Could have been so much better!

antoinebachmann

WARNING number 1: spoilers! WARNING number 2: do NOT waste your time watching this!

I chanced upon this film on TV - I would never have imagined to purposedly go watch it, or pay per view.

So what do we have here: an average guy leads an average life. Then this average life changes for the worst, his place of work gets flooded, his wife falls in love with his best friend, you name it. At which point he gets sucked up into another dimension, and lands in a primitive world where a cliché primitive tribe suffer under the rule of a tyrant, and are awaiting a Savior. And of course, tell him that he is that Saviour.

Then we have to go through TONS of clichés of the genre, be it the films where the hero switches between two realities, or films where an unassuming hero is asked to be the Saviour, or films about primitive tribes, you name it. The tribesmen "talk funny", they "dress funny", there's lots of pathetic cliché jokes, the Saviors says "leaves me alone", they say, "you have to fulfil the Prophecy", and so on. He gets cocky, runs into trouble, you know how it goes. The tribe love him so they send a half-dozen half-naked girls for his enjoyment, and so on.

All this while having to withstand Poelvoorde's pretty poor acting, basically he is one of those actors who always act their own persona, i.e. are not really actors but always give you the same product, with the same clichés, the same tone of voice, the same body movements. You see Poelvorde in one film, you've seen him in all his films. I think that's the definition of not really being a great actor.

And then the cliché continues: as he gains confidence in the other dimension, this starts reflecting in his real life. He drops a job he has grown to hate. He hits his wife's lover, a cliché Argentinian (apparently they're supposed to only think about stealing your wife, but they also totally lack any courage, and whine as soon as they suffer the tiniest scratch), and everyone is surprised to suddenly see him being so manly. Then he meets another woman, who of course is charming, and loves art, his pursuit.

Then he has to return to the tribe universe to win the war. And he is made king and all. But soon the people tire of him because he has become cocky (another big cliché here).

And then he must return once more to kill the giant tyrant. And then when he expects that he's going to be fine after this victory, the tribesmen want to eat him to celebrate (the cliché being that all primitive tribesmen are cannibals, of course, of course). And as they hunt and then want to kill him, his other self, back in his own reality, enters suspended life. Think The Matrix, 13th Floor, and many, many other films.

But of course he gets saved just in time. Of course.

And then he has two women, and of course the non-wife elegantly leaves the scene. And of course the wife wants him back, he first says no I've been hurt too much, she says it was just a short-lived mistake, and all ends well.

BOTTOM-LINE is we have a film drowned in tons of clichés, many of which pretty pathetic, and a scenario that scores ZERO on originality, while the script is poor and thus many of the dialogues are just unbearable. And that's before I mention the acting - there is no real acting at all. What about it being a comedy? I think if you're a brute, or a bit drunk, then perhaps there are three decent jokes altogether. The ONLY positive in this mess, is that the photography is often quite elegant, even if they overdid it on hues and saturation to better mark the parallel reality, just in case the spectator got too bored and forgot which was which?

score 3/10

antoinebachmann 23 October 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3340784/