3.6/10
"After.Life" is what could have and should have been an interesting film. The premise and set-up is nice, it has an appealing cast, and the atmosphere has the potential to be pretty creepy. So what went wrong with this supernatural thriller? Why didn't… More
3.6/10
"After.Life" is what could have and should have been an interesting film. The premise and set-up is nice, it has an appealing cast, and the atmosphere has the potential to be pretty creepy. So what went wrong with this supernatural thriller? Why didn't I enjoy it? The answer: it was lifeless. This first-time feature from Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo is a rather disappointing first effort, and the naivety certainly shows. How Vosloo could get the talents of Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci in such a small film is sort of beyond me, since this is obviously excluded from Hollywood's standards. However, it's still a poor film even with the talent on display. It suffers from weak twists and mostly boring dialogue, and only seems to benefit from its own ambitions as well as some pretty good cinematography scattered throughout. Vosloo builds her film like the work of an artist; using colors to play a significant role in the painting she intends to create. However, her creation is nothing special when all is said and done. It feels sloppy, and rather short-shrift. Perhaps it will satisfy those with low expectations for a film of the like, although people like me want art when we look at a film. And if not art, we want entertainment. All films have to pick either one, and special movies tend to balance both things masterfully. "After.Life" can't seem to pick either, and ends up as a rather blank, bland, and forgettable trifle. In the hands of a master, it could have been great. But alas, its reach exceeds its grasp by a long shot, and that is why it is as boring and lifeless as it is.
A teacher named Anna gets into a car-crash after having an argument with her fiancé at a dinner session. She wakes up in a morgue where the morgue director, whose name is Eliot, greets her with compassion. He tells Anna that she is dead, although she doesn't know it yet. He says that she has to accept it along the way to preparation, although Anna can still speak, walk, and feel emotional pain as a normal person one. Still, she is but a corpse being readied for her second life beyond ours. The film really doesn't do much beyond documenting what I have already described. However, there is the inclusion of a semi-creepy little boy, a grieving fiancé, and a really, really lame twist ending. This is the kind of film that no other one-trick-pony of thriller cinema will make, and that is because it is not a great idea. It is a good idea, but not a fantastic one. M. Night Shyamalan would not have made it. Not even Alfred Hitchcock, if he had been alive, would have. It's not really good enough. Instead, I'm ready to forget the experience. What can I say: I got bored pretty fast. Not up to the point where I would have walked out; since I rarely do that anyways, but the movie was poor. The best the filmmakers can do is supply us with a pretty shade of red on everything meant to be somewhat symbolic. Really, guys? You have failed me.
As with most potentially interesting movies, "After.Life" has a talented cast that is squandered by a feeling of conceptual detachment. Liam Neeson is the only actor who seems to remain himself throughout, providing me with a performance that is nothing short of the expected from the performer. And you could say that in some way, that is a good thing. Christina Ricci seems rather lifeless-which was the intention-but that does not make it right. Ricci doesn't play an actual character, as it would seem. You cannot call her character a "character", since she is but a person. She's not interesting, and aren't characters supposed to have that word attached to them when they are brought into the world? Justin Long does what he always does: play a lover. And he's getting quite used to it, from the looks of things. As with all supernatural/ghost-story films, there's a creepy little boy. In "After.Life", the somber little bundle of un-joy is played by Chandler Canterbury. I will not say that Canterbury has a promising acting career ahead of him like Haley Joel-Osment did when he performed well in "The Sixth Sense", but I will compare him in the fairest way possible to every other creepy little child I have seen in other cinematic exploits. Canterbury is just one of the less interesting ones.
There is something rather tiresome about most supernatural thrillers these days. It takes a rather special, gifted man (or woman, as the case may be) to create something good in order to spice things up. Vosloo is not the woman. Her direction never seems focused enough to be called good, and the most she can seem to do is demand her cinematographer, Anastas N. Michos, to get some interesting shots in before the day is over. And indeed, there are scenes where the cinematography is splendid. It is in these scenes where the possibility of beauty resides, although all of it is flushed out by cheesiness in about the next few seconds. With that being said, "After.Life" still looks pretty decent. The quality of the video is about average, although I can't say there's anything special about it. Vosloo consistently uses color to give the film an "art" feel, although she never hits home base with her ambitions. Sure, it's obvious WHAT she wanted to do, but she doesn't succeed in any of it. This is not an interesting movie; quite in fact it is a boring and excessive one. I felt a bit cheated when the twists came along, and frequent cheesiness didn't help at all either. When all is said and done, the atmosphere that could have worked here isn't helped at all by the fact that "After.Life" is but another potboiler amongst other horror/thrillers focusing on the super-natural. And believe me, there are better ones out there.
On paper, I bet "After.Life" sounded like a really great idea for a really great movie. But the truth is; the movie isn't even good, let alone great. "After.Life" could have been good, if it weren't for the lame twists and lack of ambition. It could possibly entertain some people, but not me. I'm starting to consider the importance of the opinions of others lately, and I would be curious to see what they think of "After.Life". However, I cannot possibly conclude that it is an entertaining film. I was bored after a while, and I wanted the film to end earlier than it actually did. It went on thirty minutes longer than it had to, and I say that with a whole lot of honesty. This is not a horrible film, for it actually has something going for it, but it feels more like a silly mis-hap rather than a tricky, intriguing new ghost story. The ending does not imply a sequel, and tries to let the viewer interpret the film for themselves. Please, Vosloo, that's not what I asked for. I didn't think at all in you film. Films like "Oldboy" have worked well with such an ending, but you're being terribly pretentious with such a disappointing conclusion. It's a sad day when films are this consistently bleak, but nowadays I guess we've all got to get used to it.
