In a 1979 prologue, a lumberjack, Carl (played as his younger self by David Baumgardner and as an older version of the same character by Don Scribner) has a close encounter with a huge flying saucer, which abducts him.
Flash forward in time to 'the present day' (in reality a kind of hybrid of the contemporary and the 1980s, with the fashion and music of the latter but the tech of the former) and we meet Isaac (Ryan Masson, looking at little like a young Stephen Geoffreys or even, for older readers, Bud Cort) a young maths geek who is a computer modeller working on a space programme (!). On the advice of his counsellor to help him deal with the death of his father, he begins to film himself - on a clunky old school movie camera, no less, but which bafflingly seems to shoot on Hi-8 - and its on one of these reflective video jaunts that he too encounters a UFO and its Whitley Strieber 'Communion' style aliens - you know, tall, skinny, rapidly blinking eyes - and is abducted. But unlike Carl he films the whole thing, and uploads the footage on the internet.
Predictably the crowd goes wild, and he becomes a computer sensation until the doubters find their voice, claiming the film is "shiny homemade CGI." Isaac reaches out to the conspiracy theory/abduction crowd, and meets Sara (Highdee Kuan), who is initially reticent about sharing her story. But Isaac's publicity, all done in the name of being taken seriously, attracts the attentions of a group of 'men in black' characters who kidnap both he and Sara, taking them to the agents' hideout in Costa Rica; they're intent on discovering a connection between the pair and Carl, who has been missing for the last 40 years, and they also may be interested in Isaac's new found super powers, which in truth are less super than plain confusing. Escaping the facility Sara and Isaac, who have hooked up with tech wizard Zed (Christian Prentice), realise they have to connect with Carl by travelling to his home in Canada if they're to stand any chance of staying alive.
Proximity veers woozily from one style to another; it starts off as sci fi abductee thriller, then becomes a chase movie with robots and underground bunkers, then changes pace again with The Matrix style hardware, a dash of the 1997 film Contact and a quasi religious ending (the visiting aliens basically want to know who Jesus was, claiming him to be the "link to the origin of everything," perhaps ignoring the fact that there's more than one religion in the world). The bad guys utter phrases like "Calling all agents and androids!" and talk about achieving their aims by "any force necessary." And if you couldn't work out that lurve is gradually forming between Isaac and Sara, towards the end there's schmaltzy music every time they share the screen.
On the plus side some of the effects do look very impressive and the locations - including Costa Rica and Canada - are stunning. And there was one meta laugh out loud moment where Isaac, filming himself on his enormous 80s camera (remember the movie is set in the present day) is challenged as to why anyone would want to record themselves?
But this is basically an extended episode of The X Files for kids. Look, if I saw this aged 10, I'd probably love it, but it's neither charming nor exciting enough to sustain interest in the 58 year old version of myself. Sorry.
Proximity is available via Signature Entertainment on Digital HD from May 18th.
ACTUALLY, I FOUND IT VERY ENTERTAINING AS IT IS THE ONLY FILM WHERE ALIENS TRY TO FIT IN WITH HUMANS AND INSTEAD, FIND SO MANY FAULTS IN OUR GOOD OLD EARTH THAT THEY PREFER TO DROP US LIKE A TON OF LEAD AND SEEK ELSEWHERE FOR "BETTER" LIVES!
ReplyDeleteHa ha. Very true. Thanks for commenting!
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