Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m speechless. Floored. I have no idea what to make of this movie. Seriously.
I mean, I can tell you what it isn’t. That’s a lot easier than trying to explain what it is.
Well, I can tell you that this was the first science fiction movie made in Israel. But that really doesn’t tell you much.
I could also point out that the basic plot here is that a mysterious stranger comes from the future with a message for mankind — Hurry up and get World War III out of the way so you can enjoy a bright and wonderful future.
Ummmm…
Right.
But we also have a Japanese businessman who has created the ultimate remote control, as well as a pair of super kung fu robots. Plus we have a rock group performing one of their songs which is just stuck in randomly and doesn’t seem to have much to do with anything else in the film. There is a lot of talk about Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Then there is the scientist working for the government who describes his specialty as “MetaFuturism”
Okay…
And he has a girlfriend who spends all her time lying in bed naked waiting for him to come home from work (it comes as a bit of a shock when we finally see her with clothes on).
Now this is all more or less ordinary weirdness, even if the pieces don’t always seem to fit together, even when we reach a scene at the UN’s Security Council which is both bizarre and scary.
But then, we get a sudden, surprise twist at the very end which makes nonsense of everything we’ve just seen.
I will give them a little credit for the psychedelic light show used in the time travel sequences. The only problem is that we see way too much of it, which is often what happens with first time filmmakers who are far too pleased with their clever effects.
Less is more, people, less is more.
The Director, David Avidan, only directed this one feature film, which doesn’t come as that much of a surprise to me. I find myself wondering how he got the funding to make this film: didn’t his backers read this script?
Oh, well, at least I can say one thing:
I don’t have to keep looking for The Message from the Future…
rivets on the poster 