A One Mann’s Movies review of “Endless” (2020).
Bob the Movie Man’s Rating:
Certification:
US: -. UK: 12A.
As 2020 grinds on, and more and more new releases get pushed out in the schedules, the new films getting released into cinemas imply that the distributors are starting to dredge the bottom of the B-movie bucket. “Endless” is a case in point.
Biker-boy Chris (Nicholas Hamilton) and first-love Riley (Alexandra Shipp) in scenic British Columbia. (Source: Ingenious Media).
Endless Love
Riley (Alexandra Shipp) and Chris (Nicholas Hamilton) are teenage lovers about to be torn apart… but not in the way you think. Riley is about to turn her back on her talent for comic-book art to follow her parents’ wishes: to study law on the other side of the country in Georgetown. Chris is from the other side of the tracks – aren’t they always in these films? – living in a one-parent family with his mother Lee (Bond-girl Famke Janssen).
But fate is about to push them even further apart as – with an advert as to why drinking, texting and driving don’t mix – Chris is killed in a car crash. Bummer! Can their love for each other reach beyond death itself, and if so, at what cost?
Endless hasn’t got a potter’s wheel in sight
We’ve been here before of course with the Demi Moore / Patrick Swayze hit “Ghost” from 1990. That was an Oscar winner (Best Supporting Actress for Whoopi Goldberg and screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin). Will “Endless” – a teen-love version – match this potential? Unfortunately, it doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance.
Memories of a classic from 1990. (Source: Paramount Pictures)
It feels like it’s not for the want of trying from the five youngsters* at the heart of the action, with Eddie Ramos and Zoë Belkin playing the lover’s best friends and DeRon Horton being the limbo-trapped ghost-guide equivalent to the subway dropout from “Ghost”. (* I say “youngsters”, but most seem to be in their late twenties!) )
A funeral guide. DeRon Horton as Jordan (a nod to “Heaven Can Wait”?) showing Chris his funeral. (Photo by www.jessica-andy.ca @jessandyphoto).
All seem to invest their energy into the project. Unfortunately, with the exception of Alexandra Shipp, the energy is not matched with great acting talent. Poor Nicholas Hamilton (the bully from “It”) seems to have a particularly limited range, with his resting acting expression being “gormless”.
None of the adult actors fair much better, and I found Famke Janssen particularly unconvincing as the grieving mother.
As I said, the exception here is Alexandra Shipp, who had a supporting role in “Love, Simon” and a more centre-stage role as “Storm” in the otherwise disappointing “X-Men: Dark Phoenix“. Here she remains eminently watchable, but is hog-bound by a seriously dodgy script.
#gormless. Nicholas Hamilton as the luckless Chris. (Source: Ingenious Media).
Oh, no… the dreaded voiceover
If you read my blog regularly, you will know I reach for my flame-thrower at the appearance of voiceovers. And the start of this movie made me shudder with fear as a “tell, not show” approach was followed. It’s a mild blessing that the script – by Andre Case and O’Neil Sharma – used this device purely as a slightly lazy way to set the scene and the voiceover didn’t rear its ugly head again.
However, on a broader basis, the screenplay doesn’t excite with predictability being its middle name. Worse still, it contains lines of mansplaining dialogue that are absolute stinkers. Frustratingly, the story just doesn’t really GO anywhere, despite the opportunities to do so. There’s an absent father angle, and I was just begging for it to be RILEY that was being told to have the confrontation… but no! And there are whole sections of the movie that defy belief, with a police investigation in particular appearing completely incompetent. The result is that it adds neither drama or tension.
Alexandra Shipp, competent as the bereft Riley Stanheight. (Source: Ingenious Media).
Scenic “California” (via British Columbia)
Through my career in IT I’ve had the great fortune to travel to a number of small cities in Canada, and all have appealed with their consistently picturesque qualities and consistently quirky individuals! Here we have the cities of Kelowna and Vernon in British Columbia playing California, and the drone cinematography (by Frank Borin and Mark Dobrescu) displays the dramatic lake-filled scenery to the full.
Endless: A Phantom Menace
With so many cookie-cutter movies out there, it feels like the non-horror “Ghost” recipe (or “Heaven Can Wait” / “It’s a Wonderful Life” / “A Matter of Life and Death” / delete per your preference) is well overdue for a makeover. Unfortunately, director Scott Speer‘s attempt just isn’t good enough to fill the void. And that’s a shame.
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8V45tinTkg .
