Review of Expired

Expired (2022)
2/10
A disappointing low budget attempt as sci-fi
22 March 2022
I was looking forward to this film as I very much enjoyed Mystery Road and Goldstone. (It seems it has been released as Expired rather than the current 'Loveland' title here on imdb.)

As a sci-fi film it is clearly somewhat hamstrung by a lack of budget. You get a couple of distant shots of a futuristic city but then all the filming of the cast are just on the street, 'today'. Nobody dresses any different, the cars and streets are all unchanged, its slighlty jarring. There are a lot of people walking around with umbrellas up, even though its not raining. I can only guess the plan was to cgi some of these sequences but maybe the money ran out.

That aside when it starts it is really difficult to hear the lead actor. He speaks so quietly and is way down in the mix so that you can't hear what he is saying about half of the time. Most of the (long) opening narration is inaudible and throughout the film it's often a struggle to make out his dialogue. Its somewhat ironic all the Chinese cast, who speak clearly, are subtitled where it is the lead who really needs it.

Its a very slow film and there really isn't much in the way of story. There is no chemistry at all between the two leads either so it was ultimately not very interesting. I made it to the end hoping there would be something more but then it ended.

It seems to want to be a kind of mash-up between Paris, Texas and Blade Runner but its like thats as far as the idea went.
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