Opening with a voice-over recap of the first film, read by Anthony Hopkins like a shopping list of silly fantasy names, and a standard sci-fi resurrection of Ed Skrein's Admirable Noble, this is very much a Part Two that is - to some extent - an improvement on its predecessor. To say that this film is a game of two halves is an understatement, as the first fifty-minutes are utterly skippable, unless you have a penchant for slow-motion farming and drearily-told unnecessary back stories for each of Kora's ragtag band of fighters assembled in the first movie. However, once the baddies come to collect the harvest and the battle begins, The Scargiver picks up enormously and morphs into a terrific, relentless sci-fi actioner with genuine stakes, lives lost and a surprisingly grounded visual aesthetic that works very well indeed. Whilst the 'one village takes a stand against the Motherworld ' story is worthy, its silly improbability and thinness of actual plot and concept makes the whole enterprise feel rather lightweight. Nevertheless, if you like huge-scale, noisy sci-fi action then the second half is very strong indeed, and the threat of a hitherto-unmentioned Part Three set up right at the end would hopefully take it beyond the village confines.
No comments:
Post a Comment