With a painfully slow year for film, it’s always a nice surprise when something shows up and is unexpectedly good. 2067 is precisely that title for me so far this year.
This Australian film screams B-movie when you read the synopsis and look at the cover. In fact, one who is quick to judge would likely write this one off entirely, almost completely for it’s shiny presentation, lack of major marketing, and the fact that it involves sci-fi time travel. However, I was quite impressed with the quality put into this one, including its visual design and quality.
The story itself, as I already said, involves a pretty hefty use of time travel, but it’s a lot more than just that. The protagonist, Ethan Whyte, is seemingly a nobody loner who has never recovered from the loss of his parents and is facing a grim future where the world is completely without plant life and his wife is dying due to the lack of global supply of oxygen. A lot to take in, huh? Well it gets real weird when he is brought in and told that he has been summoned from 400 years in the future to save humanity.
Ethan risks never seeing his dying wife again to try and save mankind. He’s a standup dude.
However, once he arrives in the future, nothing seems right. In fact things seem very very off. This is where the movie deviates from typical B-movie fare. In fact, there’s enough plot twists and mind-fuckery going on that I was reminded of Primer, which was not something I was expecting in the least.
I was guessing until the end and was still surprised at some of the choices that Ethan made, which makes this a hearty recommend from me, despite an abundance of scenes of Ethan crying and agonizing over every little thing. That was a bit over the top.
PQ/AQ:
Visually speaking, 2067 was much more impressive than I had expected it to be. Usually with sci-fi movies that I don’t see much marketing around, I am prepared to see just horrible cgi or cheap effects. However, 2067 is a gorgeous movie with a lot of great rendered sci-fi landscapes. The abundance of neon and bright colors was exciting on screen, and the contrast was great, with satisfying dark scenes.
The DTS-Master Audio 5.1 channel surround track was fine for the most part, but during a couple scenes towards the end with a lot of drama going on there was some struggle to catch all of the dialogue, but that is my only complaint.
Special Features:
2067 comes to us from RLJE in a one disc set with a shiny, eye catching slipcover. The included special features are:
- Audio Commentary with Director
- Behind the Scenes of:
- The Story
- The Cast
- The Director
- The Look
- The Costumes & Makeup
- The Time Machine
- The Editing & VFX
- The Music
Packaging
Our Recommendation for 2067:
With so little new coming out, it’s hard to not recommend anything that is even remotely good, but 2067 was more than that. It takes what could have been a very rote sci-fi/time travel story and adds themes that are poignant and fresh, all in a good looking and legitimately surprising package. Give this one a watch!
