One of the great things about Netflix is that the choose of sci-films has increased exponentially. I came across Origin wars quite by chance, decided to give it a try and explore the new world it offered.
I must confess the start did not enamour me with the little girl narrating over world building images about her lost daddy and their family issues. I was very worried it was a gloried chick-flick wrapped up in an outer space setting. Fortunately, things did improve.
The plot was one of escape and evade. The evil corporation threatening to destroy a whole new world colony after a prison block riot unleashed genetically modified prisoner/monsters who killed everything in their path, in order to protect their company’s terraforming reputation.
The prison scenes were gritty, realistic, with filthy prisoners in a desperate situation gradually being worked to death while hearing rumours prisoners never returning from the isolation ‘tumble dryers.’ Their situation was then neatly spliced into the wealthy lives of the company people in charge of the orbital circling the planet and the prison colony below.
After the prison riot and the company’s’ decision to overheat the reactors and nuke Osiris it became a chase with Lt Kane and Sy a very descent prisoner trying to save Kane’s quite annoying 11-year-old daughter Indy. On their travels they meet a desperate bunch of vagabonds that seemed to have been beamed up directly from the deep south including the step sibling, druggie lovers and the gun shack owners. The fight scenes and running gun battles were great in this chase.
The flashbacks to the events that put Sy in prison were interesting and an important part of his character building, so you actually understood the reasons for his actions. Lt Kane’s flashbacks were a bit more evasive – he seemed to have got drunk and failed to give correct orders to the men he was commanding and they all died. However, this was not enough to get him incarcerated instead he changed jobs. Then felt very guilty about being an absent father. A theme which cropped up with alarming regularity and spoiled the action sequences of the film.
Another issue with the flashbacks were that they were watching the film and suddenly the scene goes white and you get a chapter heading and Roman numerals completely covering your screen. Immediately, this has the effect of pulling you out of the world that Shane Abbess has carefully created.
If you can get passed the abrupt chapter changes and the Daddy Issues this was a good, solid sci-fi movie which is entertaining and fun to watch.
I recommend this film to sci-fi lovers.
P.J. Reed is the author of the dark high fantasy novel, The Torcian Chronicles.
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