IIn 1988, I saw an excellent psychological thriller Apartment Zero It was so fresh, surprising, sexy, suspenseful and original that it had bothered me for decades. It’s in the class itself, early hypnotic performances by Colin Firth and Hart Bochner, and a young writer’s debut script, no one has ever heard of the title “Dai” David Koepp. Around the same time, fledgling newcomer Steven Soderbergh directed a highly acclaimed low-budget independent drama, Sex, lies and videotapes. Although neither of these films were cleared at the box office, they developed important followers and embarked on important careers that allowed their creators to surge in fame and fortune. Mr. Koepp followed closely Apartment Zero With unparalleled blockbusters, including Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Jurassic Park and two Indiana Jones Epic, and Mr. Soderbergh won a lot of praise and won many Best Director Awards Erin Brockovich. So now we bring them to their latest twists, harsh holes called Present.
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Present ★ (1/4 star) |
When two creative artists with so many talents and value decide to work together, attention must be drawn. But the movie is wrongly called the title, because if there is any evidence that Mr. Koepp or Mr. Soderbergh exists, then there is obviously nowhere to be seen Present. Even the plot suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. A man with a wife, his teenage son and his daughter move the family to a deserted country house in a remote woods. This is a beautifully decorated Hollywood Mans with silver nitrate glass windows, beautiful colors on the walls of each room, painted floors and a marble kitchen with equipment that has not yet been invented. But before they can say “Amityville,” all the old cinematic cliches begin. Books slide down from the bed, float in the air and land in the bookcase. It has arrived before they have it, and now it is sharing the house, but who? The daughter has two friends who died of overdose, and she believes it may be them. Summoning a psychic man, without entering the House, would predict something terrible would happen. They don’t.
The subplot fills in time and space just to drag out more puzzling in the movie than it should be. The husband plans to divorce his wife without obvious reasons. The cutest thing is that there is an entrance to a murderous fool playing a big role in a weird, double-confused ending. For movies with so many settings, nothing happened. OK, “existence” is creepy, but there is no fear or suspense. Something might have happened, maybe in this house, now it needs to do something, but don’t know what it is. Mr. Koepp’s langlan script has no worries or anxiety. Instead, it forces residents to say “make wise choices – stupid choices tend to last forever”. Vapid can’t be the job of the same David Koepp, who wrote exciting Apartment zero. It’s hard to tag the movie for this movie, but the word “worthless” comes to mind immediately.
Footnote: Performance Present It’s so bad, let alone any names.
