After three adventurous teenagers decide to explore the origin of mysterious lights appearing above Phoenix, Arizona, they vanish without a trace. Twenty years later, unseen footage from that night surfaces, that chronicles the final hours of their fateful expedition.
Despite
all the negative reviews, I decided to see this film purely out of curiosity. The
theater was empty except for my own presence, but I am still not convinced that
was due to the film’s reviews.
Rather, I attribute that to the disbelief
surrounding UFO’s, which may have smothered interest.
That
said, I rather enjoyed it. There is no comparison intended or otherwise to the “Blair
Witch Project” and its sequel, nor was it as compelling as “Cloverfield”. That’s what makes a documentary a
documentary. “Phoenix Forgotten” is character and event based, purely under the
control of the camera operator. To that end, it accomplished what it was supposed
to.
Florence
Hartigan (2013’s “Bro-Dependent” mini-series) is Sophie, the sister of Josh
played by Luke-Spencer Roberts, from last year’s “ The Good Neighbor” and one
of the three missing persons. The other two are Ashley played by Chelsea Lopez
(2017’s “Novitiate”) and Justin Matthews (2016’s “The Interestings”) as Mark.
Sophie’s
search, I felt, was as well chronicled as it was convincing. The other characters
however were initially weak at times, but in all fairness after much reflection,
I began to question how I would react to what they were experiencing. Therefore,
accolades go to Director Justin Barber, who is no stranger to video
documentaries; having numerous credits that include producer for 2008’s “Medicine
for the Melancholy” and providing graphics in several “Star Trek” short
documentaries. He also served as one of the writers for this film, teaming up
with T.S. Nowlin, who wrote the screenplay for 2015’s “Maze Runner: The Scorch
Trials”.
The
plot delivered a sense of mystery that only this kind of subject matter can deliver.
It obviously wasn’t produced for the action-packed factor, like other Ridley
Scott productions, i.e. “Martians” and “300”. Again, this is not a bad thing.
In
summary my guess is this film will be as forgotten as “Phoenix” was, only
sooner rather than later. And that is too bad, because in the long run it was
interesting, fast moving and with a short run time which I feel most other
films should have been, that were a lot less well received.
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