Sommerleigh Pollonais – Senior Writer
I love a good Sci Fi thriller. When they’re done right, they can be legendary (see Gattaca, Predestination, Interstellar). And 2067 actually has some moments that shine, which could’ve made it one of the good ones. Unfortunately, like the timeline it’s set in, this Australian film has some serious problems that prevents it from being one of the greats.
The film stars Kodi Smit Mc-Phee (The Road, Let Me In) as Ethan and Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) as Jude. The world is dying and all the oxygen is almost gone. A signal from 400 years into the future has been received and the key to the survival of the human race may lie in Ethan’s hands.
For a small budget film, the movie looks quite good. There aren’t a lot of special effects, but what’s there is top notch. Kodi Smit-McPhee has been acting since he was nine-years old and as our reluctant hero his performance is solid as always. The same can be said for Ryan Kwanten as well. They both have the most screen time here and their chemistry as best friends is believable and adds dramatic weight where it’s needed. The last main character is our antagonist played by Aboriginal actress Deborah Mailman. I’m not familiar with her work but she’s also not the problem here.
Where this film fails is in the pacing and the logic. It could’ve been a truly wonderful movie, but too much time is spent with Ethan doubting his abilities to carry through with his mission. Instead of a reluctant hero, we get a whiny crybaby who spends half the movie questioning everything, and he literally has to be dragged along for most of his quest, until he finally stands up and does what needs to be done. Again, it’s not the actor’s fault (he was also written as a terrible version of Nightcrawler in the last couple X-Men films) but this made it excruciatingly hard to follow his lead as he (maybe) fights for a better future. Now that I think about it, McPhee plays these types of characters in most of his movies. It can be quite off-putting for me and probably the reason I’m not a fan of his. Again, not his fault, but I guess he looks the part so that’s what he’s given.
The movie also gets very stereotypical in the final act. It’s like the writer(s) looked up every single sci-fiction time travel cliche he could find and threw it at the screenplay. For crying out loud, a LITERAL deus ex-machina saves the day! I rolled my eyes so hard they almost ended up in the back of my skull.
They ask you to believe a group of people who could build a time machine, couldn’t come up with a way to revive plant life in their world?! As we Trinidadians would say “come nah man!” (translation: a very sarcastic “seriously?!”)
I’ve read other reviews for this and I don’t think the film is as bad as people are making it out to be, but it most definitely falls short of adding anything noteworthy to the genre. There’s just enough there to make you sit through to the end though, so while I give them points for effort, 2067 is too tedious for me to recommend you give it a go.
Sommer’s Score: 5 out of 10
For my review of dystopian Sci Fi film LX 2048 you can click here. And for more film reviews that are neither tedious nor cliche-heavy you can like and follow Redmangoreviews on Facebook here.
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
Double Tap Baby!
You can also follow me as Moviejunkies Cont’d on Facebook and watch my movie review videos on YouTube. For my longer bio you can click here.