Ascendant descends into a mess
Ascendant (R13, 101 mins) Directed by Antaine Furlong Reviewed by James Croot ★★
Awaking from a dream of watching the ocean during a golden sunset, Aria Wolf (Charlotte Best) finds herself in a much darker reality.
Bound and gagged, she appears trapped in what appears to be a lift. As it suddenly springs to life and makes a rapid descent, she begins to piece together her last few memories.
She remembers being on holiday in Shanghai with her parents but, while she can recount childhood days with a twin sister, anything from the more recent past is simply a blur.
That’s where her phone comes in – there’s a voice message from her mum, with just enough detail to leave Aria traumatised, fearing for her life, but still confused as to her current predicament.
Managing to free herself, she presses the elevator’s help button and eventually speaks to someone who can understand English. To her horror, while he confirms it’s one of their lifts, he can’t pinpoint it, as it apparently shouldn’t be online.
As her metal cage continues to slowly rise and rapidly plummet, sending her flying into the air, Aria feels increasingly lost, until one of the interior walls reveals itself to be a big screen. Broadcasting are images she can’t easily forget, a group of men is holding her father hostage.
Directly addressing Aria, their leader informs her that unless she or her dad reveal the location of ‘‘the engineer’’, they will begin torturing him – right in front of her.
But Aria has no recollection or idea of what he is talking about – and her dad appears determined not to give up any of his secrets.
‘‘None of this is going to make any sense to you,’’ a character mentions early in writer-director Antaine Furlong’s debut feature. He’s right about that. Ascendant is a deliberately disorienting, occasionally disturbing and depressingly derivative slice of scifi-infused action.
While the single-location, central-scenario is inventively kept entertaining through new discoveries and increasing tension, one can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu and predictability about proceedings (a kind of Cube-meetsSpeed by way of Devil and Die Hard).
But if the hostage drama is occasionally compelling (thanks largely to the impressive former Home and Away star Best), the intensity is somewhat spoiled, not only by the one-dimensional renta-villains, but also by a sci-fi overlay, that while showcasing some whizzy special effects, just leaves you rather nonplussed.
There’s talk of ideas and conceits that sound vaguely similar to Looper or Predestination and visions of apocalyptic futures. None of these particularly seem to lead anywhere, except to an increasingly bloodied father and more irate Russian bad guy.
Then, as the premise reaches a crescendo, it goes increasingly off the rails.
There’s a terribly telegraphed ‘‘twist’’, the longest last 5 per cent of a phone battery ever, and a bonkers, spectacular-looking finale that will evoke memories, depending on your age, of X-Men: The Last Stand, Transcendence or The Lawnmower Man.
Visually impressive, this Australian production may well lead to bigger things for the clearly talented Furlong, but narratively, it’s a barely coherent mess that feels like a desperate cinematic placeholder until the global movie industry gets back up to speed.