Carriers
Starring: Chris Pine, Piper Perabo and Emily VanCamp
Dir: Alex and David Pastor
Certificate: 15
Rating: 2/5
Riding off the back of Chris Pine’s new found fame from Star Trek and the today’s insatiable appetite for ‘infection’ films, low budget horror Carriers hits cinemas this Friday.
Carriers sees a group of four youngsters, headed by Chris Pine and Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) trying to survive in a disease ravaged America, where a deadly disease has killed off most of the population and taking every precaution is the name of the game.
Along the path to, well, nowhere in particular, they run into a man and his young daughter, desperate for help. The trouble is, the little girl has the dreaded disease.
Whilst the concept for Carriers, although highly unoriginal, is very interesting, the film itself isn’t.
The key part for any apocalypse film is its characters, and its here that Carriers really struggles. While Chris Pine tries his hardest to convey tough guy machismo, he never really pulls it off, leaving the already un-likeable Brian to be simply annoying.
The rest of the cast don’t do much better, and it says something that the father/daughter duo that are only in part of the film are by far the most interesting set of personalities in the film.
Adding to the disappointment is a complete lack of tension in the film. Trying for the ‘less is more’ technique, Carriers never shows any real damage done by the virus, leaving the threats to the protagonists feel empty.
Whereas movies such as I Am Legend, for all its other faults nailed both of these parts, the cohort in Carriers bring nothing new to the party, and make the already limp tension worse.
Nothing yet has approached the gut-wrenching tension of 28 Days Later or the sheer emptiness of the first half of I Am Legend. Carriers unfortunately ends up as just yet another failed attempt to emulate Danny Boyle’s modern classic.
Carriers is not a truly bad film though, it's just horrendously dull.
Maybe a rental if you really like either Chris Pine or horror films, but nothing really worth your admission fee.
Female First Cameron Smith
Tagged in Chris Pine