☆☆½
Only after seeing The Endless did I learn that it is part of the bewildering and off-putting trend of movie "cinematic universes," in which characters and settings can't simply be taken for what they are but are connected to other movies that used similar characters and settings.
Coincidentally, The Endless was, when I saw it, accompanied by a trailer for a new movie from the Harry Potter "Wizarding World," a film with the unfortunate and clunky title Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, a title that I guess makes sense to those who have seen the other movies and read the books and spent time on the websites and are willing to forgive narrative clarity for the sake of feeling like a member of a not-very-private club: The secret handshakes mean that outsiders can never really feel like they belong.
Harry Potter is doing it, the Marvel movies do it, James Bond did it before (and much better than any of the current crop), DC does it, Star Wars does it, and all that is well and good, but now it's affecting the indie film world, too, and a moviegoer that's even more perplexing. The arthouse seems, at least to me, like one place that should be "universe averse," but here is The Endless to create a sort of Hipster Universe.
And when it comes to The Endless, the filmmakers would no doubt prefer referring to their cinematic universe as a "mythology" -- they even reference H.P. Lovecraft (a world-builder if ever there was one) before the film even begins. Even if you don't know, as I didn't, that this film is tied to an earlier film by the same filmmakers called Resolution, there's a very clear sense throughout the film that we're missing important pieces of the story puzzle, which can be found in the earlier film and another movie called Spring.
The filmmakers who made these movies are Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. In The Endless, they play brothers named Aaron and Justin, which is either clever or tremendously lazy, it's hard to know which. Aaron and Justin live a fringe existence in L.A., where they came when they escaped from what they like to call a "UFO death cult" in the dry and rocky mountains east of San Diego.
Justin (played by Justin) is grateful they are out on their own and takes part in regular deprogramming therapy sessions. Aaron (played by Aaron) has more complex feelings about the place they grew up, and when a mysterious videotape containing footage of one of the cult's members arrives in the mail, Aaron awkwardly talks Justin into heading back to "Camp Arcadia" just for the day. It's an emotionally illogical way to shift the action into the camp, where some very weird stuff is happening.
Once they get there, The Endless vacillates between intriguing sci-fi-tinged drama and some exposition paced so slowly that for a while the film's title seems worryingly accurate. As they spend time at the camp, first the promised 24 hours, then longer and longer, it is clear that something is very off about the place, and when the camera spins around at one point to reveal two moons in the sky, The Endless perks up.
But it can't quite sustain the eerie drama and disquieting mood, which in part seems to be a problem of having too much "world-building" mythology taking place and not enough honest storytelling. There are lots of hints of TV's Lost and Westworld in the way it's put together, not to mention Richard Kelly's still-trippy Donnie Darko and Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter, but The Endless really struggles with keeping it all cohesive and coherent.
There are some really unsettling moments, and some hints at a really exciting supernatural story, but The Endless can't quite tie it all together; the "reveal" of where they are and what's going on just opens up more doors that never close behind the filmmakers. As storytellers, Moorhead and Benson seem far too interested in setting up the scenarios than seeing them through, and the lack of follow through -- which doomed Lost in its final season -- is largely what bedevils The Endless.
Despite some great imagery and some really fine moments, The Endless can't quite bring it all together, which is a little bit of an irony considering the film's obsession with endless loops. It builds and builds and builds to a climax that is both under- and overwhelming, and that never explains some of the ideas and key moments are the most key.
A little more focus on this story and a little less satisfaction with connecting The Endless with the filmmakers' other movies (which I haven't seen) would likely have served it well, and brought the film some much-needed tension just at the critical moments when it goes slack.
Fans of hardcore sci-fi-laced fantasy might find much to admire in The Endless, but those of us who go to movies to be entertained and transported, not to solve inscrutable puzzles, will likely just be at first frustrated and then possibly bored -- which is not at all the kinds of emotions you'd expect from a movie about survivors of a UFO death cult.
Viewed April 22, 2018 -- 1415
AMC Sunset 5
Coincidentally, The Endless was, when I saw it, accompanied by a trailer for a new movie from the Harry Potter "Wizarding World," a film with the unfortunate and clunky title Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, a title that I guess makes sense to those who have seen the other movies and read the books and spent time on the websites and are willing to forgive narrative clarity for the sake of feeling like a member of a not-very-private club: The secret handshakes mean that outsiders can never really feel like they belong.
Harry Potter is doing it, the Marvel movies do it, James Bond did it before (and much better than any of the current crop), DC does it, Star Wars does it, and all that is well and good, but now it's affecting the indie film world, too, and a moviegoer that's even more perplexing. The arthouse seems, at least to me, like one place that should be "universe averse," but here is The Endless to create a sort of Hipster Universe.
And when it comes to The Endless, the filmmakers would no doubt prefer referring to their cinematic universe as a "mythology" -- they even reference H.P. Lovecraft (a world-builder if ever there was one) before the film even begins. Even if you don't know, as I didn't, that this film is tied to an earlier film by the same filmmakers called Resolution, there's a very clear sense throughout the film that we're missing important pieces of the story puzzle, which can be found in the earlier film and another movie called Spring.
The filmmakers who made these movies are Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. In The Endless, they play brothers named Aaron and Justin, which is either clever or tremendously lazy, it's hard to know which. Aaron and Justin live a fringe existence in L.A., where they came when they escaped from what they like to call a "UFO death cult" in the dry and rocky mountains east of San Diego.
Justin (played by Justin) is grateful they are out on their own and takes part in regular deprogramming therapy sessions. Aaron (played by Aaron) has more complex feelings about the place they grew up, and when a mysterious videotape containing footage of one of the cult's members arrives in the mail, Aaron awkwardly talks Justin into heading back to "Camp Arcadia" just for the day. It's an emotionally illogical way to shift the action into the camp, where some very weird stuff is happening.
Once they get there, The Endless vacillates between intriguing sci-fi-tinged drama and some exposition paced so slowly that for a while the film's title seems worryingly accurate. As they spend time at the camp, first the promised 24 hours, then longer and longer, it is clear that something is very off about the place, and when the camera spins around at one point to reveal two moons in the sky, The Endless perks up.
But it can't quite sustain the eerie drama and disquieting mood, which in part seems to be a problem of having too much "world-building" mythology taking place and not enough honest storytelling. There are lots of hints of TV's Lost and Westworld in the way it's put together, not to mention Richard Kelly's still-trippy Donnie Darko and Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter, but The Endless really struggles with keeping it all cohesive and coherent.
There are some really unsettling moments, and some hints at a really exciting supernatural story, but The Endless can't quite tie it all together; the "reveal" of where they are and what's going on just opens up more doors that never close behind the filmmakers. As storytellers, Moorhead and Benson seem far too interested in setting up the scenarios than seeing them through, and the lack of follow through -- which doomed Lost in its final season -- is largely what bedevils The Endless.
Despite some great imagery and some really fine moments, The Endless can't quite bring it all together, which is a little bit of an irony considering the film's obsession with endless loops. It builds and builds and builds to a climax that is both under- and overwhelming, and that never explains some of the ideas and key moments are the most key.
A little more focus on this story and a little less satisfaction with connecting The Endless with the filmmakers' other movies (which I haven't seen) would likely have served it well, and brought the film some much-needed tension just at the critical moments when it goes slack.
Fans of hardcore sci-fi-laced fantasy might find much to admire in The Endless, but those of us who go to movies to be entertained and transported, not to solve inscrutable puzzles, will likely just be at first frustrated and then possibly bored -- which is not at all the kinds of emotions you'd expect from a movie about survivors of a UFO death cult.
Viewed April 22, 2018 -- 1415
AMC Sunset 5
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