“Red Faction: Origins” is a “pilot” series of science fiction series based on the computer games franchise of the same name, filmed in 2011 by director Michael Nanjing (“FlashForward”, “Star Cruiser Galaxy”, “S.S.I.”)
The original Red Faction game is a first-person shooter released by Volition, Inc. and THQ, which tells about the uprising of Martian miners and is known for its “completely destructible environment” – that is, you can make breaks in walls, dig endless tunnels and destroy just anything that comes your way.
The film takes place 25 years after the revolution described in the games. At the end of the 21st century, Mars has rid itself of the protectorate of the Earth Defense Forces and is in a state of sluggish civil war. The terraforming continues – it is already possible to breathe the local air, but it is a long way from apple trees and general prosperity, to put it mildly. On the boundaries of the Terraformers’ actions, mysterious and destructive anomalies are found. Martian civilization is a disparate, powdered with snow mining towns with eloquent names like Heinlein or Asimov, inhabited mainly by gloomy military and unshaven workmen in sweaters and troughs.
The protagonist is a young security officer from the village of Eos (Brian Smith, Vault 13, Law and Order), which is under the rule of the revolutionary Red Faction, goes in search of his sister (Tamzin Merchant), with whom he was separated as a child. His mother died at the hands of a sinister man in a white mask (Tamer Hassan, Layer Pie, Football Factory). His father (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2, The X-files, Lost) is a war hero and a living icon. The red faction, engaged mainly in that pours longing for his wife with his daughter with alcohol and fights in bars.
In parallel, the young man is engaged in a private investigation of the circumstances of the theft of “earthly” technologies from the skeleton of the Hydra dreadnought, knocked down during the revolution, twenty-five years in orbit, and recently collapsed on no-man’s land near the Bradbury crankcase, contested by the “Red Faction” and the “looters” faction, whose mentality is quite medieval, and they are controlled by a spectacular blonde Matriarch (Kate Vernon). In the case involved unknown military in white uniforms and masks, that is, dressed exactly like the kidnappers of the sister — then, twelve years ago.
Help the hero in the investigation random partner – annoying and adventurous scientist from Earth, a computer hacking specialist (Daniel Nicolet), and a couple dressed in picturesque rags wanderers “looters”, accidentally met on the way. A delicate uncle with a staff and his red-haired nephew, both highly skilled in martial arts. These at first tried to kill the hero, but then nothing, like, became friends.
Screening of cult computer games is usually ungrateful. Unless, of course, we are talking about the king of thrash Uwe Ball, rarely when directors who have decided to work in this field have real cinematic luck. The one-and-a-half-hour “pilot” series of the “Red Faction” is not called a genre breakthrough, but although it does not catch on the level of the first series of intuitive genius, for example, “Firefly”, but there is no didactic drowsiness “Terra Nova” that scared off from the first frames. The mood of its cinemagenic source, originally conceived by game designers in the spirit of such an interactive version of “Remember everything”, it successfully withstands, the pace does not lose. Hangover but no less heroic Robert Patrick, Martian dust on canned glasses and worn-out balconies, mysterious and mad enemies, thermobolic rockets, heroic soundtrack, a healthy share of pathos, hand-to-hand combat and giant dreadnoughts! The announced series, if it ever decides to launch, could well decorate the collections of the most picky fans of serial TV fiction.