The Un-Gone ★★★☆☆

Review of 'The Un-Gone' which can be found here on Short of the Week.

Length: 08:25

Written & directed by Simon Bovey

Genre: Sci-Fi

Date: 2006

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Logline: A futuristic transporter accident leaves a traveller with a doppelganger and a one way ticket to annihilation.

For a short film, this is very dialogue heavy. Mostly due to the sci-fi exposition that’s needed to bring us up to speed with the storyline. Basically a guy goes through a transporter but a malfunction occurs leaving two versions of himself. That’s pretty much against company policy so one of the copies has to be killed. Not really the sort of news you want to hear when you were hoping to happily emigrate to a new town with your wife.

The dialogue is kept direct and to the point so as not to confuse audiences any further than necessary. All of the performances share a similar forced rigidity to them. Stephen Billington plays Julian, Linette Beumont as his wife Maya and Damien Thomas as Kaikora, the guy that's going to sort the problem.Each of their performances adds to the slight coldness and creepiness ithe film has but at the same time kind of lessens the emotional impact of the life and death conflict that is going on.

Simple set design has been used to create the futuristic setting. It’s pretty bland but that helps with the timeless aspect of the look. Costume is always difficult when depicting the future, this film sticks to unobtrusive classic clothing, the staple polo neck sweater with a minor sore thumb being the homemade Star Trek number that the transporter stewardess is wearing.

A subtle soundtrack plays in the background then gets a bit more punchy when the action sequence comes along. Listen out for the X-files-ey music which accompanies the end credits and enormous crew list which is worth persevering with due to the simple stinger presented at the end.

Best Bit: Giant polo transporter machine.

Worst Bit: Poor chemistry between husband and wife.

Final thought: Looks like emigration security is about as lax in the future as it is today.

Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.