There is plenty to be annoyed about in a low budget film, but looking past all of that, you can see that this group really put everything they had into this project with the resouces they had. The visual effects are superb with a decent sound design. The story is meant to be a gateway into a much larger one that would undoubtedly require a much larger tool box to create but this is a step in the right direction. It's great seeing filmmakers not limiting themselves to a small scale story even if their budget restricts them to it logically. Hope to see more from these guys.
2 Reviews
Cypher is a lackadaisical mess with squandered potential
CommanderCody57614 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Cypher is clearly an amateur attempt at film making. One of the most distracting issues this film suffers from is poor audio. There are times when the actors can barely be heard, or are unintentionally drowned out by audio effects such as ear-ringing or a speaking A.I. butler.
Cinematography is at times impressive, and at other times offensive. Choice of camera angles and framing are more miss than hit, but when they hit they really shine. Lighting design and color grading should have gotten more attention during production. Scenes look mismatched when placed together, and the lack of light or too much light is distracting to the viewer.
These sins would be forgivable if not for the atrocious dialogue and lack of comprehensible storyline. The story follows Mason, a young man who is dumped on a street corner and taken under the wing of the "Cyphers" to be trained in the ways of covertly assassinating the capitalist elite using technological enhancements. His mentor (captor?) Gio, was earlier seen assassinating some sort of money launderer. We are led to believe there is something special about Mason, but we never find out what. The film ends with Mason being introduced to a young man with teleportation abilities being held captive by the Cyphers. Mason has a seizure of some kind, and the only female character in the film turns out to be a sinister hallucination.
Most of the film is men in suits drinking alcohol and having tense conversations with their friends. Everything is serious business and thinly-veiled threats until its time to be chummy with each other and exchange half-cooked quips when they part ways. Conversations are stilted, and actors can be noticed struggling to bring depth to the uninspired dribble provided to them. The audience is not given a single reason to care about any of the characters on screen. Mason seems to be the main character, but we have virtually no idea who he is as a person other than he has memory problems and headaches. Gio is perhaps the character we know the most, but his motives are dubious at best - capturing people, imprisoning them, and then attempting to convince them to join his crusade. There are no other characters worth mentioning as their contributions are few and have no great effect on the story as it stands now.
The film asks us to care enough about the story to invest in a Part 2 to a pilot, and beyond that, and entire series. Yet we are given nothing to care about, as the character work done on this film seems almost non-existent. They are there to be a vehicle for the concept, which itself is cliche, ham-fisted, and overdone.
The best part of this film is easily the visual effects, set pieces, and locations. Someone clearly worked very hard on the aesthetic design of the logo and the environmental holograms and robotic eyes featured in the film. This 1-star review gains an additional star for this reason alone.
For an amateur film, this venture would be impressive if it was not bogged down by an ill-conceived concept and clumsy execution. Mr. Lisa as a director shows some promise, but he may do well to entrust his future screenplays to someone other than himself.
Stray observations: -Typo in the film's poster on Amazon streaming - Isaac vs. Issac? Both versions appear in the type on the poster. -The Alan Turing quote in the beginning has 0 to do with the following 17 minutes presented.
Cinematography is at times impressive, and at other times offensive. Choice of camera angles and framing are more miss than hit, but when they hit they really shine. Lighting design and color grading should have gotten more attention during production. Scenes look mismatched when placed together, and the lack of light or too much light is distracting to the viewer.
These sins would be forgivable if not for the atrocious dialogue and lack of comprehensible storyline. The story follows Mason, a young man who is dumped on a street corner and taken under the wing of the "Cyphers" to be trained in the ways of covertly assassinating the capitalist elite using technological enhancements. His mentor (captor?) Gio, was earlier seen assassinating some sort of money launderer. We are led to believe there is something special about Mason, but we never find out what. The film ends with Mason being introduced to a young man with teleportation abilities being held captive by the Cyphers. Mason has a seizure of some kind, and the only female character in the film turns out to be a sinister hallucination.
Most of the film is men in suits drinking alcohol and having tense conversations with their friends. Everything is serious business and thinly-veiled threats until its time to be chummy with each other and exchange half-cooked quips when they part ways. Conversations are stilted, and actors can be noticed struggling to bring depth to the uninspired dribble provided to them. The audience is not given a single reason to care about any of the characters on screen. Mason seems to be the main character, but we have virtually no idea who he is as a person other than he has memory problems and headaches. Gio is perhaps the character we know the most, but his motives are dubious at best - capturing people, imprisoning them, and then attempting to convince them to join his crusade. There are no other characters worth mentioning as their contributions are few and have no great effect on the story as it stands now.
The film asks us to care enough about the story to invest in a Part 2 to a pilot, and beyond that, and entire series. Yet we are given nothing to care about, as the character work done on this film seems almost non-existent. They are there to be a vehicle for the concept, which itself is cliche, ham-fisted, and overdone.
The best part of this film is easily the visual effects, set pieces, and locations. Someone clearly worked very hard on the aesthetic design of the logo and the environmental holograms and robotic eyes featured in the film. This 1-star review gains an additional star for this reason alone.
For an amateur film, this venture would be impressive if it was not bogged down by an ill-conceived concept and clumsy execution. Mr. Lisa as a director shows some promise, but he may do well to entrust his future screenplays to someone other than himself.
Stray observations: -Typo in the film's poster on Amazon streaming - Isaac vs. Issac? Both versions appear in the type on the poster. -The Alan Turing quote in the beginning has 0 to do with the following 17 minutes presented.
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