Ink

Saw Ink, a very visual film about a secret war happening between the team that brings you good dreams (the storytellers, a multicultural group of dread-locked, fish-netted crew) and the bunch that brings you bad dreams (identical scientist-looking guys with big glasses and plastic surgical gowns who are for some reason called incubuses despite being not all that sexy.) Anyway, these two teams clash over a girl whose soul is stolen by a third agent, a dude with a huge black cloak and giant nose named Ink. Now the main character in all of this is the girl's father who is a Big Important Business Man who is working on closing the Hindersen Account (yes, the multi-billion-dollar Hindersen account!!)

I really wanted to like this film. It's visually rich, it builds a world that I'm actually interested in, it's definitely brave enough to try something different from the mainstream, but it's just killed by the script and performances. It's such a pity! The Big Important Business Man comes off as less of a titan of industry and more as just a weasel. He's prone to fits of swearing which are (I guess) supposed to show how tightly-wound he is but come of kind of shrill and bitchy. I mean, we're supposed to believe they trusted this guy with the Hindersen account? Also there's a mystic storyteller called "The Pathfinder" who is supposed to be zany and sarcastic in a sort of motor-mouthed way. He's completely atrocious.

This film would have been much better if it had been filmed in France, I think. The French are much more used to whimsy in their films (see for instance Amelie, Mood Indigo, A Town Called Panic) which would have provided more talent and more readily available money. Also, if they were all speaking French, I wouldn't be able to spot the protgaonist's wimpy performance so easily. He would just be talking French and I could gather his meaning from the subtitles. Perfect. As is, the film is a kid's film that the kids will one day be bewildered by. A promising but sadly lumpy mess.