Rhys Darby is a perfect fit for the dim-witted gentleman time traveler in “Relax, I Am From the Future”, a lighthearted science fiction comedy with quirky humor and an underlying message.
Called a clown, a term never used lightly, so many things come into mind where one has to ‘perform.’ Dorothy Parker seemed to capture this aptly when she said, ‘half the world is composed of idiots, and the other half is protected by them.’ It really is hard to think of anyone other than Darby’s Casper who arrives in our time in a purple jumpsuit and scribbled notes on his hands. He has mastered this bumbling nature more or less like the clueless manager, Murray, in the “Flight of the Conchords,” or as a clueless pirate Stead Bonnet in ‘Our Flag Means Death.’ When he tries to explain to a suburban father that the title of the movie is the reason he is getting punched in the face, one cannot help but grin from ear to ear as the writer and director Luke Higgison claims his presence is joyous.
He runs into Holly, self proclaimed ‘queer black vagina hiver’ while wandering to other libraries that still exist at this point in the past. Even Gaga could not respect boundaries when sitting next to Blythe Danner so one can only imagine the holds Darby’s persona has. She, without overstating her range, compliments his qualm in a way which makes one not want to break. When Holly gives Casper her trash nachos on the street, the chemistry the two have is instantly initialed.
In stark contrast to Casper, she indeed is from the future but is the story’s vision for the present being that poor person has a hand in changing what stems from protest.
Bonding over a bottle of booze after snorting some cocaine (which says becomes legal), the two having a conversation over the value of the present while, according to Casper, Pup worsens, Holly believes that history is “a trash barrel”. To comfort her, Casper says “things do in fact get a lot better,” but then proceeds to leave out half the details.
Casper claims to be a millennial who is aiming to get wealthy, in which he helps Holly put down a few bets and earn some money while revealing some of his future goals. The money secretly means another plan, but he didn’t have to reveal it. For the same reason, one of the few where Higginson’s jokes is lets itself a bit too short. The reason why these issues arise is simply because Casper’s uninspired comedy is not laugh extremely out loud to put off Casper time traveling narrator dragging his time while anticipation from one light jumps to the other.
To Casper’s surprise, he remains completely in the dark. He is quite being chased down by an assassin named Doris who never seems to smile and is fully equipped with a black jumpsuit. Doris who is always in black is even more from the future than Casper, but the difference is, she lacks any sort of enjoying the lifestyle Casper has.
When she isn’t experiencing some version of a dinner date in a bland apartment or in therapy, it’s stalking long jumpsuit clad figures while wielding a blaster that only has one setting: detecting people who leave an impact in the world. Her next target is Casper, the light of her weapon indicates and he disappears in one of Higginson’s brief special effects puffs.
Its quite amusing in a harsh way and a complete mess when “Relax, I’m from the future” does at long last shed light on its biggest plot points. We learn way too late that Phase Two is ‘Save the World’. It also serves as a harsh reminder to all of us about our individual significance when mingled with nudges about purpose; especially when the fate has already been determined. It’s a darkly amusing look at people with intent as a numbers game and an even tougher look on the fact that so many of us are nobodies destined to achieve nothing.
Rather, the film stretches out the task of resolving this sort of existential nihilism by determining what everyone needs to be killed in order for this or that to fix the current state, using long winded monotonous climactic scenes that instead of resolving the plot and it’s concept, seem to convolve them.
Optimistic little pieces of existence seem to be the most, Relax, I’m From the Future, portrays for the year varying from 2023. The adamant wee hope provides just an ounce of goodwill, similar to the only scene where it rains, in this particular scenario it is while a cargo plane shipment of colorful balls for a ball pit is dropped. This unpredictable, over the top, and carefree image is also what makes Higginson’s script so amazing and allows the character of Casper who is also the main focus of the narrative, to serve more of his nihilistic themed cartoons which further leads to an apocalypse in the story. Such is life.
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