Tuesday 5 April 2016

Film Review: Pandorica

My girlfriend and I went to see new film Pandorica last night. You may or may not have heard of Pandorica, just in case you haven't it's a relatively small budget British film, billed as a post apocalyptic "Future Reset", staring Marc Zammit, Jade-Fenix Hobday, Adam Bond, Luke D'Silva, Laura Marie Howard and Bentley Kalu. The film was directed by Tom Paton, who's experience in directing has been mostly with music videos, but he decided to extend his talent to feature films.

Filmed primarily in Billericay in Essex, with additional scenes filmed in the Lake District, British actors, British director and British crew, this film is a truly independent British film. One of the refreshing parts of the film, trying not to give too much away, was the fact there was a very strong female lead character, which is lacking in a lot of high budget Hollywood made films, a female character that doesn't rely on a strong male character or romance in one way or another is a great feature of the film. The fact that the actresses involved in the film aren't experienced in acting, this being their first acting roles, but did a fantastic job portraying their characters.

Set in the future when reliance on technology has ended, remote civilisations survived and returned to simpler ways, in one tribe, three young adults were chosen to take the trial to become the next leader of the tribe, under the supervision of the currently leader, only one will leave the forest as the leader. In a way the film has a Hunger Games meets Vikings feel to it, Tom did a great job in directing the small group of actors on a small budget and on a short time scale. The actors themselves also did a great job, bringing the less advanced future to life. The cinematography of the film was great too, brilliant close action shots, amazing aerial shots and medium distance shots brought the atmosphere of a much bigger budget movie. Interest never waned either, the script (written by director, Tom) kept the viewer interested and always wanting to know what was going to happen next, which can happen on some movies.

Seeing the credits at the end, it was clear that not too many people were involved in the production of the movie. If you bother to stay to the end of the credits, you'll notice on Hollywood produced movies, the list of crew is seemingly never ending, with large groups of people responsible for each part of the movie, whether it be filming, music, special effects, location staff, etc, but with Pandorica, there was probably less people involved in the production of the whole movie than just one aspect of a Hollywood movie, proving you don't need millions of pounds budgets and hundreds (or thousands) of people involved to produce a good quality movie, which keeps you interested from start to finish. So a very big well done to all the cast and crew of the film.

The film is definitely worth the watch and definitely worth the money paid to go to see at the cinema and buy on DVD or Blu-Ray. I will admit it was a slightly surreal experience watching a film with a proportion of the cast and crew in the cinema, watching it with you, who stayed for a Q&A at the end of the movie. If you want to pre-order the DVD or Blu-Ray, go to: https://thefilmlabel.myshopify.com/ watch the film online now at Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.pandoricamovie.com/ and go to Twitter and follow: @PandoricaMovie , @TPAKproductions and @zammit_marc. The film listing is also on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5131914/


A 10 out of 10 rated must see movie.

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