Writer: Guy Bleyaert (Screenplay)
Starring: Guy Bleyaert, Zara Phythian, Lee Charles, Silvio Simac, Kimberly Stahl, Stefanie Joosten, John Flanders
Plot: After a virus infected France, Belgium and the Netherlands a team of resistance soldiers trying to safe a young girl who seems to be their last hope for a cure.
Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Escape from New York Meets The Last of Us
Story: Transit 17 starts when Tex (Bleyaert) and his team Eve (Phythian), Brad (Charles), Deena (Stahl) and Daniel get assigned to a rescue missing in Belgium, in a world where a virus has wiped out most of the population. The team knows the threats they will be facing, with infected hunting them down, but the mission is worth the risk, as it could lead to a cure to save the whole world from becoming completely wiped out.
Thoughts on Transit 17
Characters – Tex is leading the team on the mission, the rest of the crew will trust him to make the right decisions no matter what, he does have to make difficult decisions, but knows that this mission could change everything. Eve and Brad are both big parts of the team and feel like most soldiers we have seen in most film like this, the characters we do meet are soldiers and military people that are preparing for the operation and add in the 15-year-old they must try to save.
Performances – This is a film where the performances are not going to be seen as it strength, one of the problems here comes from nearly all the characters being portrayed as serious, which makes everybody too similar, not letting any of the actors make their character standout in anyway.
Story – The story follows a group of soldiers who go on a mission to save a teenage girl in an infected virus world that could hold the cure for the world. The story does seem to borrow from the ideas behind Escape from New York, with the team needing to rescue somebody in danger and also the game The Last of Us, which focuses on the idea one person could be immune, which would be key to the survival of the rest of the humans. While the story flows well enough, the characters just feel under developed, with them being too similar and most situation being simple action that just ends up coming off like something that doesn’t want to risk anything.
Action – The action doesn’t get to any level of intensity, which does leave us not getting excited about the bullets flying around.
Settings – The film tells us we are going through parts of Belgium, only we don’t really get to see anything other than strongholds in the survival from the infected, using now iconic locations through the film.
Scene of the Movie – Look at the bite.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We just don’t get the level of intensity we could have.
Final Thoughts – This is a simple action film that borrows from a couple of major properties, only it just doesn’t end up getting to the levels of intensity that it could have by the end of the film.
Overall: Simple Action.