The Rift: Dark Side of the Moon (2016)
Directed by Dejan Zecevic
Written by Dejan Zecevic, Dimitrije Vojnov, Milan Konjevic, Barry Keating
Produced by Marko Jocic, Milan Todorovic, Ken Foree, Peter Chung, T.J. Chung, Slobodan Cica, Goran Djikic, Slobodan Jocic, Ivan Pribicevic
Starring Katarina Cas, Ken Foree, Monte Markham, Dragan Micanovic, Denis Muric, Ratko Turcinovic, Miroljub Leso, Sonja Vukicevic
Synopsis
Two reactivated field agents (Cas, Foree), an ailing physicist (Markham), and a Serbian military attaché (Micanovic) are dispatched to recover data from the remains of a downed satellite in the countryside north of Belgrade; what they find instead are a hostile, elderly couple (Leso, Vukicevic) who’ve a roaming, resurrected son (Muric), and an astronaut who vanished during a lunar landing in 1976 in their cellar.
Script
Zecevic, Konjevic and Keating badly expanded the director’s fascinating, science fictional ideas into a half-baked plot crammed with cretinous chatter, and prolonged by its characters’ garrulity, tactical idiocies, and incapability to report key, immediate events — the most exasperating and surest signs of hackery.
Direction
Aside from some clumsy, hand-held shots, Zecevic’s supervision is no more objectionable than good.
Histrionics
Foree’s career is all but defined by his engaging elevation of stock roles in B- to Z-movies, and he here endues his officious agent with more appeal than he’s worth. He’s her senior by nearly thirty years, but looks healthier than haggard Cas, who with Micanovic passably handles dumb dialogue. For his genteel, faintly porky formality, overproductive Markham’s still fun to see. Deathless hack Mick Garris can’t act in the slightest in a cameo where he delivers not ten lines with gross incompetence.
Music
It’s as irritating as inapposite to any given scene when it’s heard, but Nikola Jeremic’s score is thankfully eclipsed by songs of varying quality by Omega, The Anix, Carved Souls, Real Life, Nik Turner, Leather Strip, Damon Edge, Nektar, Le Seul Element, Rick Wakeman, Brainticket, Chrome, Guru Freakout/Guru Guru (Grove Band), Het Droste Effect, Oranssi Pazuzu, and White Manna.
Highlights
See below.
Flaws
Lunary scenes are cutely rendered in CG fit for AAA cut scenes or one of George Lucas’s prequels.
Conclusion
Had they hired a screenwriter who can actually tell a story rather than temporize, this movie’s Serbian and South Korean producers might’ve made rather than wasted money.
Instead, watch Capricorn One or The Ninth Configuration.