Since Hitchcock popularized with ‘La soga’ the movies recorded in a single shot (with tricks), the cinema has been carried away by the charm of sequence shots from start to finish, with great results in small wonders in which it provides narrative such as ‘Hierve’, ‘Beyond the two infinite minutes’ or ‘ Utoya July 22’. Sadly, in ‘Carter’ it is more of a distraction and a failed attempt by its directorByung-gil Jung, for showing that he is capable of filming something that the film does not ask for and for which he is not qualified.
Hardcore Carter
Borrowing the narrative from the video game It’s not something that only ‘Carter’ has thought of: without going any further, ‘Predator: Prey’ is practically an adaptation of ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ or ‘Tomb Raider’. However, with whom it has more in common is with a 2015 film directed by Ilya Naishuller, the creator of ‘Nobody’: ‘Hardcore Henry’, absolute madness in first person which only needed to be able to press the buttons on the remote.
Nevertheless, ‘Carter’ fails where that was rightwho was aware of three things: the joke could not last long without becoming repetitive, the plot had to be a simple excuse and the camera had to move just enough and necessary. The South Korean film ignores the teachings of ‘Hardcore Henry’: it lasts two and a quarter hours, it is overwhelmed by the ambition of the plot and the camera seems to be the heir to Olla Loca de la Feria.
to Netflix movie he has plenty to try to be epic at all costs and show the value of his director at all times and focus on the type of movie being told. Its imitation of the video game even leads to tracing the loading screens: absurdly long scenes in which the action of the film becomes a third division CGI that joins the real scenes and maintains the illusion of the sequence shot until the viewer no longer can more. Among the continuous wobble of the camera, the drone shots and the intermediate ones, it is likely that you will arrive at the end physically tired. ‘Carter’ is a movie marathon that demands more from you than it is willing to give you.
the impossible plot
‘Carter’ is not satisfied with being an action movie in a single plane full of impossible scenes and choreographed movements taken from a normal video game, no: in addition, insists that the plot be full of twists, secret identities and impossible surprises that end up bothering more than clarifying. Frankly? A simple chase would have been more honest with itself than his post-pandemic argument full of bell turns that, from the second, become routine.
The same goes for the action scenes: unlike, say, ‘Mission Impossible’, aesthetic unreality -regardless of the reality of the acrobatic numbers- remains. His own identity is based on the constant dizziness surrounding each of the planes, without letting the action focus for a moment. It is, so to speak, like the tremor of ‘The Bourne Legend’ multiplied by fifteen.
‘Carter’ is a film in which it is difficult to stay in the middle: either you love his crazy and impossible proposal for his own style with all that that entails, or you can’t stand it. Personally, I find the film very enjoyable until it gets out of hand: the fight in the bathrooms, the chase through the city and the mess with the double identities feel unique and do not break the fictional pact with the public. After, you have to do a conscious exercise to continue in the movieas overwhelming as boring.
bored with so much shooting
All kinds of crazy things are happening on screen: a train, three helicopters, fights several meters high, various choreographies… And you, as a spectator who has spent two hours of action without respite (rather than to clarify an impossible argument) you just want the end to come. ‘Sump’ is much more exciting on paper than on screenand its excess ends up being counterproductive, something that added to its own norm of the continuous sequence shot ends up producing more dizziness and headache than visual pleasure.
In ‘The Rope’, by the media of the time, Hitchcock had to cut by approaching someone’s jacket to change gear and get out of it. Years have passed, but the false sequence shots, despite being updated, are even more falsified. In the case of ‘Carter’, the CGI used to go from one sequence to another falls in moments of genuine embarrassment, as if someone was missing from the team who said “Hey, we’re going to give it a spin because we don’t have the budget to do it as we have it in our head”. The idea of the single plane weighs down a film with better intentions than finishing.
‘Carter’ wants to break the mold, but ends up being a headache only suitable for the most avid viewers of new cinematographic experiences. In the end, the rhythm and tone of the video game was better carried out in ‘Hardcore Henry’ (which, moreover, did not change points of view like the Korean film does) and the plot does not justify the two and a quarter hours of film, no matter how spectacular you want to be. He tries, yes, but that’s not enough to measure up.