I always leave my expectations at the door when watching a film – I tend not to read reviews or let other people’s opinions sway me into thinking that a certain film will be either amazing or something that can be scraped from the bottom of my shoe. So, with not really knowing what to expect, I did soon realise that I was soon to become a dribbling mess due to the onset of boredom and total confusion.
The time is set in the future, a time when man is on the point of extinction, civilisation as we know it is very much a thing in the past and lone scavengers will wander the wasteland called The Rust.
However, there is light to the darkness, as a prophecy foretells that The Virgin (Lilly Cole) will give birth to a child, which must then be immediately sacrificed. On the child’s death, a tree will begin to grow on its grave and a man known as The Hunter (David Arquette), will arrive and free the Virgin from slavery. Enslaved by an evil magician called Magus (Goran Kostic), The Hunter must kill him to transform into Orion, Saviour of the human race.
Watching Orion was sadly an endurance and total test of my patience. It simply had me scratching my forehead trying to comprehend what the hell was going on and this was partly because we were given extreme close ups, really dark imagery so that no discernable character could be seen in the background, and a DoP who must’ve had ants in his pants because they just couldn’t keep still.
Despite being post apocalyptic, I didn’t feel that writer and director Asiel Norton offered the viewer anything that would connect us to his vision of a dystopian future. Yes, we were offered imagery of destroyed buildings, dry baron lands and makeshift homes but filled with limited, yet repetitive dialogue and new found trust in mysticism, it was like chewing on the bones that have already been cleaned of meat.
Suffice it to say that I was sadly disappointed by the whole thing that even the strong cast who have proven their true talents time and again weren’t able save.
