When a film opens with like five production company animations, you know they are grasping at straws to pull something together. Doors is no exception.
Split into three segments, the film lets us into a ‘situation’ of alien design. People report an alien presence on Earth in the form of ‘doors’ that appear all around the globe. The visual effect to create this alien threshold is a rather humdrum-looking black ferrofluid. The audio for this alien experience reminds me of another much better film Arrival. These elements carry through each of the three segments.
Segment 1 – “Lockdown”
The first segment shows narrative construction that signals we won’t be seeing any incredible visuals. We are locked in a detention room for four misfits and given the impression that something is happening in the wider world. The script doesn’t need to do any heavy lifting here because the situation is all too familiar to anyone, vis-à-vis The Breakfast Club. One humorous moment had all four students crowded around a clock radio/tape player from the 90s. What may have been an interesting takeoff point was cut short by the segment’s end.
Segment 2 – “Knockers”
Josh Peck gives a weak performance in this some-kind-of love-interest segment that attempts to pull us in so we actually care about two (possibly three?) characters. We learn a bit more about our mysterious alien ‘doors’, but the rigid script that tries too hard to be edgy comes off as forced and ultimately fudges out an uninteresting terror that never materializes. Lina Esco‘s Becky tried to get us excited about her alien landscape exploration aid, “phaser,” which is just a single-stack magazine handgun.
Segment 3 – “Lamaj”
Finally, an exposition-heavy narrative tries (belatedly) to bring us up to speed on what it is that we’re supposed to be fearing in this film. Hamfisted writing reveals the lackluster nature of this threat. The lines are delivered with effort, so that’s admirable. I think there is some unintended humor here, but let’s not dish out the compliments so liberally. The feeble stab at underlining a mythos is late-breaking news and doesn’t flesh out why exactly we should care. It’s not lost on me that the writers really tried to work in some Star Trek references across the entire film. Tried.
The film’s goofiness is just too much.
