The Vast of Night (2019)

Rating: ⭐

2020 has so far been a  disastrous year for everyone thanks to the world wide spread of the Corvid-19 virus and the subsequent havoc its impact has caused. With lock downs and stay at home and work at home order being promoted as the "new norm", we begin to turn more and more towards the home theatre for escapism. Sadly, the recent releases (at least those I have been watching) have been more dudes than winners. This low budget independent sci-fi movie from Amazon Studios is yet another exercise in tedium. After watching this, I am just amazed at the generally positive (and some actually raving) reviews that this movie had. Either these critics had watched another movie or they have been so deprived of anything worthy to review that they feel obliged to give recognition here just because it was "different".

I love watching low budget independent movies which are "different" but provided they are "different" to good effect, like having a good original story that is creatively presented. Indeed, just because a story is supposed to a sci-fi story, it does not need to have eye popping special effects. What I am not looking for is a poorly photographed movie that is perpetually in darkness, and its premise where the main characters are constantly babbling incomprehensibly like they are high on drugs or behave like they have discovered something super important throughout the length of the movie. To say that the script here was well written is a joke because 90% of the babbling we can do without as it would not have affected the overall flow of the story. Set in the 1950's, we are suppose to marvel at how accurately the era has been depicted by the way the characters speak and the sets. Well I have strong doubts that young people in the 1950's speak and behave the way they are depicted here, and whatever sets they have are predominantly shown in semi darkness hence, eliminating the need to show any details. Perhaps this I can acknowledge as a way the producers managed with their obviously paper thin budget.

The final act did give us a glimpse of a spacecraft hovering in the sky, which was what the whole tale was driving towards. It was modest and effective but too little too late to salvage a lost cause. By this time I had absolutely no interest at all in the goings on of the movie and just wanted it to end quickly. Its abstract ending doesn't help either as it failed to provide a proper closure to the characters' fate. It strangely felt rushed in comparison how the rest of the film which felt like it was taking its own sweet time to get from one plot point to the next. Mercifully it had a running time of just 1 hour 29 minutes, but I have to admit that it felt like it was the one of the longest 89 minutes in my life. My advice: Stay far far away from this piece of trashy film making.