IO
Director: Jonathan Helpert
Year Released: 2019
Rating: 0.5
There's something wrong with Earth (again!) so people are fleeing the planet to go and ruin somewhere else, but Sam (Margaret Qualley), the daughter of a scientist (Danny Huston), wants to stay - there to try to dissuade her is Micah (Anthony Mackie), who's been trying to leave himself. These end-of-the-world scenarios keep getting rehashed without new tricks to keep them remotely compelling and this is no different ... except it tries (vainly) to be an arthouse movie, taking its time to go nowhere because there's nothing in its noggin' (according to things I've read, it's also riddled with scientific errors, but watching movies for academic lessons is like having sex to analyze friction). I'll sit through anything Mackie is in - he's among our best - but he's left with little to play off of - Qualley half-blinks her way through, as if her eyelids are partially glued open, which isn't such a bad recommendation for anyone bothering to sit through it.
