Bullet Points: The Osiris Child
I have had good luck watching movies from Shane Abbess. I’m 1 for 1. The man from Oz has five total projects to his name now and I can say without a doubt that he’s an extremely talented dude. Infini was a massive surprise to me when I watched it. It had a grit to it that only comes from the hard work and obsessiveness of a whole bunch of people, especially the director. The Osiris Child, otherwise known as Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child, has been on my watch list for some time now and after stealing away for about two hours from the sweltering heat and a bunch of visiting family members, I jacked up the A/C and plopped myself down on the couch to take in some amazing science fiction.
Synopsis: Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonization, an unlikely pair race against an impending global crisis and are confronted by the monsters that live inside us all.
- Father/Daughter Bonding: Lt. Kane Sommerville (Daniel MacPherson) works for Exor, a company that is essentially a military contractor/terraforming group who obviously doesn’t have the best interests of their colonies in mind. Has there ever been a big company like Exor that did care about the people it shuttled off world? Not to my knowledge. Exor is no different. Think Weyland-Yutani Corp and you’re not far off. So Kane is working for this company that colonized this desert planet. He flies, he drinks like crazy, and he more or less is a complete stranger to his family. The early parts of the movie deal with his daughter visiting him on the colony, firing off some grenade launchers in the middle of nowhere, and then retiring to the capital in Osiris. You get the idea that Kane is remorseful for his lack of parenting but that he doesn’t really know what to do with a 10 year old girl.
- Company Business: Like I said, Exor is the evil corporation here. They have been creating a deadly creature deep in the bowels of the ultramax prison. You know that is a bad idea. A massive prison break occurs and the creatures escape and head straight for the capital. All this info drops on Lt. Kane and he’s forced to run out of the safety of the Exor floating compound deal and head down into the fire to save his little girl.
- Beast Wars: It takes a little while for us to find out about the creatures. The movie is told in chapters like it’s a Tarrantino movie or something. I liked it. It gave me a couple of good stopping points since my son kept walking in and I had to stop it before he witnessed that one guy getting ripped apart by the massive beast.
- The Warden and the Prison: It was great to see a warden of a prison not be such a sissy. This dude ain’t no punk. It’s the epicenter of the creature creation and a lot of the credit goes to the warden and his team. We also meet Sy Lombrok (Kellan Lutz) in the prison. He is one of the prisoners who starts the breakout and then the man who finds Lt. Kane out in the middle of nowhere. Kane and Sy end up embarking on a quest to find Kane’s daughter in the capital.
- On the Road to Osiris: Kane and Sy are in dire straights. They need a ride and some guns. Creatures are running around killing everybody and we’re treated to some really fun character developing scenes featuring the two hunks as they gather up the necessary supplies before they make their way into the capital. The Osiris Child has an incredible ability to show stories without having to tell them. That’s what I want in most of my movies. A great character doesn’t need his backstory read aloud. I didn’t need to hear all about Dutch and his men in Predator. All I had to see was the scene in the helicopter to know all I needed about his men. Kane and Sy are given plenty of time to develop and their characters really take hold once we meet the tertiary characters that really help drive the story forward.
- A Colony on the Brink: A good science fiction movie is hard to find these days. Where did they all go? The Osiris Child might be my favorite one in quite some time. Shane Abbess and company have created a world with evil corporations, strange creatures, likable characters, and intense action. It reminds me a bit of Neill Blomkamp’s films and the way they make the extraordinary seem ordinary. Abbess needs to get his hands on a massive budget and see what he can do with it.
- Monster and Me:The story arc of the creatures in this movie is better than the arc of most heroes in modern science fiction movies. One of the beautiful things about The Osiris Child is how much it reminded me of other great science fiction movies. I could see Total Recall and I could see Star Wars. What more do you need?
The Verdict: I already mentioned that The Osiris Child was one of my favorite science fiction movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s the first movie featuring Kellan Lutz that I didn’t want to turn off. In fact, I liked his performance and the arc of his character. Daniel MacPherson was also really good. He also starred in Infini, a movie that I definitely enjoyed. I can’t recommend this movie enough. It had everything in it that I look for in a science fiction movie; depth of characters, interesting future society, bleak and colonial planets, and some damn fine action. Someone throw some of that Disney money at Shane Abbess and get him to direct the new Star Wars movies! In the mean time, let’s all pray for a volume two.
