Riverworld is a very interesting concept. Based on novels by Philip Jose Farmer, Riverworld revolves around a man named Matt Ellman (a television reporter). When he and ‘almost’ engaged girlfriend Jessie find themselves the victims of a terrorists’ bomb, they both make their way to a mysterious ‘riverworld’. Regretfully, Jessie and Matt are separated during the traveling process. What is even stranger is that their friends, who also died in the attack, end up in the same world, but in their younger state. Matt and crew must find out what the world is that they have ended up in and ultimately find out what happened to Jessie.
Say what you will, but this movie actually interested me. The SyFy channel has notoriously put out a lot of ‘cheap’ movies to fill programming space (alligators and such seem to be a common theme these days). Anyway, Riverworld, at least from the outside, looked to be following dgown that same path.
What the film turned out to be in reality is actually quite the opposite. First, Tahmoh Penikett is perfect as the the protagonist Matt Ellman in this film. He’s tough, he’s a good-looking guy and he leads the story pretty well. He does have a tiny bit of a problem extending his emotions when it comes to sad, but he is fine when it comes to ‘angry’. Finding the right actor to carry a film like this was a priority and I think that Stuart Gillard and crew hit a homerun.
Now, the story itself had its moments. Saying there was a world that was basically the ‘in between’ for death is interesting. Having it based out of a very beautiful forest area (looks like Canada) that provides an isolated backdrop helps with the overall disconnection between life and death; in other words, it’s a really great set up. The main story of Matt trying to find his long lost love Jessie is good, but the real beef to the movie surrounds a man named Richard Burton (Peter Wingfield) that is charged in destroying Riverworld for a group of ‘caretakers’. Matt has been charged by another group to stop Burton before it’s too late.
Had the movie stopped with the storylines and finished them up from that set up then everything would have been just fine.
Regretfully, more plot points were thrown in.
Much like Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, where the story just kept creating new plot points instead of wrapping them up, Riverworld can’t stop painting itself into a corner. For example, the Burton storyline blooms into a Burton/Jessie storyline that intermingles with Jessie’s importance in the world, which is extremely disconnected from the main story. On the side, each new character introduced in Riverworld seems to carry their own story that ties into the main story in some way; regretfully it doesn’t tie good enough to keep the story together.
Ultimately, the movie suffers from too many plot points and not enough time to wrap them all up. The filmmakers seem to force the plot points to connect; much like fitting a square peg into a round hole.
Now, call me crazy, but this looked more like a television pilot than it did a movie; doubly so when you see the ending. Had this been a television series I think it would have succeeded. There’s so much potential and such dedicated acting (including Alan Cumming) that it deserved a weekly show to tell the story properly.
Shifting gears a bit, the DVD comes with a good feature with Alan Cumming, but not enough to make up for the story mess.