Rupert Wyatt first popped on my radar
back in 2011 when he directed Rise of the Planet of the Apes,
which kicked off the new Planet of the Apes trilogy. Matt
Reeves went on to direct the second and third parts of that series,
whereas Wyatt directed films such as The Gambler, which was
well, just okay. With Captive State, he returns to the world
of science fiction, this time grappling with invading aliens instead
of super intelligent apes.
Originally slated for release last
summer, Captive State attempts to distinguish itself from
other standard alien invasion films. Generally, with films such as
Independence Day, the attacking aliens cause all of humanity
to put aside their differences and band together to fight their
common enemy. Captive State puts a twist on that formula by
showing the majority of humanity complying with the invading force
and willingly becoming subservient to their domination. The top
levels of human leadership have generally become leaders in name
only, as they now bend to the will of the aliens, who have started
mining earth for its natural resources.
The driving conflict behind Captive
State is that while most of humanity has given in to essentially
an alien dictatorship, there is a small group of people who have
banded together in an effort to resist both the aliens and the humans
who carry out their will. It's this aspect of the film that holds
the most promise. Art has always been a reflection of the world
surrounding it. Films, of course fall under that. With everything
from blind devotion by the masses to labeling anyone who resists as a
terrorist, Captive State is clearly making a statement on the
current world landscape. This is an exciting idea as far as alien
invasions film go, and obviously its strongest aspect.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of weak ones that keep it from rising
to its fullest potential.
Captive State's largest flaws
reside in its execution. While it may be written like other films in
the genre, it sure as hell looks like them. The cinematography is
bland, muddled, and just generally ugly. It's a shame considering
the initial teaser trailers looked rather beautiful. It seems like
they just took the best-looking shots of the film and put them in the
marketing. An edgy new sci-fi should look gorgeous. I can't help
but wonder how this film would have looked if someone like Roger
Deakins or Bradford Young had done the cinematography. Instead, the
film consists largely of various gray hues and shaky, incoherent
camera movement.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing
about this film for me is how this story unfolded. Its attempts to
balance the ensemble cast, and especially the way information was
passed among the characters got incredibly muddled. This kind of
storytelling occurred throughout the film, and it made me question if
the character interactions I was seeing made logical sense.
Ironically, in addition to some of this confusing character
interaction, I developed a pretty clear sense of where the story was
leading pretty early on. In retrospect, it makes sense that the film
ended the way that it did. I just wish that that the film was
handled in such a way that I wouldn't have been able to predict its
conclusion. On top of that, the fates of certain characters still
did not make sense to me, and so Captive State overall just
leaves me with more questions than answers. Sometimes, that's
actually a good thing, however that is not the case here. I guess
I'm more upset than anything else by the fact that this could have
been an incredible film. Instead we're left with one that had some
great ideas, but ended up being just okay.
-Derek Miranda
