Reviews: Shockwave Darkside

“Faith is just an excuse for a war that pays my rent.”


"Stop aiming that thing at people. Jesus."
I love witty anecdotes.  I collect them like I collect records.  To me, they always add color to an artful conversation between 2 people who are completely comfortable with each other, weather you are observing it or a part of it.  However, I really love witty anecdotes that actually trigger a thread of thought.

“Faith is just an excuse for a war that pays my rent.”

This anecdote uttered by Dalton (played by Bill Sage) in this sci-fi action thriller initially made me laugh out loud.  But, in that statement lies a blatant and brazen truth.  I believe war, like religion (and even education), is just a business masked in a grander goal and ideology that people are taught to believe.  Dalton’s statement tied that up real nice.

But faith is a just part of the pool of ideas floating in the philosophies presented in this film.

Shockwave Darkside presents some big ideas, none that have not already been knocked around the gray matter of any green blooded trekkie, but interesting nonetheless.  A big or interesting idea is one that can be observed countless times, “because” it is a big idea.  Especially one about existence.  That stuff will be conversation fodder until we as a species are no more.  So hell yeah, run with that!

"Underneath this really cheap looking suit,
I'm seriously super hot."
But, the glue of Shockwave Darkside is the films observation and scope.  The “wicked” cast away those of faith because they are causing too much trouble by fighting over their different ideas.  Those of faith are now relocated and again turning on themselves over their different ideas.  I smell a pattern.  Shockwave Darkside circles around this fight over ideas in its dialogue and action.  It flirts with it at first and then it moves in from time to time to give it a goose.

The mechanical nature of the film, through its majority being seen out of the facemask of the characters tech-driven spacesuits, made things a little hard to follow in the action sequences.  I gave this film 2 views just to make sure I did not miss anything as a result of this.  Regardless, this made the film a lot of fun to watch and mimics what most of us do on our smartphones all the time.


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Shockwave Darkside is a fun sci-fi that may not be for everyone with its religious undertones.  But, for us more open-minded people, you walk away with another gallon of thought fuel and a bloody forehead after connecting the lines this film draws with how ridiculous we as a people really have been behaving lately.

Score

-Scott L.