I'm guessing they must have filmed this on a Sunday morning as it's one of the most successful "deserted cities" film I've seen in a long time. Mind you, the fact that I was spending time looking at the background is probably not a great thing when I should have been concentrating on the plot...
New psychic who shares a "special link" with Jo Castleton's returning character turns out to be a bit of a (hmmmm, not sure that word is allowed on blogger). An entire town's worth of citizens has disappeared, Lockwood's back from Sentinel Island but has the nestene energy inside his mind and it's desperate for the weird alien chip thingy that's inside there as well. And there's a lot more running round, not through corridors or woods but through the empty streets. Then Lockwood's completely stitched up and everyone's either dead or miserable.
As with the other two it could probably drop about 15 minutes and the autons are now dressed in black jeans, black sweaters and sensible shoes. Somehow that just doesn't make them terrifying any more, more like pretentious poets wearing white gloves. Yes there's decent looking CGI but I just couldn't get in to the plot enough to really care. Lockwood spends most of the hour blissed out in a dream state and I was pretty jealous of him by the end. I'm sure it was a very worthy three hours' worth of video but deep inside I couldn't help but think it should have been slightly less on CGI, slightly more on redrafting the scripts and a better look for the autons in what should have been their climatic hour.
Showing posts with label autons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autons. Show all posts
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Spin Off City - Auton
Whereas "Shakedown" had the benefit of location footage to enhance the viewing, "Auton" can be summed up as an hour spent running around a warehouse, trying to avoid some animated strawberry jam. And that's probably being generous.
I''m not saying "Auton" is bad, somewhere in there it probably has some good ideas. It's just that they're buried deep under lots of deep and meaningful talking. A nestene energy unit is re-animated in a warehouse, some UNIT people turn up (including the "mysterious" Lockwood, no Mr, just Lockwood), one of the warehouse staff gets possessed and transformed into a humming Auton. Other autons show up and smash their way through very obviously empty cardboard boxes and Lockwood acts all mysterious and knowing. Doctor's device from "Spearhead" gets used. The End.
The props and auton creatures are very lovingly re-created. Lockwood is played well though the mystery bit is overdone. Yet somehow the whole thing falls very flat. There's not much in the way of atmosphere, the crates are too obviously empty and it's just rather linear. No twists, very little that's unexpected and all of the shots in the warehouse are lacking in menace or decent direction. It's almost as though they had the idea of bringing the Autons back and were determined to make it as dull as possible. A shame as it could have been so much more, even without a budget.
I''m not saying "Auton" is bad, somewhere in there it probably has some good ideas. It's just that they're buried deep under lots of deep and meaningful talking. A nestene energy unit is re-animated in a warehouse, some UNIT people turn up (including the "mysterious" Lockwood, no Mr, just Lockwood), one of the warehouse staff gets possessed and transformed into a humming Auton. Other autons show up and smash their way through very obviously empty cardboard boxes and Lockwood acts all mysterious and knowing. Doctor's device from "Spearhead" gets used. The End.
The props and auton creatures are very lovingly re-created. Lockwood is played well though the mystery bit is overdone. Yet somehow the whole thing falls very flat. There's not much in the way of atmosphere, the crates are too obviously empty and it's just rather linear. No twists, very little that's unexpected and all of the shots in the warehouse are lacking in menace or decent direction. It's almost as though they had the idea of bringing the Autons back and were determined to make it as dull as possible. A shame as it could have been so much more, even without a budget.
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