Radiant

If you suffer from insomnia then Radiant would be the best way to send you into a seven-year coma. The film is so preposterously overwrought and mundane that it's hard to imagine that writer/director Steve Mahone could overlook such obvious dullness.

The story has an exiled doctor, whom we never get to see, move out into the desert to create a vaccine that will cure all diseases by filling the hosts full of antibodies that can combat any infection (yes, just like that episode of Futurama). The vaccines don't work and the human guinea pigs become infected with a virus that kills within 48 hours.

Not wanting to be caught by the Government guys in masks, the group head into the desert for cover, hoping that sunshine will kill the virus. All of this is narrated by Michael, the only one of the quartet immune to the infection. And it's the most boring narration ever. They could have cast someone with an interesting voice, but instead we get someone with less vocal personality than Clive Owen.

On top of this the editor insists on fade cutting more than half the movie, giving it a weird dream-like feel and increasing the viewer's desire to go to sleep. It's no surprise that when I saw it half of the audience walked out. I was not one of them, for some reason. But I bloody well should have been.

The ending is supposed to be shocking and clever and foreboding. But it's plain and simply not. A relief yes, but not dramatic in the slightest.

The utter cheapness of this production and muffled sound that renders a lot of the dialogue unintelligible cripples what could have been an interesting sci-fi story if it had better actors, cooler locations and a sense of urgency. As it is, Radiant is a snoozefest.