Area 51
It was announced shortly after his “Paranormal Activity” became a breakout Halloween hit that Oren Peli, the writer-director of that found-footage breakthrough, was going to make his next film a found-footage thriller about Area 51, or rather, a group of people breaking into Area 51. “Paranormal Activity” was released in 2009. Does it really take six years to make a found-footage thriller? It’d almost be tempting to call Peli the new Kubrick in his methodic perfection. The only problem is, the film is quite stupid and pointless.
The film starts in a very “Blair Witch Project” sort of way, with the main characters charting their course before they get to the government facility of the title, which has sights none of them are prepared for. The problem with “Area 51” is that it takes about 40 minutes to get to Nevanda’s legendary base, which is half the film. I understand that rewrites and reshoots were involved in the long road the film made to the viewing public, but did Peli- who modulated the tension in “Activity” exceptionally well, regardless of how public opinion feels now- really think the stuff with them packing, getting further information and sneaking to get key cards was worth half of the film’s running time? With something like this, you have to get to the point of the film quickly to hold our attention, or offer something compelling on a narrative level to grab us. Peli doesn’t, instead doing something akin to a low-rent “X-Files” episode or ’50s paranoia thriller. Now, when the characters are on the base, and start to find the truly unexplainable, there are some compelling sights and moments that might offer some suspense for people. Much like “Chernobyl Diaries” (another found-footage sci-fi/horror hybrid he produced), though, the film feels like a missed opportunity to do something genuinely compelling with subject matter that is full of potential. If he has another film after this, I’d like to see Peli break away from the found-footage genre, because I think he has more than just a single gimmick to offer us. We’ll see.
