The Gene Generation (2007)

Simply Perfect

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The plot: A beautiful, female assassin fights against DNA hackers, who kill people by hacking into their body.I think that Pearry Teo and I would get along really well. We seem to have the same taste in books, movies, and music. We both like dark, surreal fantasy/horror and gritty cyberpunk. His movies are filled with references to all the things that I like. The problem is that The Gene Generation is a rather shallow pastiche of gothy cyberpunk themes, with no real attempt at cohesion. While full of creative ideas, visually striking scenes, and attractive people in cool poses, it's also a jumbled mess. The pacing is just terrible, making the movie sometimes feel like it's three hours long.I love everything about The Gene Generation, except the actual movie itself. This leaves me at a loss as to how to rate the movie. With some faster pacing, less exploitation, and tighter writing, this could have been amazing. But, then again, couldn't you say that about any movie? "If only it had been better, it would have been good!" I liked Necromentia better than The Gene Generation, so I think that he's improving. As far as a debut goes, I think this isn't bad... but it's still a bit of a rough watch. In the end, I recommend The Gene Generation only to genre fans, who are more likely to forgive its faults.

Generally speaking, films which are set in the future really have to be "futuristic" in some way, shape or form. "The Gene Generation" is offered as being precisely that, but in its emotional impact and effect it is more like a bad dream from the 1930s, except in color. Lots of color.The first thing the viewer encounters in this bizarre tale of family loyalty and love lost, is the grim cityscape of the anonymous city where everything happens. There's nothing shiny or bright about it.Perhaps that was an effort by the author and director to 'locate' the viewer or audience in something at least a little bit familiar. Too bad that the cityscape has approximately as much charm as East Berlin in the mid-1950s !! There's trash everywhere, stuff blows around in circles in the ( seemingly ) never-ending wind, and it's always dark.It rains. It doesn't rain. It rains. That part of the subtext of this otherwise very ambitious movie really is doubly maddening. People live in high rise apartment buildings where there's running water and plenty of electricity, and gadgets, but nobody to clear the trash from the hallways. Huh ? The street scenes are the same, with futuristic clutter and debris all over the place, except on the sidewalks where the heroine -- Bai Ling, ravishing at forty-two -- is either walking or running. Transportation in this urban desolation appears to consist only of elevators and floating-on-air 'flying Dutchmen' type sailing ships.It all looks really, really strange and inevitably that becomes a nasty impediment to the story line itself, which is actually rather good.The heroine is an anti-hero, a paid assassin with a brother who is a gambling junkie and a self-destructive idiot. Even his best friend and comrade eventually jettisons him, literally turning his back and then walking away. So, yes, there are touching moments in this otherwise ultra-violent and ultra-cynical story of ultra-modern revenge.It is hard to recommend this movie for the plot, which is so cynical, and so dark and twisted; but, it is hard not to admire the effort in art and in cinema design which went into creating this futuristic urban hell on earth. That part, or parts, are quite amazing. Is this city located on some other planet, one which merely resembles our earth ? We will most certainly never know the answer to that question. Seven out of ten mostly for the delectable and dexterous Bai Ling and also for one truly nasty, skulking-around-places gangster-type villain.

The film is not all bad, it has it's charm but the good parts are too few and far between. The acting is generally very unconvincing, still Bai Ling and Alec Newman are more or less OK most of the time. Parry Shen is awful and overacts all the time, a shame since he has a big role in the movie.The story is weak with terrible plot holes. The emotional development is rushed and very hard to relate to. Bai Lings hard core assassin with a yearning for romance feels like two characters pushed into the same person.The CGI is very sub-par for a movie made in 2007, I've seen Xbox 360 games with more realistic graphics.The movie seems to rely entirely on Bai Lings push-up costumes and she is heavily exploited throughout the movie.The worst part, however, is the pretentious artsy cuts and slow scenes that wants to make this movie into a cult classic, all of which feels embarrassing considering the apparent weaknesses of the narration, pacing, acting and CGI.Watch it if you're a sucker for the genre, like I am. But keep your fast forward button handy.

Bai Ling stars as an assassin who kills DNA Hackers, people who use genetic manipulation to get into places they shouldn't Her brother is a twit with a gambling problem who ends up with a gene manipulator that put both of them on the hit list for the guys he owes money to as well as the people who want the manipulator back (including Faye Dunaway who is now a mass of tentacles and needs to it to once more look human). Odd sci-fi tale has a great deal of promise but never really goes anywhere. The film is hurt by a plot that isn't all that original once it gets going and the the character of the brother who is such and ass that you can't believe Bai Ling hasn't shot him already. Taken for what it is its an okay time passer. (Actually its good enough that it makes me wonder what the comic spin off is like.(Thats Tales of the DNA Hackers)