Reviews

The film is an emotive-styled documentary that follows the members of the band 'Hillsong United' as they prepare of the biggest concert of their careers. Sadly, the film has very little drama or conflict. Nor do I ever feel that anything is ever at stake.

Yes, I understand it's a documentary and the filmmakers we're dependent on real life for there drama, so I sympathize with their situation, but they were tying to make a type of documentary that more interesting in engaging their viewers heart than head, and those type of docos are reliant upon more tradition fiction style of storytelling to be successful. This doco has very little drama or internal conflicts nor did I ever felt anything was at risk.

In very general terms: stories are about people facing the biggest internal and external problems of there life. They use everything they have to overcome these problems and become better people in the process.

This documentary is about people who have both internal and external conflicts (but don't worry, God will solve it) and use there skills (well, technically, it's not there skills but God working through them) and overcome really mild problems and they stay exactly the same as a results. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with doing that, just the act of pray and the action of an Omnipotent God doesn't translate too well to the visual medium of film.

Also, God doesn't do anything too remarkable in the doco. I'm not here to debate the existence of God, but you get the feeling that if God didn't exist everything in the doco would have played out exactly the same. Nothing that happens the doco that non-Christians haven't already done without the aid of God.

So, what's the big external problem of the film. Hillsong UNITED has to play the biggest concert of there careers and things aren't going to plan. They've had a late night bump-in, running on a few hours sleep and a couple of songs still need to be finish.... sounds like regular band stuff. It's drama but nothing so unique or interesting that it requires to be filmed and retold.

What make things even less dramatic is when you realize they're probably playing to a very friendly Christian crowd and will overlook any mistakes.

So from there we go back in time and learn about the origins of the church and the band. The majority of the doco focuses on the band members of Hillsong United. So, this is were we come to the other big problem. All the main character are pretty much the same. With mild exceptions they have the same backstory, motivations and problems. Plus, they all give similar types of answers, most of which are "God" and it never really gets explored past that.

We then learn more about the main band members see them try and record a new album. They all seem like nice people but they come across being very 2-dimensional.

The doco has once scene that jumps out and kinds of overshadows everything else. The head Pastor (Brian Huston) talks about when his father Frank (ex-head pastor) confessed to him about being a child molester, and having to fire him. I'm not blaming Brian for the actions of his father, but I am blaming for him not calling the police. It's unconscionable conduct. I don't think Hillsong (who produced the film) really understands how bad this scene plays out.

This is a doco that didn't need to be made. It's not a story that's desperately needed to be told. It's an expensive promo video for Hillsong. That's probably not going to convert anyone (No one is getting past the whole 'not reporting the child molester' subplot).

The doco feels like the equivalent of engaging in polite chit-chat with a person you meet at a party. They seem happy and nice but they conversation wares thin towards to end and you know for a fact you have no desire to ever talk to them again, but you wish them well in life.

This film is such a shame. It had everything going for it, decent production values, visually interesting and a unique idea. All of this gets turned into a missed opportunity by a poorly executed script full of cliques, casual misogyny and lazy dialogue.

The main problem is that main characters (the brother) are just boring. The film doesn't give you a single reason to like or care for them. They're not unlikable people but they're far from being interesting or emotionally engaging enough for you go on this journey with them. Nor are they cool or charismatic enough for you to live a power fantasy through them. On top of this, all the minor characters are totally interchangeable and forgettable (which the expectation of the goofy girl).

The main plot (until the monster plot takes over) is about the leads working out whether or not to sell their family farm. Something you don't really want for a film that's touting it self as as 'the biggest Australian action film of 2016'. I'm guessing they didn't catch the absurdly silly 'Gods of Egypt'.

You would think that this plot would just be a mcguffin so a family drama can unfold between the brothers but… nope. And this's the problem. Internally, you have no idea who the two leads or what they really want. Don't get me wrong, characters in these type of films needs to be too deep but they do need some dept. Even Max is the 'light on plot' 'Fury Road' had internal desires and motivations. I.e. testing if he could trust and connect with humans again. These characters are just uninspiring cliques who spurt plot points until the monster turns up.

The first two acts just have too many 'talking head' scenes that could have been edited right down. But in its defense, the third act is pretty good. It's where all the action, CG and set pieces are but by the time it came around, I'd I'd stopped caring.

To be honest, the film really didn't bother me too much. We've all seen bad films. What inspired the review was the Q&A after the film in which the director spend the entire time attempting to humble brag about how great he and his film is. He used every opportunity to mention that it was a "Good, fun action film" It's really not. It's a technically sound, bloated film with a bad script.

It also made it perfectly clear he's an 'independent filmmaker and not Hollywood". I think that was clear to everyone from all the actors from 'Home and Away'.

And he really going to leave his mark on the Australian film industry; not with scripts like this he isn't.

The film fails at it's aspirations of being a light and fun popcorn film. Everyone clearly has talent and were trying there best. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen, but there are so many other great Australian genre film you really should be watching before this.