The Gene Generation

The individuals in this movie are so depressing. The evil scientists are either horribly disfigured or old and ... dunno, evil? Even though they do less killing then the hero in this movie, you just know they are evil. The good girl is mainly good at killing. Her brother is addicted to alcohol and gambling, and is always getting his ass kicked. He is such a loser. In the end he gives in to the evil scientists and seals his fate in a fitting and rather unmemorable and sudden way. I can understand the girl wants to look after him, after all he's the only family she has but then again, she must be really determined to do that. There is also this loser scientist who is working on some weird device, for no reason at all because he doesn't have the original data. The evil scientists have those data. It just underscores to me what a loser he is, why the hell would you live in a poor apartment next to a killer girl and a drunk gambler. Oh right, I forgot, it's because it has the ability to provide a cure for all known diseases, well, so he says anyway. They live in a city that is always dark and decaying. You only see crooks and losers all the time. There is no humor in this movie. There is a fair amount of violence in the movie, but it servers the story, not the other way around. There is also a kind of love scene between the girl and the scientist. Loser - seeks - loser. Too bad he gets killed at the end of the movie, otherwise it would've been a perfect relation. The graphics are decent, although the rain is a bit exaggerated, but I suppose that was intentionally. De art is very Gothic, I like that. So it is a nice movie to watch when you're in a depressing mood - save it for one of those moments, do not watch it when you are in a happy mood because you will either miss the point of the movie, or you will lose your happy mood and that would be a shame.

Why a mixed bag? I'll try to explain. On the one hand, you have an interesting production design that manages to creatively overcome a probably limited budget (though some of the CGI is sub-par). You also have the leggy Bai Ling as the lead: delivering (English) dialogue is not her strong suit, but delivering sex appeal is, and she seems to be a natural for action roles; her (only 2) fight scenes are pretty kickass. On the other hand, the story and especially the background of this futuristic world are sketchy at best (the director himself admits that 45 minutes were cut out of his original version), and the pace is numbingly slow (as I indicated above, there are really only 2 action scenes in the whole film). You can tell that a lot of effort went into the creation of "The Gene Generation", but ultimately it's not something that I would watch again in its entirety without the use of the fast-forward button. ** out of 4.

Gene Generation is truly an oddity. It's hard to put a finger on whether its good or bad. The world created by copious use of cgi is certainly dark and has at its core a vision of humanity (possibly not even on Earth but another planet) as far in the future when society has broken down but various medical and engineering techs are still available, notoriously mostly on a black market. The cgi is dated now but is nevertheless awesomely impressive, and plenty of it, and startlingly original. For that alone this movie deserves some sort of status. The lead certainly looks impressive as well and I couldn't help but admire her costume department. The colour patches applied to her face was a really nice touch, updated three or four times throughout the film. She gives a good performance, her fight scenes being pretty good and athletic. Her brother has less charisma. Other characters are excellent actors, but are hamstrung by an overly simple story and script, which is slightly illogical. It just doesn't wash that hard bitten inhabitants of a cruel world would suddenly make basic errors, which applies to two aspects of the story, the personal and the tech. I have to give credit to attention to detail, which happens throughout, and runs concurrent with the cgi. There's blood and gore as well, alas, visually, this is not done well. The overall impression is one where it's all interesting enough to see one through to the end of the movie, and even enjoy it, but at the same time one wonders why more attention was not given to the script, plot and overall direction.

The plot: A beautiful, female assassin fights against DNA hackers, who kill people by hacking into their body. I think that Pearry Teo and I would get along really well. We seem to have the same taste in books, movies, and music. We both like dark, surreal fantasy/horror and gritty cyberpunk. His movies are filled with references to all the things that I like. The problem is that The Gene Generation is a rather shallow pastiche of gothy cyberpunk themes, with no real attempt at cohesion. While full of creative ideas, visually striking scenes, and attractive people in cool poses, it's also a jumbled mess. The pacing is just terrible, making the movie sometimes feel like it's three hours long. I love everything about The Gene Generation, except the actual movie itself. This leaves me at a loss as to how to rate the movie. With some faster pacing, less exploitation, and tighter writing, this could have been amazing. But, then again, couldn't you say that about any movie? "If only it had been better, it would have been good!" I liked Necromentia better than The Gene Generation, so I think that he's improving. As far as a debut goes, I think this isn't bad... but it's still a bit of a rough watch. In the end, I recommend The Gene Generation only to genre fans, who are more likely to forgive its faults.

honestly I didn't give this movie my full attention. I'm not even sure who are the good guys or the bad guys.it lacks continuity it feels like the editor just randomly cut scenes out of the movie. it could've been better than it was but all in all when it's 3 or 4 in the morning and you can sleep give it a watch. I may be over rating it, but I really enjoyed the Asian lady as the lead. This would be a good movie for you and some friends to watch together for a few laughs and still be enjoyable. Hmm my review is to short. As I watched this movie I had questions, like: where is she going? is that Robert David Hall? who the heck is that snake person? what's with those weird mechanical fish like blimp things?

I am guessing that I am not the target demographic for this film, but I'm not sure who would be. This movie was relentlessly bad. At first the photography/CGI of the future/alternate dystopia was notable. But then it descended into weird overkill, with huge, expensive statuary embedded in the wall of the city, with sailing ships (!) traveling overhead. It only came together for me at the end credits when it was noted that the movie had been made from a comic book. Oh. The plot, the direction, and most everything else was risible. With such bad material, it is difficult to critique acting. Bai Ling at least tried. The other actors either mailed it in, or were just overwhelmed by the putridity of the script. Make a point to miss this one.

A cheap cyberpunk thriller with very little to recommend it, THE GENE GENERATION is for all intents and purposes an amateur film. It features the ever-glamorous Bai Ling (DUMPLINGS) as a female assassin/fighter whose appearance and style is clearly indebted to characters like Milla Jovovich in the RESIDENT EVIL series. Ling goes around dispatching various goons who threaten the wellbeing of her geeky brother. There's not much more plot to it than that, although the inclusion of some goofy CGI tentacle effects was a poor choice on the part of the filmmakers because they're lamentable. As you can guess, I wasn't a huge fan of THE GENE GENERATION, which is so poorly achieved as to be difficult to watch. The whole film is far too dark which renders any action sequences rather pointless as you can't see what's meant to be going on. Ling's presence in the film is merely an excuse for her to fit into as many form-fitting and revealing costumes as is humanly possible. As for the random Faye Dunaway cameo, your guess is as good as mine...

The entire plot of the film is that someone created a lot of CGI just to make Bai Ling run around semi naked. She does look spectacular, but that isn't a reason to make a movie. At least not this kind of movie. Also Alec Newman plays a role that is supposedly important, but then he gets very little screen time. Maybe that's for the best, considering the quality of said role - Muad'dib it is not. And what the hell was Faye Dunaway doing in this film, anyway? Other than that you get just bad scripting, bad dialogue, bad editing, bad CGI, bad acting, bad everything. And worse, it wasn't even bad enough to be laughable, just pitiable. Therefore I rate it plainly "boring" and you should try to avoid it.

Generally speaking, films which are set in the future really have to be "futuristic" in some way, shape or form. "The Gene Generation" is offered as being precisely that, but in its emotional impact and effect it is more like a bad dream from the 1930s, except in color. Lots of color. The first thing the viewer encounters in this bizarre tale of family loyalty and love lost, is the grim cityscape of the anonymous city where everything happens. There's nothing shiny or bright about it. Perhaps that was an effort by the author and director to 'locate' the viewer or audience in something at least a little bit familiar. Too bad that the cityscape has approximately as much charm as East Berlin in the mid-1950s !! There's trash everywhere, stuff blows around in circles in the ( seemingly ) never-ending wind, and it's always dark. It rains. It doesn't rain. It rains. That part of the subtext of this otherwise very ambitious movie really is doubly maddening. People live in high rise apartment buildings where there's running water and plenty of electricity, and gadgets, but nobody to clear the trash from the hallways. Huh ? The street scenes are the same, with futuristic clutter and debris all over the place, except on the sidewalks where the heroine -- Bai Ling, ravishing at forty-two -- is either walking or running. Transportation in this urban desolation appears to consist only of elevators and floating-on-air 'flying Dutchmen' type sailing ships. It all looks really, really strange and inevitably that becomes a nasty impediment to the story line itself, which is actually rather good. The heroine is an anti-hero, a paid assassin with a brother who is a gambling junkie and a self-destructive idiot. Even his best friend and comrade eventually jettisons him, literally turning his back and then walking away. So, yes, there are touching moments in this otherwise ultra-violent and ultra-cynical story of ultra-modern revenge. It is hard to recommend this movie for the plot, which is so cynical, and so dark and twisted; but, it is hard not to admire the effort in art and in cinema design which went into creating this futuristic urban hell on earth. That part, or parts, are quite amazing. Is this city located on some other planet, one which merely resembles our earth ? We will most certainly never know the answer to that question. Seven out of ten mostly for the delectable and dexterous Bai Ling and also for one truly nasty, skulking-around-places gangster-type villain.

It's really a shame, that the movie does not live up to what you might expect it to be. That is generally speaking of course and I'm also talking about the general view of it, here on IMDb. I wouldn't go as far as another reviewer went on here, but to be quite honest, there are too many flaws to overlook here. Bai Ling might be the best thing here ... on second thoughts, maybe the daring approach to the visual style might be the best thing. Bai Ling is either having problems with the language or the script. Maybe both. But she never convinces in her role, which is very pivotal, especially because she is trying to give that character back-story and emotions. Which quite frankly, never works. So visually quite nice, but on every other level, really not so good. As tastes go, you never know though, but I couldn't recommend this