Jaxxon Sterling (Stephen Dorff, middle) is held prisoner by Stars (Moises Arias, Jason Genao). Photograph courtesy of Sundance Institute
Jan. 26 (UPI) — Divinity, which premiered Saturday on the Sundance Movie Pageant, appears to wish to be a science fiction parable of the THX 1138 selection. Sadly, it’s so convoluted and tough to observe, any related message comes far too late.
Jaxxon Pierce (Stephen Dorff) is continuous his father Sterling’s (Scott Bakula) analysis into an anti-aging method known as Divinity. Jackson will get it to work, although not everyone seems to be completely satisfied about this.
Two males (Moises Arias, Jason Genao) break into Jaxxon’s home and provides him an overdose of Divinity. In the meantime, Ziva (Bella Thorne) leads a bunch of followers in retro sci-fi uniforms attempting to cease Divinity, a subplot largely indifferent from the remainder of the movie.
Author/director Eddie Alcazar shot Divinity on grainy black and white movie inventory and made it aggressively exhausting to see. Enhancing, fuzzy archival movies of Sterling’s analysis and ambiguous parallel tales problem the viewer to piece collectively Divinity.
One sequence combines stop-motion animation with anime-inspired backgrounds. At the hours of darkness black and white footage, it is simply as muted as the remainder of the movie.
Early on, Sterling reveals in a video that Divinity doesn’t cease psychological deterioration. The prospect of ageing brains in perpetually younger our bodies hasn’t deterred anybody from taking Divinity.
Jaxxon additionally reveals that this world was tormented by infertility earlier than they invented Divinity. So few, if any, new folks will ever be part of the world however they nonetheless wish to dwell ceaselessly.
By the point Divinity reveals what the method is definitely made from, it has clear parallels to controversial real-life sciences. The movie is questioning the ethics of pursuing such a scientific advance, however is so on the nostril it’s clumsy at greatest.
Maybe worse, the twist in Divinity suggests even worse penalties than actual world anti-science advocates warning. Sure, Soylent Inexperienced warned of companies turning folks into meals, however Divinity may actually empower harmful anti-science views.
The movie additionally options gratuitous intercourse. That additionally speaks to ethics if you discover out the place precisely Jaxxon’s companions come from.
Divinity is clearly supposed to be a difficult movie. Nonetheless, even in the event you meet the movie by itself phrases, it nonetheless proves problematic.
Fred Topel, who attended movie college at Ithaca Faculty, is a UPI leisure author based mostly in Los Angeles. He has been an expert movie critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 and a member of the Tv Critics Affiliation since 2012. Learn extra of his work in Leisure.