Expired (2022) User Reviews

In Great Ambition Lies Great Responsibility

[Brachvogel · 4/10 · 19 March 2022]

It's an ambitious task producing a science fiction movie on an obviously low budget, especially if the content focuses on condition rather than plot.

The movie's cinematography is well worth watching, also editing is well made, but without a straight plot, scripting has to carry a heavy load because every scene has to stand for itself. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up to the task. Though the dialogues seek philosophical depth, they lack refinement, constantly throwing me out of the suspension of disbelief.

Acting is just fine, including that of Ryan Kwanten who plays the lead role of Jack. However, his sloppy diction is hard to take. Eager to be as authentic as possible, he sacrifices his control over speech which makes him simply hard to understand.

Also, there are too many references to "Blade Runner": A lonesome killer seeking love, voiceover narration, androids, the lifespan issue, an Asian future city, even the soundtrack that sounds like Vangelis at times - there are just too many parallels.

Great Hong Kong footage, good editing, but overall an overambitious undertaking.

Why does this movie need to exist?

[morte_tezza · 3/10 · 21 March 2022]

I rarely write review for films but, as an Australian filmmaker, I had to. Someone has to be honest and call it out when one of our Australian films, for a lack of better word, sucks.

In summary, it was bad. It gave nothing for the audience to hang onto, maybe except for some mediocre low budget VFX visuals. So with the slow pace and nothing to go for, it was excruciating to sit through the film keeping an open mind that it might get better, which it didn't. I was cringing as they whisper talked to each-other through the whole film, as if that would give their dialogue more depth. But there was not depth in the content of the dialogue.

While in Australia it is celebrated as another great work of Ivan Sen (actually he is a very good filmmaker), there are many flaws that should have been seen even in the screenplay, especially by those who gave the funding and support to the film. The biggest flaw was; why would the audience care for Jack? He is loser, not relatable, and he kills random people for a living, and he's not very good at it either. I could care less if he died from his condition (whatever his condition was).

I could go on and on, but I want to wrap it up with one question; 'Why does this movie need to exist?'. And the answer is it doesn't.

With all that negative, I know the director is fund of sci-fi genre, so I hope this was a great practice so his next sci-fi film will not suffer the same flaws.

I watched this because of the cast, but...

[finetunes · 3/10 · 19 March 2022]

The pacing is excruciatingly slow. The movie has very little dialog, plot or action. Kwanten talks in a half whisper both in his voice-over and dialog. It's really quite a boring movie. It shares a lot of characteristics with Lost in Translation.

My verdict - pass

If you decide to watch it and you happen to play it on VLC video player on Windows then run it at 108% speed.

A disappointing low budget attempt as sci-fi

[chris-h-3 · 2/10 · 22 March 2022]

I was looking forward to this film as I very much enjoyed Mystery Road and Goldstone. (It seems it has been released as Expired rather than the current 'Loveland' title here on imdb.)

As a sci-fi film it is clearly somewhat hamstrung by a lack of budget. You get a couple of distant shots of a futuristic city but then all the filming of the cast are just on the street, 'today'. Nobody dresses any different, the cars and streets are all unchanged, its slighlty jarring. There are a lot of people walking around with umbrellas up, even though its not raining. I can only guess the plan was to cgi some of these sequences but maybe the money ran out.

That aside when it starts it is really difficult to hear the lead actor. He speaks so quietly and is way down in the mix so that you can't hear what he is saying about half of the time. Most of the (long) opening narration is inaudible and throughout the film it's often a struggle to make out his dialogue. Its somewhat ironic all the Chinese cast, who speak clearly, are subtitled where it is the lead who really needs it.

Its a very slow film and there really isn't much in the way of story. There is no chemistry at all between the two leads either so it was ultimately not very interesting. I made it to the end hoping there would be something more but then it ended.

It seems to want to be a kind of mash-up between Paris, Texas and Blade Runner but its like thats as far as the idea went.

Confused as to what's it about 75% of the time.

[ctufan24 · 1/10 · 20 March 2022]

Not until the last 30 minutes of the film do you understand what is going on. The first hour I suspected was about a gun-for-hire assassin who did law enforcements dirty work and we got to see a part of what he does during his off time involving obsessing over a lady who lives across the street from him going to her work at some Asian version of a "stripe club" without her knowing it. The main characters dialogue and voice over is soo annoying... half whispered. I enjoyed Hugo Weaving in the LoTR & Matrix films but this seemed more like a quick/little effort paycheck project for him. Their was a 5 minute scene in the last 20 minutes that bugged me with over-used lens flare.

Blake's 7 meets bladerunner

[japseyee · 3/10 · 19 March 2022]

Started watching this tonight, I've been playing with my phone for the last forty mins. The films nearly finished. Not really got a clue what its about. Don't really care!

Immensely annoying start, the lead characters voice over is barely audible. They should have used subtitles. This film really wants to be blade runner, shame they couldn't afford the constant rain (they should have shot it in England).

I've given it three stars cause the lady was attractive.. if the lead guy could have spoke properly i might have gone to four.

Really though, this film is a waste of time. Mine anyway.

It takes 1hr and 17 mins to understand what is going....smdh!

[LordCommandar · 2/10 · 20 March 2022]

Talk about slow, drawn out and extremely boring. It took 1hr 17mins for me to understand what the hell this movie was even about. My interest in watching was because of Hugo Weaving and he barely had any camera time. If you need something to put you to sleep with a decent score, then watch Expire. Your eyes will "expire" in no time.....sheesh louise.

Looks and sounds good, 3 leads can act but it wasn't for me...

[ochocrappo · 3/10 · 21 March 2022]

Saw this at the wonderful Sun Theatre in Yarraville. The highlight was the movie being introduced by Ivan and Hugo. I really wanted to like it because they were both great but... I didn't.

I enjoyed the Hong Kong backdrop and most of the visuals and sound but really didn't dig the story (or lack of).

Ivan indicated that he did everything when he made this movie, maybe he should get some outside input in his next project.

I left the movie confused.

A Wasted Opportunity

[Blade698 · 5/10 · 19 March 2022]

Honestly I didn't mind watching this film, but with the talent he had and the clearly substantial budget, it was unfortunate in many ways. Aside from the almost painfully unoriginal nature of the story, I just kept thinking one thought over and over. A middle-aged man, a young beautiful woman and an older man. How many times have I seen this same scenario? Too many.

Ignore the reviews over 5

[hick-17206 · 2/10 · 28 March 2022]

This movie is not really worth spending time to review but I will in a few brief words anyway. The pace is terrible. The plot and scenes are completely disjointed. You are left trying to figure out what the hell is happening for close to 3/4 of the movie. Half the movie has voice-over from the characters that means nothing because you don't know what's going on to begin with. The story itself what actually interesting and could have been something with different direction and editing.

Great, introspective movie

[michaelgravesbohn · 8/10 · 19 March 2022]

Yes, the plotting is slow but the mood nuanced. If you realize it's just a deeply personal take on evolution, who we are as human beings, and how every living creature needs love to survive....you can take a lot away from this movie. Enjoyed it.

Alternative Cinema

[michiel-klaver · 7/10 · 21 March 2022]

Not suited for ones who seek just another easy to consume fast moving blockbuster production. This gem is targeted for the cinephiles who can appreciate the type of thought provoking story telling.

Tectonic speed

[lucas739 · 4/10 · 25 March 2022]

This film tries to be deep and meaningful with a distinct Blade Runner skyline interspersed with real, busy street scenes. It just fails to ignite, the story isn't clear, Weaving is under used and the male lead has to be the most scruffy, miserable SOB i've ever come across.

His mumbling frustrates as do the extended scenes where nothing happens, without even minimal (poor) dialogue to break it up.

The girl has the sort of face that'll get work and , no doubt she can act.

Hugo was doing his bit for Oz, that's fair enough, the other two leads need to dust themselves off and try again.

All style but very little substance unfortunately

[dan-407-460334 · 5/10 · 21 March 2022]

I really wanted to love this film - Ivan Sen did such an amazing job with Mystery Road and Goldstone. However Loveland/Expired is all style and very little substance unfortunately. It is essentially Blade Runner crossed with Lost in Translation but with none of the brilliant substance of either.

The dialogue tries hard to be profound, but is essentially lacking in much meaning.

Hugo Weaving's role in this film is so token that one wonders what drew him to the film. It seems like a huge waste of his talent.

Ryan Kwanten plays a two-dimensional character who shows permanent consternation but very little else, even though the film is meant to be about feeling emotions. He reminded me of George W Bush when he tried to be very deep and meaningful.

Although I applaud the fact that 'the future' is depicted with most of the present still in place - crowded dirty roads in Hong Kong, even some retro CRTs and 90s style desktop PCs to confuse the timeline a bit, the appropriation of Bladerunner is a bit strong, with the sound of the disembodied female promotional voiceover ever present on the streetscape and similar electronic vehicle horn sounds to Bladerunner. Unfortunately unlike Bladerunner, the special effects are fairly low budget and laid on rather too regularly - the twinkling coloured lights of drones overhead (of which we get very little insight into their significance ... other than a hint that they are somehow protecting certain people associated with a dodgy biotech company experimenting on humans.)

Finally, the ever present strawberries in the film. What on earth were they about? At the brothel-esque karaoke bar, a plate of strawberries is always provided but never eaten; in the love scenes at home, a punnet of strawberries is produced and then eaten by a rat. I don't know what that was all about. So much of this film was attempting to be profound but unfortunately was just a bit confusing.

I nearly turned it off after an hour.

[fluffchop · 2/10 · 28 March 2022]

"This gem is targeted for the cinephiles who can appreciate the type of thought provoking story telling." Laughing my ass off. There is nothing thought provoking in this movie. It's not a gem. It's glacial pace with no substance leaves nothing to the imagination. And it should or there is no payoff. It has a consistent mood of yawn, like it's trying to be Bladerunner in some way. Was it called Loveland or Expired. It makes more sense as Loveland. The constant asian babble is annoying. Again a nod to Bladerunner. It failed to develop it's own plot points, such as the tech implants, the reasons for the girl affecting the lead and the nature of the corporation behind the experiments. There was so much material that could have been added that was just ignored. It would have made for a far deeper and more meaningful movie. I think it tries hard but is basically a bad movie with a bit of style around the edges.

The plot...

[sihtricx-28039 · 2/10 · 26 June 2022]

Let's ignore for a second that this movie is just an hour and 30 minutes of literally nothing but moody scenes and city shots, and focus on the actual 10 minutes of plot we do get. Jack falls in love and starts to get sick so he finds a scientist, he finds him apparently by picking some kind of chip of the ground? Did the chip fall out when the Android was hit by the car? Does this make sense in any way? Definitely not, but again, ignore it. He finds the scientist and the guy helps him. Another hour of nothing and we find out that Jack was in an experiment while young, an experiment that stopped his body/brain from producing the chemicals associated with deep emotion. How this actually stops him from feeling emotion isn't explained because it's not actually stopping him from it. It appears that his life's circumstances have just created a series of events that have made him become cold and uncaring? Because he falls very deeply in love with a girl, even though the audience can't tell because having leads with chemistry wasn't an option, their in love because the movie tells you they are. And because of this Jack is dying, because his body isn't used to the very small amount of chemicals created by happy feelings? An amount that is so negligible, any body would get used to it over time without you even noticing and would in no way ever kill you. Plus, let's not forget that if Jack just stays healthy and avoids falling in love again, he can live forever. He can live forever! Because apparently the aging process just never happens if your body stops producing the tiny amounts of chemicals associated with emotion.

Of course Jack ignores this 'coz he's in love man. But the girl betrays him and leaves and that's it. If he doesn't see her he obviously can't love her, they need to be in the same room for love to occur. Anyway Jack survives and that's it...

I get the big idea/message behind this plot. Being willing to give up humanity for immortality etc. But literally no part of the actual plot we are given makes any kind of sense. Look it doesn't need to be completely accurate considering the idea here, what it does need is set up, we're just told near the end of the movie that without emotion Jack can live forever. But how did this shady corporation get to that point? It feels like the first thing they tried just happened to work. Sure the scientist mentions having done horrible things to have what Jack has but we're not given any indication what those things are.

And that's it, that's the whole movie. There's a few subplots that make no sense and are literally just Jack tries to find his dad but he's dead, and the scientist turns of the life support/cryo for some guy he cared deeply about. We don't even know who this guy was to him? Son/lover/friend? Your guess is as good as mine...

So yeah that's it.

First of all, It's Called Loveland on the DVD That I watched

[dr_john_pollard · 2/10 · 25 November 2022]

I would pretty much sum up everyone else's reviews, excruciatingly slow. Hugo Weaving was a key part of The Matrix, so can't understand what he's doing in this movie.

I believe it was well-intentioned. If you watch "The Making Of" the movie, the actors, explained why they believed in it, how good the script was and what they seemed to want to get on the screen. It was an Aussie production, low budget Queensland product it appears.

Visually it was acceptable possibly even good. You have to watch it with English subtitles. Shocking plot. I have no idea what the idea was that his character was shooting people, etc. It's pretty much impossible to draw any line of what the movie was about without watching "The Making of."

Somehow I watched the whole thing with a bit of fast forwarding going on. I can't recommend it. I took a shot on a library title.

If you cant sleep, watch this, it will send you to sleep!

[roseliya · 1/10 · 22 March 2022]

Slow, boring, not understandable. A great movie to send you off to sleep if you are having difficulty sleeping. Can someone, anyone explain to me what that was really about?? What a waste of time!

Is this moment real?

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 26 March 2022]

This is a science fiction mystery and love story that moves at a snail's pace. Jack (Ryan Kwanten) grew up as a street orphan in a futuristic Hong Kong inhabited by mostly androids. Jack is a hitman who makes enough money to sleep with a robot that is a mother figure. He meets April (Jillian Nguyen) a Vietnamese karaoke singer and falls in love. Jack feels his body is coming apart and needs the help of Hugo Weaving to figure out his problem (the mystery part).

The story was slow and needed more background information. I liked the look of the city lit up at night, but the characters were simply bad.

Guide: No f-word, sex, or nudity.

Blade Runner Without Charm

[El_Jefe · 2/10 · 22 May 2022]

Imagine Blade Runner, but with none of Harrison Ford's charm, mediocre cinematography, cheap digital effects, dull atmosphere, and a relationship you couldn't care less about. Also, instead of Ford's voice-over in the theatrical release, you get this sweaty guy mumbling nonsense.

Hugo Weaving was pretty good, though.

Enter the Void with more narrative substance

[afalez · 8/10 · 30 March 2022]

Near to what I had expected after seeing the trailer. I almost passed due to the bad review, the only review that I saw. Glad I gave it a shot. Reminded me a lot of the movie Enter the Void, except with more narrative, and perhaps, less visual substance if my memory serves me correctly. Probably not everybody's cup of tea, but you should enjoy it to some degree if the trailer piqued your interest.

What? 4 on Imdb? This deserves much more!

[siderite · 7/10 · 14 April 2022]

The feel of the film is great and the acting appropriate. At its core it examines what we are losing when we're clinging to life and trying to optimize it. The protagonist is someone who can live forever as long as he doesn't love anything, or he dies. The world is heavily inspired by Blade Runner: it looks and feels the same, it has pointless robots and cheap humans, everything is grand, luminous and depressing. The big problem with this film is that it is very slow and it tells a very simple idea in a complicated and roundabout way. If you're in it for the action and the thrills, this is not for you, but if you're looking for artistic expression without actually going towards something, you will probably love it.

Bottom line: brilliant beginning, then slowly fizzling out. Ryan Kwanten was great, Jillian Nguyen cute and Hugo Weaving old. He had just a few minutes in the film, though, so it felt a little like bait and switch.

hideous

[mgl-92037 · 1/10 · 31 March 2022]

I couldn't last five minutes. The copied blade runner vibe tells you things will never get better. The lead is why I stopped. The actor is an ugly, shuffling, mumbling moron, while the character is a possibly morally ambiguous hit man. No thanks. I'm desperate for some watchable sci-fi, but not desperate enough to watch this.

Incredibly slow paced and boring...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 23 April 2022]

I wasn't familiar with the movie "Expired" prior to sitting down to watch it. But it being a new movie was essentially sufficient enough for me to spend time watching it. Never having heard about it, I didn't know what to expect, nor did I know what I was in for here. I did like the movie's cover/poster, though, as it did have somewhat of a cyberpunk feel to it.

Right, well this 2022 romantic sci-fi movie from writer and director Ivan Sen was a slow burn of a movie. In fact, it was so slow that the narrative was tedious and somewhat of a struggle to sit through.

I managed to endure 65 minutes of slow, dull boredom as I sat through this movie. Then I just had enough of nothing of any interest happening at the pace of snails moving about, and I just tossed the towel in the ring and gave up. Talk about a boring movie.

The storyline told in "Expired" (aka "Loveland") was so uninspiring and boring that it felt like director Ivan Sen virtually was taking you on a guided tour of nothing. The only reason for why I endured 65 minutes out of ten 104 minutes was because I was taking in the scenery and locations of Hong Kong, reminiscing the four years I spent living and working there.

The only familiar face on the cast list in "Expired" was Hugo Weaving, and he didn't even manage to spruce up the movie all that much. He was simply fighting an already lost battle against a script and storyline that was on its last death throes. I wasn't familiar with Jillian Nguyen, but she definitely did manage to add some life to an otherwise dead and dull script. I wasn't familiar with the lead actor, Ryan Kwanten, but it was really a struggle having to sit there and listen to his mumble his way through the dialogue.

"Expired" is exactly that, expired.

My rating of this 2022 snoozefest lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

Typical Hollywood

[linyhyda · 3/10 · 26 March 2022]

Hollywood trying to normalize Asian females loving white men. How about Marvel giving shan chi a white love interest and normalize Asian men with white women Hollywood!