Eternity The Film

I went to the Wellington premiere of Eternity, at The Paramount last night.

Eternity is a New Zealand made film by local filmmaker Alex Galvin. It was filmed in New Zealand and Hong Kong. In fact one scene I recognised as being in Hobson Street opposite my apartment, and Old St Pauls and the Wellington Town Hall are also featured. Oh yes the Parliamentary Library also.

The film starts with a gripping interrogation scene and turns into a murder mystery with a twist. The police detective is in a virtual world which has been infected with a virus and has to solve the mystery before the system reboots and the day starts all over again. 

He has to work out not just who did it, but how it was done – which is much harder. He can access two virtual assistants – Helpdesk and Sherlock – but Sherlock is a once only assistance.

The film is around 90 minutes and it absolutely succeeds in grabbing you, and keeping your attention as you want to discover who dun it (my guess was wrong), why, and how.

The special effects are well done, and I loved the music. Also the personal assistant was hilarious (you’ll work out why).

My one criticism is that I didn’t find the lead character was someone you developed an emotional attachment to. You want your lead character to be someone you are rooting for, or against, and that you feel emotionally charged at what may happen to them. I never quite felt it with Detective Manning. That may be deliberate – that the focus was on solving the mystery, more than whether Manning would be reunited with his family or not.

A great little movie which would have done a modern day Agatha Christie proud.