THE GENE
GENERATION
Directed by: Pearry Reginald Teo
Starring: Bai Ling, Faye Dunaway
Review by Allan Smithee
PLOT: In
the future, the Earth is scorched and the sky is constantly covered by thick
layers of clouds. People live in overcrowded, dirty and polluted
megacities surrounded by massive walls and entry into the cities is only allowed
after a thorough DNA check. Those deemed unworthy because of their genetic
baggage are left out. Which leads to a new crime : DNA hacking.
Enter Bai Ling’s Michelle, a top notch assassin hired to get rid of the
hackers. She earns big money doing it and hopes to fly herself and her
whiny brother out of their hellhole to some mythic utopia called Demeter…
That is until her whiny bitch of a bro fucks up big time…
CRITIQUE: I
had high hopes for this little indie that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.
The cyberpunk subgenre of science-fiction has not been too lucky so far in
it’s cinematic forrays (Johnny Mnemonic anyone?), and Blade Runner remains to
this day the crowned king (and arguably the first and only!) representative of
this underexploited but visually rich subgenre to be worth watching. Will
Gene Generation change that? Let’s see…
The Gene Generation borrows a lot of it’s
visual style from Blade Runner and for the most part, it does a great job of it :
the sets, gloomy to perfection, intricate props, awesome fight choreographies,
costumes, make-up and hairdos all stir this film towards greatness.
Unfortunately, not everything follows suit…
Bai Ling is suitably gorgeous and for the most
part believable as a tough as nails assassin and she sure fits the awesomely
designed suits tailored for her very well. And the glistening ample cleavage she
displays in every outfit sure cranks the eye candy factor to eleven. But
when she deals with everyday life situations with her annoying brother (played
very unevenly by a very irritating Parry Shen), the illusion that she is more
than a female terminator falls apart. She fares barely better with her
love interest (played very safely by Alec Newman).
Now, let’s get back to Parry Shen. It has been
a long time since I have seen a character as annoying as this one. A
little whiny bitch who spends his days gambling and drinking with his friend,
stealing his sister’s Bai Ling hard earned money to do so, giving her lectures
about her morally ambiguous job, complaining and whining about his miserable lot
in life throughout… And when he gets in trouble with local mob boss
Randall (played with chewing the scenery intensity by Daniel Zapaca), he hides
behind his sister for protection after he almost got her killed with his stupidity
and selfishness. And when she is forced to kill in order to save his
miserable life, he still gives her shit for it… He keeps that ironic
moral high ground all the way to the end, when faced with the opportunity to
kill in order to get what he wants, it suddenly becomes no big deal at all…
Somehow, the film tries to make us feel sorry for him but you can’t : as
played by Parry Shen, he just comes across as a selfish prick.
Faye Dunaway also makes a short appearance, for a
few seconds, and merely cashes a check for the rest of the film with an
uninspired voice over…
While the action scenes are well choreographed
and for the most part well shot, the same cannot be said of the more intimate
scenes, which would have benefited greatly of a few more snips in the cutting
room – or before, while it was still on paper… Which brings me to my next
point : the script is very talky and it leads to serious pacing issues
during the dramatic scenes, which unfortunately outnumber the action scenes ten
to one. The script is also guilty of sacrificing logic to serve the
plot… Want an example? Michelle always quickly looks at her assignments
when she gets offered the job, as if she can’t wait to get to her goal of
leaving. Except when it is her last one and she believes that completing
this mission will get her long anticpated way out… We eventually realize
that she did not look because it was convenient for the plot. They try to
suggest that she does not look quickly because of her nervous anticipation or
her fear of finally leaving but I did not buy it one bit, especially since
Michelle goes at length about how much she wants to leave… The film is
littered with examples like this.
But where the film slaps a rope around its own
neck and hang itself for good is in the visual effects department. Talk
about a catastrophe! With the exception of the DNA transcoder and it’s victims
effects, the rest of the visual effects are a bargain basement effort at best.
Unfortunately, some of the worst effects are the most present since they relate
to most establishing shots in the film : the city and it’s surroundings.
For some reason, the film keeps cutting back to these shots which are seriously
dodgy After Effects patch jobs. It does not do justice to the beautiful
sets designed by Brian Ollman. To add insult to injury, some really
questionable compositing jobs and a splatter (pun intended) of very bad CGI
blood squibs slams a mortal dagger into what is otherwise a visually stunning
indie effort.
On the plus side, Bai Ling offers us glimpse of
her delicious breasts a couple of time, once in the traditional and
cliched shower scene and again, in quick flashes, within her love scene with
Alec Newman. Some inventive camera work is also on display, as well as an
interesting pattern of parallel editing, which I felt sadly did not meet it’s
full potential but was entertaining nonetheless.
All told, and considering it is director Pearry
Teo directing debut, it’s a fairly impressive achievement sadly plagued by
shoddy FX work, inexperience with directing actors and a talky script that feels
more like a first draft than a shooting script, But keep an eye out for
Teo’s next effort because he has definitely proven he can shoot and has an
acute artistic eye when CGI is not involved,. With a few more directing
notches under his belt, he’ll definitely be someone to watch out for.
Rating: 5/10