directed by:
Jonell Rowe written by: Jonell Rowe genre: Thriller, Science Fiction |
In light of the recent advances in artificial intelligence, and even the progress made on self driving vehicles - it's no wonder that Jonell Rowe's "Collision" has a very authentic feel to it. With the constant march of technology, what once was considered ridiculous, is literally right around the corner. Or already a fact of life. Attempting to keep up with the times, new laws have slowly begun seeping into society - and that includes the ability to follow your GPS as you drive. Something Malcolm, no doubt wishes were not the case.
As he buckles in for a seventy minute driving test, Malcolm is visibly nervous having the driving examiner present. She seems a little hard nosed but thankfully, also fair. After a rocky start, the test seems to be going fairly well... until the navigation system seemingly malfunctions. No problem. There are other areas the driving examiner can critique and grade. Right? Things seem to be looking up until suddenly, the navigation system reboots. Only... it's doing a little more than directing to the next location. As the system takes on the driving duties of Malcolm, much to the horror of his examiner, the two prepare themselves for... whatever. It's at this point the true story of "Collision" is revealed. Is the navigation system simply flawed? Or is there much more to it's unusual glitches? To find out you'll have to dig into this movie yourself. Don't worry though... it's under eight minutes - and makes great use of each and every one of them. The basics of the story are nothing terribly new. We all know some famous examples, such as Skynet from the "Terminator" series of films and television. "Thinking" computers have been a staple of science fiction for a long time. What Jonell Rowe does, is take two technologies and fuse them together... and that includes any story arches from the individual elements. It works exceptionally well in this case, since GPS tech, and self driving cars are becoming much more mainstream.
What "Collision" does, is allow us to take a peek at ourselves, through the eyes of pure logic. That logical way of thinking also trickles into what one would consider justice. Although meant to entertain, "Collision" could also be viewed as a cautionary story. For us. Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you strive to achieve. What would I have liked to see in the film? The aftermath. We never really get to see what kind of justice gets served up. I understand that an open ended film can be pretty cool... but at least leave behind a morsel. What I really liked? In a sense, the instructor did exactly what Malcolm did - including washing her hands of the entire situation. She didn't care what happened to him... right or wrong... only to herself. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but that was the message I received. At the end of the day? "Collision" doesn't really create any new movie making rules - but that's just fine. Jonell Rowe has packed a lot of punch into an eight minute film. That includes some decent acting - something low budget movies usually lack. Easily above average and worth a look. Three stars out of five. |
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