#665 – The Gene Generation (2007)

The Gene Generation (2007)

Film review #665

Director: Pearry Reginald Teo

SYNOPSIS: In a dystopian future, Michelle works as assassin while trying to keep her younger brother out of trouble. When he gets into trouble with a ruthless gang, he inadvertently acquires a DNA hacker, a device that can cure any disease by rewriting the victim’s DNA. Powerful people apparently want this device, so Michelle gets dragged into he brother…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: The Gene Generation is a 2005 sci-fi film. The plot centres around assassin for hire Michelle, who tries to keep her younger Brother out of trouble as he continues to get into bigger trouble. That’s the best way I can describe this film: the details are lost amidst the continual circling of this one point. The story opens with some exposition about a device called a DNA hacker, which could cure any disease by rewriting a person’s DNA, or it would kill the user if they were not programmed for it’s use, which seems like a bit of an odd device. Anyway, for some reason, this has led to a dystopic future where everything is really dark and grim for some reason.

In this dismal world, Michelle is one of the best assassins-for-hire. She tries to keep her younger brother out of trouble, but naturally, he keeps getting into it, and inadvertently comes into possession of the last DNA hacker. Michelle is clearly meant to be a bad-ass, and she does at least get some cool fight scenes. This is clearly meant to be balanced out with the emotional scenes showing her struggle with trying to protect her brother, but the trouble is this seems wholly unbalanced: every other scene we see Michelle weeping that she is unable to protect him, and this constant interruption fails to really establish her character as the bad-ass she is supposed to be. This constant back-and-forth also fails to take the plot anywhere or build tension, as it all just seems like the same cycle of her Brother getting into trouble, and Michelle having to bail him out. There’s an overarching story of some villain wanting to use the DNA hacker to resurrect someone, but there’s so much other little stuff going on that as mentioned that it gets lost, and the other events of the film barely build up to it.

The world itself is your mid-2000’s typical experience, with everyone dressing in leather, and a dystopian world rendered with PlayStation 2-era graphics. Also, everything is dark…really dark; probably so you can’t see the CG properly. There’s very little to recommend The Gene Generation: the story goes nowhere, the characters are underdeveloped, and everything is just so dark you can barely see half the screen most of the time. There’s a few decent fight scenes, but in a post-Matrix world of people in leather beating up other people in leather, it’s just not that memorable or unique.