Tesseract

Rating:
Summary: Things that happen in seedy hotels can get out of hand..
Review: The Tesseract starts at first glance like a low budget, Hong Kong cinema, slick matrix-esque rip-off, but then a truly amazing thing happens. It evolves into an old-school, 70's type exploitation picture, where everyone is stressed out, every pore is sweat soaked, every shot revealing more in its graininess, and everyone is chasing the drugs. The Tesseract, based on a book by Alex Garland, revolves around strangers in a flea-bag hotel, whose lives slowly start to intertwine as fate and circumstance send them colliding into climaxing contact. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, from such films as Velvet Goldmine and Vanity Fair, is the closest thing to a lead this ensemble piece has, and he shines, delivering a performance full of stress induced angst and infused with subtle humor. The Tesseract was a success in the indie-movie house world and film festivals, and was picked up by Sundance in the U.S. for distribution. I highly recommend giving this movie a chance, it will surprise you. It would be a shame for a gem like this to slip through the cracks.

Rating:
Summary: Alex Garland fans...beware
Review: The Tesseract, the book, written by Alex Garland is the best fiction book that I have ever read. This film adapation, directed by Oxide Pang Chun, is LOOSELY based on the book. It has a similar setting, a run down hotel in Thailand. Similar characters, a drug-runner, psychologist, and street kids. But, not the same heart, not the same connections between the characters, and definitely not the same language. What makes Garland's books so wonderful is his masterful prose to describe a scene. Oxide Pang Chun's film does not do the same thing.

As far as those who have no knowledge of Garland's book, perhaps you might be intrigued by the non-sequential scene structure and the intermingling of the characters. For those of you were wowed by the book, do yourself a favor, and use the 96 minutes to read it again.

Rating:
Summary: What does this have to do with a tesseract?
Review: The title of this film according to Websters, means; The four-dimensional equivalent of a cube and according to the press junket sent from the Sundance Channel to go along with the film; this movie is described as The Matrix meets Memento. I sat in front of my TV for about 90 minutes and at no point did I ever see a 4 dimensional cube, Neo or a guy with tattoos all over his body looking for a guy named Teddy, and believe me I was looking. I puzzled and puzzled til my puzzler was sore trying to understand what the director was shooting for with this "creation" and for the briefest of moments I thought the unthinkable had occurred. I thought this guy had actually outwitted me. Then I quickly came to my senses and realized that Oxide Pang Chun had not outwitted me, he just made a [...] movie that no one understands but him.

Based very LOOSLY on a novel by the same name from author Alex Garland, the film version is about a seedy hotel in Bangkok Thailand and 3 characters that are currently staying there and their bellboy, Wit. We have an English drug courier named Sean (John Rhys-Meyers), a documentarian, Rosa (Saskia Reeves) and an assassin with no name (Hot Asian Chick). The only link these 3 have is the sticky fingered bellboy and his thieving ways.

This movie jumped around more than Resident Evil Apocalypse so I got very little out of it but the abridged version goes a little like this. Sean is cooped up in his room almost the entire movie waiting to drop off a package to a local drug czar. Rosa is in Thailand to do a film on homeless children and their dreams. The assassin gets shot in a hit gone wrong and goes back to the hotel to wait for extraction. Wit interacts with each at different times and then steals the package Sean is holding. The little weasel tries to sell it on the street, word gets back to the drug czar and everyone ends up on the local drug dealers [...] list. You can figure the rest out for yourself or wait until October 26 and buy it because I doubt your local video rental establishment will have anything to do with this prune.

Guys like movies where stuff blows up, [...], the good guy kills the bad guy in some high-noonesque flashy never before seen method just before the credits roll and the crowd goes Whooo. In short, they like GOOD movies. Tesseract really doesn't meet any of that criteria, so it is far from a good movie, which means as far as I am concerned, it [was not good].