A state of desperate deprivation that signifies the lack of imagination that plagues most movies today and deprives decent performers from doing their usual work with pride is seriously damaging a lot of otherwise admirable careers. Oscar winner Halle Berry is one of the most undeserving victims of the mediocrity that is rampant on screens from coast to coast. Her most recent handful of flops have disappeared overnight, and a stupid, time-wasting horror film called Never Let Go might vanish even faster than that.
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NEVER LET GO ★ (1/4 stars) |
Confusing and indecisive from start to finish, the film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a paranoid mother (Halle Berry, stripped of her usual glamour and beauty) lives in an isolated cabin in the woods with her twin sons and spends every hour protecting them from a mysterious evil presence lurking outside. As long as they stay inside, behind locked doors, or connect their bodies to the house with ropes, they are safe. But if they ask two many questions or stray too far, all hell threatens to break loose.
Unfortunately, the film is so relentlessly obtuse that questions are inescapable. What is going on here? Why are they living in the middle of a dark and murky woods in the first place instead of somewhere closer to what’s left of civilization? And what is the evil spell that threatens them with physical and psychological danger every day and especially after dark? Never Let Go never manages to answer any of a number of recurring questions adequately, and the movie makes no more sense than one of those head-scratchers by M. Night Shyamalan, which it annoyingly resembles. Searching for any kind of meaning is a waste of time and energy besides hints at themes of parenthood and survival in a dystopian future, but the script is uninspired, the third act resolution is incomprehensible, there are too many contrived surprises and twists to keep the audience awake, and although Halle Berry and the two children, Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins, struggle with what they’ve got, the performances seem phoned in. French director Alexandre Aja also helmed The Hills Have Eyes, which was one of the scariest and least compromising horror flicks of all time, and Piranha 3-D, which was not. This time, he’s come up with nothing more than a weak time waster for people seeking a brief Halloween distraction.
