entertainment's Blu-ray includes commentary by director Seth Larney and a series of featurettes detailing numerous aspects of the creation of 2067.
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