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The US-Polish science fiction film Warning is going to be unfavorably compared to Black Mirror. Mostly because Warning is yet another cynical collection of inhumane, immoral science fiction plays that take place in the not-too-distant future, and the main difference is this: it’s about 85 minutes long.
“Warning” starts and ends with its most high-concept scenario, the one that connects all the other stories together. Astronaut David (Thomas Jane) is doomed and floating in outer space. He’s got a surge of electricity that sends him floating out of control and he spends a lot of his time thinking about his life. That comic premise is as unforgettable as St. Peter entertaining and scolding the dead at the gates of Heaven. David also exists and sets up a darkly funny anti-climatic piece that doesn’t work due to all preceding subplots having no dramatic tension. Most of the movie’s vignettes, about cartoonishly devoid god 2.0 worshipper Claire (Alice Eve) and tragically obsolete companion robot Charlie (Rupert Everett), feel like half-finished sketches that are crammed together because less often seems like more when you have lots of it. David is here to put a bow on everything. Just wait.
The movie Warning was co-written and directed by Agata Alexander which attempts the audience to contemplate several ideas but fails to execute them well. For example, what would someone do if Nina who is for all intents and purposes mortal, discovers that her relatives are immortals who don’t want her dating their son Liam, who is a passive adult immortal? Or similarly, what happens if someone like Claire becomes so dependent on technology that she asks a mere customer service representative for an inspirational quote for the day?
Somebody like Nina can be heard rolling her eyes at the concept without actually saying it. She tries to put on a facade of politeness whenever figures of authority like her bosses become intrusive and ask her questions like ‘Why can’t you find someone of your own who matches your level?’ Nina’s counterpart Claire aims for optimistic and cheerful customer service representatives and uses several different underwhelming punchlines but does not succeed. To put it mildly, Nina and Claire are hardly characters that are fully developed, yet impersonators like Wallis and Eve who have a lot thrown at them do not hit a standard performer’s minimum.
But, can you really expect some of the performers in the film to be astonishing considering the material they were given? Everett is cute in this performance, but for some reason, I remember this being really goofy in Heartbeeps. At the same time, it is hard to pinpoint what exactly is off with Jane’s performance, seeing that he seems to sprint through his line readings as fast as David does through the stages of grief. Petulant David, As far as fathers go, you’re not very good either. Shit, And then, he is having some of his silliness which leads to his almost zen-like moment in the film stating, It’s easier to live in an illusion than it is in … reality. I mean, look at how snarky he is in the movie’s ending.
So, what exactly went wrong with Warning? Well, the answers lie in the lack of character and concept development. It is like we navigate from one story to the next only for them to be cast aside in the end as if they were merely a child’s doodle. I typically enjoy bad genre movies which are built on some awful shaggy dog premise, but Warning doesn’t go far on such meager fumes.
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