Syndicated Review – Ben Wheatley’s twisty sci-fi brings small-budget magic to big questions | film

HeyOn a modest budget, director Ben Wheatley gives us a good old-fashioned sci-fi with plenty of naïve paranoia, questioning of reality and the prevalence of the multiverse, and features re-recorded comic book dialogue, giving the whole thing a sheen of dream-like realism. There are also a lot of weird special effects that work with Airfix models.

Bulk is a film indebted to a mountain of pop culture references listed in Wheatley’s handwriting in capital letters over the closing credits. Space: 1999 is one of those films – it’s good to see it there, and to see it reflected in the previous film – and with the monochromatic cinematography, Dutch angles and looming close-ups, there’s a little bit of John Frankenheimer and a little bit of Chris Beatty. The film is largely self-indulgent, often funny, and is saved from overlonging by its stars, those very likable actors Alexandra Maria Lara and Sam Riley, a real-life couple.

Reilly plays a tough-as-nails investigative journalist who is drugged and kidnapped by a snarling henchman (Noah Taylor) and brought to a house in suburban Sussex, which appears to be the childhood home of the reclusive billionaire (Mark Monero) about whom Reilly is supposed to be writing an article. He is one of the few who invented the “brain collider,” the Large Hadron Collider no larger than a person’s front room that is used to investigate the universal mysteries of consciousness.

The house is a portal to the great galaxies that lie beyond or possibly the infinite interior of the mind, through which Reilly’s correspondent will of course stumble. He connects with an elegant and attractive woman (Lara) who may be his friend, his guide through 3D cosmic madness, or his most dangerous enemy. You’ll have to make friends with this film’s fun and liveliness and tolerate its sometimes grueling quality, and Lara’s deadpan sarcasm is always watchable.