Pandæmonium Short Film Review

★

Directed by: #BalasuryaShanmugasundaram

Written by: Balasurya Shanmugasundaram

Starring: #RakshanE., Balasurya Shanmugasundaram, #Nandana

#ShortFilmReview by: Benjamin Schofield

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Still from Pandæmonium

Christopher Nolan’s Inception is a beautifully crafted film. Perhaps its best feature is the way that the great performances and tightly written screenplay really draw you in to this unique world. Its as much a fantasy as it is science fiction, playing with ideas beyond the realms of reality, yet their executed with such verisimilitude that you can’t help but buy into the world of the film. The characters are cast so perfectly, and DiCaprio, Page, Hardy and many more brilliant talents, bring these people to life, and make the movie much more than just a simple gimmick, or a low-brow blockbuster.

Not to mention, of course, the slow-building tension, which climaxes with high-action set pieces, made possible through perfectly timed editing, and Wally Pfister’s inimitable cinematographic style. And who could forget Hans Zimmer’s genius score? Not just the iconic deep booms that have since inspired every action trailer of the last ten years, but the attention to detail, the tiny dynamic motifs that leave the viewer in a constant state of suspense.

Oh wait, this isn’t Inception? But it has the exact same plot, themes and style? Ah, I see.

Okay so, Balasurya Shanmugasundaram’s Total Rip Off is a poorly crafted film. Perhaps its worst feature is the way that the shoddily written screenplay leaves you completely confused and uninterested in the unoriginal world. It doesn’t address any ideas that haven’t already been done time and time again, fails to add anything new to the conversation, but treats it as though it’s an original and clever idea. The people present in the film can hardly be called characters, and the cast completely phones in their performances, falling somewhere in the acting range between porno and soap opera.

Not to mention, of course, the slow, drawn out sequences of over-the-shoulder dialogue scenes, in which nothing happens, and nobody cares about anything, made possible by uninterested editing and worse cinematography than your Aunt Margaret’s home videos. And who could remember the score? It sounds as though its been ripped straight from a folder of stock music titled ‘dramatic/exciting music for films’. Apparently, they had actual composers make this? If the music alone isn’t bad enough, each track has been sloppily thrown together in a way that actively distracts from the already impossible to engage with plot.

Oh, not to mention it rips of Minority Report, which, frankly, probably wasn’t even worth doing the first time.

- #benjaminschofield