He has suddenly understood the full extent of the crazy storyline of the movie of which he is the protagonist. It's great to be ambitious. But writer/director/producer Jesse O'Brian just isn't realistic in attempting to fuse enough ideas for 5 movies, into his 95 minute film Arrowhead. Ironically the first 10 - 15 minutes is both intriguing and compelling and the best part of the movie. Convict/prisoner of war Kye (I'm still unsure) is responsible for busting both himself and a war leader named Hatch out of a prison quarry. Hatch promptly displays his thanks by immediately sending the reluctant Kye off on another mission, supposedly the success of which, will lead to the release of Kye's father from another prison. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. It already sounds complicated. That's not the half of it.
Arrowhead kind of resembles a C - grade version of Pitch Black, likely because both were filmed in the same outback area of Australia. But then O'Brian decides to throw in extra ideas from other SF classics such as Solaris, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, The Edge of Tomorrow and Interstellar to the point, where the story ceases to flow and instead just continually spins its wheels and just goes nowhere.
Not helping proceedings in the least, is that the acting isn't particularly strong and the production's limited budget is pretty obvious, from the cheap - looking props and special effects, to the same sort of landscape from the opening prison prologue to the main setting on a supposedly "distant moon". You just want to shake your head when a pair of blokes are running around this moon for half the movie wearing nothing but jeans, whilst other characters are wrapped up in spacesuits and everyone carries on as if every thing is perfectly normal. Critical, need-to-know information is presented too late in the script to maximize understanding.
Arrowhead's slow pace, dullish cinematography and vague narrative means much is lost on the viewer. It becomes hard to feel one thing or another for the different characters and therefore the result doesn't have the impact that I suspect the film is looking for. With more action and conviction from the plot and better acting, I feel this may have been a more gripping film.
Arrowhead kind of resembles a C - grade version of Pitch Black, likely because both were filmed in the same outback area of Australia. But then O'Brian decides to throw in extra ideas from other SF classics such as Solaris, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, The Edge of Tomorrow and Interstellar to the point, where the story ceases to flow and instead just continually spins its wheels and just goes nowhere.
Not helping proceedings in the least, is that the acting isn't particularly strong and the production's limited budget is pretty obvious, from the cheap - looking props and special effects, to the same sort of landscape from the opening prison prologue to the main setting on a supposedly "distant moon". You just want to shake your head when a pair of blokes are running around this moon for half the movie wearing nothing but jeans, whilst other characters are wrapped up in spacesuits and everyone carries on as if every thing is perfectly normal. Critical, need-to-know information is presented too late in the script to maximize understanding.
Arrowhead's slow pace, dullish cinematography and vague narrative means much is lost on the viewer. It becomes hard to feel one thing or another for the different characters and therefore the result doesn't have the impact that I suspect the film is looking for. With more action and conviction from the plot and better acting, I feel this may have been a more gripping film.