First off, I like the setting. That's the good stuff out of the way. Now the bad stuff.
The premise of the film is that this guy is a famous survivalist and his show has just been picked up by a network for its third season. The problem there is that the poor fella has the charisma of one of the sticks he uses in his figure-four deadfall trap, and is as convincing a survivalist as I am a molecular biologist. So, unfortunately, suspension of disbelief is immediately impossible, meaning I constantly knew I was watching a film and never got into it. I mean, this was kinda good because it meant I just laughed at the many terrible lines, ridiculous happenings, and unbelievable survival situations that even a cursory knowledge of what I'm led to believe is a 'fake' survival show - Naked and Afraid - would make you doubt as soon as you see it.
Like when he sets three deadfall traps his first night and immediately catches two rabbits. From my irregular viewings of N&A and 'Alone', it seems traps rarely catch anything, even over periods of extended time, and when they do, it's invariably mice or small birds. He also polishes the bottom of a drink can in order to focus the sun onto kindling to make a fire, and the clearly visible can is still impotently dull. I may be wrong but I don't remember him boiling his water, either. He also falls 30 feet down a hole, gets a compound fracture, then managed to climb out of the hole immediately and on the first attempt.
The worst cinematic'sin', however, is that the character constantly narrates his own thoughts. Not to camera for the show - that would at least partly make sense - just off-the-cuff remarks that if another character were there, he might tell; or that could be shown instead of told. It gets to the point where he tells a chessboard that the intruder (who has just taken the next turn in the game of chess he was playing against himself - and who turns out to be a an aggressive predator-type extraterrestrial LOL) that it was a "really good move". He later yells to the surrounding area that he likes the intruder's chess moves.
I mean, it even takes him most of the runtime to realise it might have been his crew setting him up, which surely makes a better red herring (given they've just moved to network television and actually make a point of putting Mr. Survivalist under pressure to deliver on more than one occasion) than a "psycho chess-playing lumberjack": who he believes is behind the spoooooky goings on.
By the time the very, VERY badly CGI animated alien rocks up, I'd just started taking tally of all the silliness and realised just how stunned I am that this actually got made.
In summation, if you have 90 minutes to kill and are kind of in to survival, and want to get REALLY frustrated, this one's for you. If not, I can't recommend it.
The premise of the film is that this guy is a famous survivalist and his show has just been picked up by a network for its third season. The problem there is that the poor fella has the charisma of one of the sticks he uses in his figure-four deadfall trap, and is as convincing a survivalist as I am a molecular biologist. So, unfortunately, suspension of disbelief is immediately impossible, meaning I constantly knew I was watching a film and never got into it. I mean, this was kinda good because it meant I just laughed at the many terrible lines, ridiculous happenings, and unbelievable survival situations that even a cursory knowledge of what I'm led to believe is a 'fake' survival show - Naked and Afraid - would make you doubt as soon as you see it.
Like when he sets three deadfall traps his first night and immediately catches two rabbits. From my irregular viewings of N&A and 'Alone', it seems traps rarely catch anything, even over periods of extended time, and when they do, it's invariably mice or small birds. He also polishes the bottom of a drink can in order to focus the sun onto kindling to make a fire, and the clearly visible can is still impotently dull. I may be wrong but I don't remember him boiling his water, either. He also falls 30 feet down a hole, gets a compound fracture, then managed to climb out of the hole immediately and on the first attempt.
The worst cinematic'sin', however, is that the character constantly narrates his own thoughts. Not to camera for the show - that would at least partly make sense - just off-the-cuff remarks that if another character were there, he might tell; or that could be shown instead of told. It gets to the point where he tells a chessboard that the intruder (who has just taken the next turn in the game of chess he was playing against himself - and who turns out to be a an aggressive predator-type extraterrestrial LOL) that it was a "really good move". He later yells to the surrounding area that he likes the intruder's chess moves.
I mean, it even takes him most of the runtime to realise it might have been his crew setting him up, which surely makes a better red herring (given they've just moved to network television and actually make a point of putting Mr. Survivalist under pressure to deliver on more than one occasion) than a "psycho chess-playing lumberjack": who he believes is behind the spoooooky goings on.
By the time the very, VERY badly CGI animated alien rocks up, I'd just started taking tally of all the silliness and realised just how stunned I am that this actually got made.
In summation, if you have 90 minutes to kill and are kind of in to survival, and want to get REALLY frustrated, this one's for you. If not, I can't recommend it.