Sluggish teenagers, stupid script. Why Generation Voyager with Colin Farrell is a bad dystopia and so-so thriller

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A potentially interesting idea was spoiled by primitive dialogues and poorly acting actors.

On April 22, a new film by Neil Burger, author of the mystical drama "The Illusionist" and the fantastic thriller "Fields of Darkness", will start in the Russian box office. The director also had a hand in the first part of the teenage franchise "Divergent". His works are usually based on a literary source, but this time the director decided to shoot a picture according to his own script.

It seems that the original title of the tape ("Wanderers", or simply "Travelers") seemed too simple to the distributor, so it came out under a more intricate name. This is a little disorienting when watching, because there is no Voyager in the plot and there is no trace of it. But this is only a small part of the absurdity that awaits the viewer.

The fantastic plot smoothly turns into a retelling of Golding

The plot is as follows: the people of the future are faced with the task of preserving their kind, since the Earth is slowly dying. A suitable planet for resettlement is soon found, but, according to calculations, it will take more than 80 years to fly there.

Then a group of trained boys and girls is sent on a colonial expedition. Future missionaries are specially raised in the laboratory, carefully protecting them from cultural influences, so that later they do not miss their native land, which they are destined to leave forever. Only the third generation will see the new planet - the grandchildren of those who will board the ship now.

But when the moment of start comes, their mentor Richard (Colin Farrell) unexpectedly joins the young people, although he realizes that for him this is a one-way ticket.

At first, the team acts as a well-coordinated mechanism: everyone knows their responsibilities, even food intake is strictly regulated. The camera slowly pans through the deserted corridors of the ship, capturing well the sense of detachment that reigns on the ship. Such a move even creates tension, but Generation Voyager is still far from the best examples of space horror, which the director was clearly inspired by.

True, the film gradually becomes shamelessly similar to Lord of the Flies. One of the crew members, Christopher (Ty Sheridan), realizes that the blue substance that they are fed under the guise of vitamins actually suppresses human feelings, including libido.

Together with their friend Zach (Finn Whitehead), they quit drinking the strange liquid. The moments when the heroes refuse to take the drug and suddenly feel a rush of previously arrested emotions are edited quite interestingly and remind the viewer that he is watching a movie from the director of "Areas of Darkness".

Gradually, other inhabitants of the spaceship will learn about the children’s discovery. All the more aggravated by a sudden tragic incident, after which chaos and madness finally reign on the ship.

Moreover, in the course of events, "Lord of the Flies" pops up more than once: here, too, there are two leaders (one for all good and against all bad, the other is an inveterate anarchist), and rumors about an alien creature that allegedly crawls along the casing persist in the ship …

Farrell plays with dignity, which cannot be said about young actors

The first third of the tape is very enlivened by the charismatic Colin Farrell. True, the actor was given an insulting little screen time. Most of the film will have to look at the young guys - the main trinity is Ty Sheridan (Ready Player One), Finn Whitehead (Dunkirk, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) and Lily-Rose Depp.

It's funny, but it is Sheridan and Depp, on whose characters half the script is based, demonstrate the most dry and restrained style of play. Whitehead is the only one trying to portray emotions, but so diligently pretends to be an obsessed psychopath that, against the background of sluggish, sleepy comrades, it looks almost comical.

At first, I really want to explain phlegmatic facial expressions by the director's desire to show different states of the characters - under the influence of a tranquilizer and without it. The trouble is that young performers, under any circumstances, look about the same lifeless.

As for the rest of the heroes, they are just faceless extras. Only a few guys stand out from the amorphous crowd - among them Isaac Hempstead-Wright (but not because of his game, but to what is known as Bran Stark from Game of Thrones). At the end of the film, it will no longer be possible to remember how many teenagers were on the screen at the beginning of the movie, and how many - at the end.

The script is approaching the level of the works of Tommy Wiseau

The script is by far the film's weakest point. Most confusing are the snippets of plot lines that lead nowhere. For example, Farrell's hero is so imbued with paternal feelings for one of the charges (played by Lily-Rose Depp) that he acquaints the girl with the details of earthly life, which, in fact, is prohibited by the rules.

Together they discuss the smells of various medicinal herbs, samples of which the mentor carefully keeps in his office. All this is presented as an incredibly important thing for the plot, but then this detail will simply be forgotten.

It is also not very clear why Richard left his family to embark on a journey of no return. This could be explained by attachment to the charges, but at the same time it turns out that the mentor already has his own children.

The motivation of the main instigator is also not entirely clear. I would like to find at least some explanation for the villain's actions, but the only thing that the film offers as an answer is his nature, the antagonist.

Considering that even Marvel villains now appear as complex and deep characters, once again seeing evil for evil's sake on screen is exhausting, to put it mildly. As well as listening to terribly ridiculous dialogues, approaching the level of the legendary "Room", in comparison with which "Divergent" seems to be the height of drama.

It's also funny that when it comes time to show the crew revolt, the most extraordinary thing that the authors dare to demonstrate is how some guys have dinner sitting on the table. It seems that, in the director's view, this is the apotheosis of the lawlessness that teenagers trapped in a confined space can arrange.

Contrary to the idea, Neil Burger did not succeed in "Lord of the Flies" in space scenery. For a thriller, this movie is too toothless and sterile; for a dystopian parable, it is too flat. The author was unable to properly write his characters, and the actors were unable to play them convincingly.

So this picture can only be advised to the most loyal fans of Colin Farrell - if they manage to come to terms with the fact that he drops out about half an hour after the start.