Rogue Cinema - The Artifact (2008)

The Artifact (2008) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Wednesday, October 01 @ Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

Ages ago, the forces of evil in the universe sent a super powerful artifact to the earth. Men have sought to posses the artifact throughout the ages, and now it's in the hands of an explorer who discovered it. The problem? They know who he is, they found him, and now they want to take it from him. Who are they? I have no idea, but it's some rich looking guy with a group of lackies, one of whom can move super fast, one who's like a strong retarded guy in headphones and two hot girls. The main bulk of the chase and the fighting takes place in a parking garage.

Now again, this film was a mixed bag for me. Why? Well, it had a great look, was extremely well shot, the acting was really good too. Especially the reaction the explorer guy had when he was shot in the leg. He really had a natural reaction when he got shot. It wasn't none of this fake, gritting your teeth and grunting crap. He really acted like he just got shot, which was great.

The film has a phenomenal look too. The camera work was great and between that and the editing, really accentuated the action in the film. The music as well was extremely well done and well suited to the content of the film. It all added up to a very polished and professional looking short film.

However, that all said, the script could have used some work. I don't care how awesome a film looks. If it doesn't have a solid script behind it, then things just won't entirely work, if at all. In this case, there were a lot of things lacking in the script that really needed to be worked out before the film went into production.

First, this stone of ultimate power, this artifact that everyone wants to possess doesn't seem to do a damn thing. All it seems to be good for is to be used as a weapon to crack people in the head with. Other than that, it's just like any other rock, so I'm not sure why everyone's after it. There are rocks out in my yard next to the dog poo that would be just as useful. Hell, some of them might even be fossilized dog poo. I better look really hard before I pick any of them up.

Second, there's some story with the explorer's daughter that's referenced but never explained.

Third, there's a girl at the end who also wants the stone and she kills the guy who was chasing the explorer, but then she stabs her sword into the roof where they were and there's this really bright flash of light and suddenly it changes to a different scene entirely where she drives up next to some guy, (oddly enough I couldn't even tell if it was the same guy) and she has the stone. He gets in the car and they drive away. What the hell??? The ending made no sense at all.

That's not even mentioning the fact that who these people are that want the stone is never explained even though they have strange names.

What we end up with is a technically solid and great looking film with great action that is totally lacking in a solid script. If things had been tightened up and filled in in the script, this film would have been just awesome. As it is, it's a really cool looking film that's still definitely worth watching, though it will probably leave you scratching your head in confusion at the end.

There isn't a website for this film (that I know of anyway), and while there was a MySpace page listed for it, there's nothing on that either. If I find any website or other info for this film, I'll edit the review and post it here.