Review by Bob Ignizio
In Walt Disney's BAMBI,
the rabbit Thumper quotes his father as saying, “If you can't say
something nice, don't say nothin' at all.” If Thumper's dad were
reviewing THE LAZARUS EFFECT,
it would probably be one sentence: “THE LAZARUS EFFECT
is less than an hour and a half long.” At least that's the only
nice thing I can find to say about it. Of course film critics have
never been the sort to take the advice of Thumper's dad to heart, so
I'll elaborate further.
Directed
by David Gelb from a script credited to Luke Dawson and Jeremy
Slater, THE LAZARUS EFFECT
plays like a horror movie riff on last year's Scarlett Johansson
actioner LUCY. Frank
(Mark Duplass) and Zoe (Olivia Wilde) head up a small research group,
with fellow scientists Niko (Donald Glover) and Clay (Evan Peters)
working under them. Student filmmaker Eva (Sarah Bolger) is also
around documenting their experiments. The goal is ostensibly to find
a way to keep patients alive on the operating table longer, but the
experiments have slipped more into ghoulish Dr. Frankenstein/Herbert
West territory.
After
initial success resurrecting animal subjects, albeit with some
troubling side effects, an accident that leaves Zoe dead forces the
team to move on to human trials with predictably disastrous results.
Zoe comes back with all manner of psychic powers (explained with a
variation on the bogus “we only use 10 percent of our brains”
myth also used in LUCY)
and a bad attitude, compounded by a heavy dose of guilt over a
tragedy she witnessed as a child. Now no one – friends, lovers, or
co-workers – is safe from Zoe's wrath.
Even
beyond its blandness and lack of originality, there are numerous
problems with the film's story. This is a film that seems to delight
in bringing up subplots only to abandon them or let them fizzle out
with no real impact. Zoe and Frank are engaged, but their research
has pushed the wedding back. This is brought up like it should be a
fairly major theme, but only barely pays off later. Then there's the
allusion to a past romance between Zoe and Niko which winds up
serving no real purpose. And Ray Wise pops up for maybe two minutes
as an evil CEO who uses a clause in the team's contract with the
university to gain possession of their research, never to be seen
again.
Beyond
the basic story problems, director Gelb (whose last film was the
documentary JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI)
shows absolutely no affinity for the material. His shots are bland
and uninspired, completely lacking in style. There's neither a sense
of fun or of genuine horror to the proceedings, either. Just deadpan
seriousness that the threadbare story doesn't warrant. And talk about
your unsatisfying conclusions. There's nothing inherently wrong with
a fake-out ending in a horror movie, but in this case it's completely
unearned and unfair. Not to mention it sets up the most unwelcome
prospect of a sequel. 1 out of 4 stars.
So low-grade horror is where the director of JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI went? Ohellno! This sounds like the sort of movie I would get assigned, back in the days newspapers actually paid me to freelance-review movies on which the better-liked critics didn't want to waste their time. At least I had the illusion of a career. What was the rest of the audience's excuse?
ReplyDeleteThe trailers and clips from this actually made it look pretty decent, and the high profile cast made me want to check this out.
ReplyDeleteThe quality of the cast is one of the other few "nice" things I could say about the film. They deserved better.
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