Reviews

The Waiting City is a fantastic film.

The story, the imagery, the music, the subtlety and depth of culture that is presented is great to see and really enjoyable. Given the films topic, it was good to see it kept a light-hearted feel and did not get too bogged down in heavy drama that most Aussie films seem too.

It has left me with a good feeling, and I would recommend to people who want to see something a bit different from the norm. I know this is a bit of a rave review, but I really enjoyed it, and the rest of the audience seemed too as well.

A lovely film.

5 stars

My friends and I have just finished seeing a preview of this new Australian film. Everyone who was in the cinema agreed, what was the point of this film? There was no good story to follow, the characters were undeveloped, and the plot seemed unmotivated. I find it bizarre that this film, that probably cost in the high millions, got funded and made. It serves no purpose to the drama community, its adds nothing to the palette of Australian cinema. It really was a waste of time creating this droll unemotional piece of work and more time really should be spent work-shopping scripts and creating good stories, not creating a mess like this. Hugo Weaving and Rose Byrne were OK but severely hampered by a bad script. Pia Miranda's character was unnecessary and abstract from the plot, and her lines were average at best. A true waste of talent. The saving grace was Geoffrey Simpson ACS' cinematography, which like most Aussie films, was superb.

Come on guys, think about it next time please.

4/10

It has the 2 main characters, but this is not the X-Files. In the peak of X, series 4 era, there was a mood in every episode, created by story, character interaction, music and the Paranormal. This film lacks this mood totally. It is very tacky and generic. Character motivations are poor and the story is very 2 dimensional. A lot of things just don't make sense and have no reason to be. The FBI agents who play along are weak and have no purpose other than to read lines and Billy Connolly seems wasted in his role. The relationship between Mulder and Scully is unbelievable, better without, leaving some trace of the angst present in the series. Another main flaw is this film is boring. The series and first film had excitement along with creepiness, this is just slow and seemingly low-budget. I am unsure what Chris Carter was thinking when he wrote and produced this, it is quite a poor film generally, there are episodes in the series far far above this effort.

3/10

There is nothing redeeming about this woeful film. It is contrived, racist, completely lacking subtlety, and the voice-over and acting by the female lead is cringe-worthy. The narrative makes no sense, a tangled web of attempted plot points and terrible character development. The worst possible flaw though is the attempt to portray a Aboriginal Vs White conflict. The film's lead female has such wildly racist, biased views and shares them so freely. It is offensive that these far out views are made to seem normal in society. It is such a partisan viewpoint shown in the film, so far flung from reality. The word 'Dope' is used in this film to represent drugs, but it is used so badly and sounds so contrived. Certainly not from 'the streets' where the film tries to set itself.

It is basically unwatchable...

All in all, an appalling effort at film-making. I hope some lessons were learned from this about how not to produce a film. I also hope it has not scared off investors from having faith in local filmmakers.

Worse than Spawn. Yes its true. Atrocious acting, bizaare plots points, and you can tell it is from a first time director. The theatre was laughing for the wrong reasons. Some scenes in this movie were so contrived and comical. The characters were not fully explored and reasons were not given for most of their strange actions they perform during the narrative. There is too much of the main character Vlad, the pretty boy, and it hurts at some points to see his wooden performance over and over. I think the director may have been going for a 'Finding your true self' piece but it seems to push anti-gay sentiment slightly and the ending does not work at all. This is a shameful waste of celluloid.

Shabby 1/10

I went in excited. waiting to see how it would all turn out. but came out unentertained and will a feeling of being ripped off. there was an ending but it did not seem the right one. there were some lovely moments in the film, but the lines were way to repetively metaphorical and count the God Damn Its!! its like Not Another Teen Movie all over again. Nice CGI as usual but nothing compares with the freeway scene of reloaded. there was a lack of quality hand-to-hand fighting as well.

And the very small parts of some characters were unnecessary. poor monica belucci.

It is a shame.