Plot:
A lone man wanders a barren landscape searching for both food and for any remaining bits of technology that is left, though he may end up finding more than that.
Our thoughts:
You know, inspirations can only carry you so far. There comes a point when you're making a movie that you need to stand on your own two feet and make your movie yours. When I first saw the trailer for "Omega Shell" I was pretty excited, while the influences were more than obvious, it still looked like it was going to be a good dystopian cyberpunk-ish kinda flick. Unfortunately for me the obvious influences that could be seen in the trailer are not only quite prominent in the actual movie, but that's all there is; influences and homages to other movies with very little in the way of original or coherent material.
To be fair with something like this, the meaning and reasoning behind the movie will always be subjective and can and will be different from person to person. But at the same time, it seems Aaron Soto didn't know what he wanted to do with "Omega Shell" or what he wanted it to say. Instead he took his influences from Shinya Tsukamoto and his movie "Tetsuo: The Iron Man", then also from Sam Raimi and Alejandro Jodorowsky. He borrowed their ideas and style, obviously because of inspiration but also to pay homage. The problem is that he didn't take these elements and combine them with his own material to make something of his own. Instead all he did was copy-and-paste from their movies onto his. For example, why did the camera suddenly become the POV of something chasing our character in "Omega Shell" through an empty house while he was clearly terrified of it, when earlier he was strapped to a machine that was bringing him sexual stimulation? Answer: no reason. Soto was simply emulating what inspired him and nothing more.
Because "Omega Shell" is composed of various borrowed filmmaking styles and themes from different directors and different movies, any message or story that it had becomes lost in a jumbled mess. Is the cyberpunk element suppose to represent our desire for technology and media, and that we'll go through great strives to get it even when there is nothing left? Or is this a moral tale of a man wandering through wastelands only to find himself and a sort of spirituality? I don't know and I don't think Aaron Soto did either. There was plenty of potential here, but there isn't much original material to be found, just a filmmaker recreating other people’s styles that he admires. |
