Lucifer (2007)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Ray Griggs

Writers:

Ray Griggs (writer)
David S. Ward (writer)

Genre:

Short | Adventure

Plot:

This is the story of the fall of Lucifer, whose pride would divide the heavenly host into two warring...

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Jason Lewis	...	Lucifer
Bru Muller	...	Michael

Runtime:

USA:8 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.44 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

RG Entertainment

Stiff acting, Terrible visuals

I understand a lot of people's attraction to the story of Lucifer before the fall and after, there is something interesting in seeing good being corrupted and exactly how it transpired. This short film, however, is a terrible depiction of what a movie like that would be if done wrong.

The director relies heavily on visual effects, which are sub-par even for 2006~2007. The choice of shots for battle scenes are horrendous, in which the long shots completely expose how rag doll-like and stiff the computer animation is. A scene of the actors running across and digitally rendered landscape is almost laughable because the physics are reminiscent of a flash animation. The entire movie has so many filters throw over it to hide the seams in the CG that it's difficult to watch. Visually, nothing is stunning, considering the movie is done in brown, brown and more brown. The actors themselves are constantly surrounded by a glow of some sort, which if the rest of the CG was done right, could pass for some kind of holy light. But with the rest of the film as is, one can only assume that they were too lazy to blend the background with the actual actors. No real vegetation is show after the first one or two scenes (perhaps it's too difficult for the animation team to work around), and the backgrounds consist of rocky surfaces and a gray sky.

Personally I don't believe either actor is terrible in their own right, but the script of this short film was so dead that it's difficult to imagine what it would've been like for the two to do this in front of a camera. There looks to be no direction other than "look proud" to the Lucifer with long shining hair (a mistake from the CG department, it looks like) and "be a little jealous" for Michael. I sincerely hope that before making the full length film (it seems the idea has been abandoned at this point), the director will take a serious and sobering look at what he has done, hire a better CG team, redesign the characters, and rework the script.