Ash (2025)
A new mindbender by Flying Lotus
You may remember that last time I listed all sorts of types of movies that I was trying to choose from - well, some of them came back for me to offload the choice to another group of folks. What won tonight? Sci Fi. From the trailer I’ve got some mixed impressions of part visual feast and part low-budget claustrophobic, which kind of conflicts when you think about it. Expect that a lot here as we talk about this one, for most the taglines people are throwing out on the box art ain’t wrong for this one. Put on your space suit and expect to be confused, tonight we open the airlock for Ash.
Okay, the movie really isn’t that confusing when it comes to story. That said, we really can’t go over most of it because it ruins the mystery part. Further said, when it does spell out the mystery part to tell you exactly what is going on, it’s about as straight forward and not confusing as it gets. Anyways, the basic gist is that our lead lady wakes up in a space outpost of some sort on a distant planet with a terrible headache - and with ever-so-convenient to a mystery plot amnesia! She may not have her memories and be in a pretty spooky low-powered space building, but she does have a large stack of bodies and some very brief whiplash-inducing visions. Things get a bit more complex when the handler from the orbiting station comes in to drop some knowledge on her and try to fill in some of the gaps - like how they are one of many groups out trying to find a new Earth. Oh, but then it turns out their oxygen levels aren’t great and it gets worse when a hole pops in the station exterior. Will they figure out what’s going on? Well, I guess I can of spoiled that part by saying it gets straight forward when the movie spills things - but you don’t know how yet!
Actors outside our lead and the orbit guy don’t get a ton of time here to show off. Honestly, it’s pretty much a one lady show for most the effective run time - but when the group is together chemistry ends up playing pretty well and they all seem to do a good job. Our lead lady gives me some Beckinsale in Underworld vibes if I’m being totally honest - a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it really. I wouldn’t say the acting in the movie doesn’t come off as feeling like it probably should as far as the script goes, but until the watcher knows everything I could also see parts coming off as under-cooked at times. Kind of goes to just reinforce my learning that even if it might not seem the greatest, sometimes it’s exactly what the script or director ordered - and she does have moments where she gets to shine as well, so it’s not like all phoned in either. When it comes to it, I think it’s well enough done in the acting department, even if more time is spent in the present with a minimal crew then a real build-up in the past.
Characters I’ve pretty well spoiled talking about the actors. Most don’t get much to really go off of because they aren’t in the movie for much of anything. In turn, you get the sense of more of a “group” with the lead and her mystery or the Orbital guy being the voice of reason being the only real advanced characters in the bunch. The movie does still flesh out some things, like how someone was in a relationship and whatnot - but most the legwork in the department of humans is done through acting rather then it is through super deep and involving characters this time around. Perhaps a bit strange, given that most the time in movies where the screen time is largely just one or two folks there’s a big emphasis on trying to really push one or hard press the commentary through them, but the movie isn’t entirely absent of all of it.
Space is pretty, and terrifying. It’s pretty terrifying.
It begins to feel a bit like a spooky art house movie rather quickly. It really doesn’t take long before we step outside of our space building set and right into the planetary expanse, complete with giant floating fractals and stunning space sky boxes. On the flip side of that, at times the outdoors can look a bit gamey, as can a few of the effects in general that gave me some rather Resident Evil vibes. I wouldn’t go as far as to call any of them explicitly bad, but it’s only fair I point out that some are not good as others. It’s not all just the generated stuff that’s in here though - although in honesty I can’t tell you how they made some of the space shots, be it retro fluids, actual shots of space, or just some classic computer painting - there’s also plenty of practical elements. Yeah, it’s not that hard to tell which ones are the practical effects and which aren’t, but that’s beside the point currently. Right now, I’d like to point out the practical stuff looks great.
Costumes are always one of my top things in science fiction, because there’s such a range you can do with it. Yeah, we got a sleeveless shirt and some comfy looking pj sweats at times - but we also get space suits, uniforms, and just a general future-edges design around our structure and items. Yes, it’s probably just a rechargeable drill, but here it’s a space flamethrower/welder. Parts of the space suits carry with them a very organic vibe - which admittedly seems a bit weird when you have the before mentioned Dewalt flamethrower, but I still like the design even if it’s a bit Geiger or Lovecraftian with some of it’s components. It’s a good grounding point, and a lot of the violence side seems to be more on the practical side too. Plenty of fake blood in this one - although outside of a few things towards the end it doesn’t get too graphic (and then it gets borderline John Carpenters Thing with it’s graphic-ness).
There’s a bunch of audio here, and I like most of it. That said, I didn’t always feel like the music playing really matched the tone or what was going on in the scenes while playing, even if I did like what I was hearing. Balancing is pretty good and on point, so you’ll largely hear lines as intended regardless of what’s going on. It does hit a few jump scare “loud noise” situations a few times, and then there’s once or twice some lines that get whispered and are pretty dang quiet (like, I’m not entirely sure if the subtitles just lied to me quiet), but mostly it’s all good. There some commentary in there, and a bit of it could be on the nose and some of it could be real subtle and potentially just being too read into - but we won’t get into it because then we’d get into some of the more spoiler stuff. I will say though that cuts can get a bit much at times, and in turn the cutting style can also lead to some little goofy bits - like being in one position, doing a cut to a different position, then going back to the other position instead after another cut. It’s mostly little nitpick stuff that doesn’t matter - but when the rapid “confusion” cuts do happen I wouldn’t feel off if someone said it was a bit much, and there’s one scene towards the end with a strobing light that i was happy to see get out of that room between the light and the cutting. Color grading is also all over the place in there - not like back and forth wise but just in the amount of it. How much neon and blue grading do we get? When in one scene some normal light hits the lead ladies face, it’s almost shocking much normal color she has. You never really notice the lack of it until it pops out like that. Kind of cool though.
Gnarly looking space suit.
This movie won’t be for everyone, but it’s a pretty decent little science fiction flick. It’s got some horror and mystery, but I doubt it’s really going to go so crazy that people won’t see at least segments of what it’s doing coming. Folks looking for some pretty vistas and cool effects or props should be mostly happy here. It has enough to it I don’t think folks who watch it will really be robbed - unless they for some reason thought it was going to be far more action heavy for some reason. The trailer sells it pretty well - in a way it makes me think a bit of Underwater, just with far less cast on screen for most of it. Funny how similar space and under the ocean can be at times, isn’t it?