‘Restore Point’ Review: Impressively Slick Czech Sci-Fi Thriller Is Ready For the Big Time
You have to admire the moxie of authors and filmmakers who set their science-fiction spectaculars in the very near future, essentially confronting viewers with what may seem a pretty outlandish forecast for their own lives. Those that pull it off present us with possibilities resonant enough to ponder, even when they’re too far-fetched to actively fear: So it proves in “Restore Point,” a sharp, high-shine sci-fi outing from the Czech Republic, in which earthly life after death is routine, a cellular rather than spiritual matter.
Set in an unspecified (though Czech-speaking) central Europe in the year 2041, director Robert Hloz’s whopper of a calling-card debut may offer a more credibly subdued, budget-constrained visual of the mid-21st century than the lavishly built “Blade Runner 2049” — unless we’re in for a drastic design (r)evolution over the course of the 2040s — but its ideas are sky-high in concept. Marrying glossy mainstream genre aesthetics to probing, elaborately conceived speculative storytelling, this is a notably ambitious and auspiciously well-realized first feature for Hloz: the kind that appears to be flaunting his capabilities for even bigger international and Hollywood assignments.
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It could well net them, too, if “Restore Point” breaks out beyond Czech borders. The signs so far are good. U.S.-based outfit XYZ Films will release the film Stateside, and has further closed deals in Australia, New Zealand and multiple European territories; following its home premiere in Karlovy Vary’s Special Screenings section, it will make its North American debut at the genre-specific Fantasia fest. An English-language remake is not at all hard to imagine, though as it is, the material doesn’t stand much to gain from more expensive treatment.
In brisk expository brushstrokes, Hloz and co-writers Tomislav Čečka and Zdeněk Jecelín lay the scene: Rising economic equality has led to a huge spike in violent crime, with the average citizen’s likelihood of being murdered such that authorities have declared a constitutional right to be revived in the event of an unnatural death. Enter Restore Point: a technology that can, in the manner of a video game, back up and reboot human life to its last saved point, thanks to cellular regeneration. (The script is adept in the kind of movie science that makes enough sense in the moment, even if it doesn’t bear close scrutiny.)
It’s a utopian idea for a grimily dystopian world, though not everyone has embraced it: Among the holdouts is a rebel band of activists branding themselves the River of Life, who resort to terrorist acts to state their ethical opposition to scientists playing god. When David Kurlstat (Matěj Hádek), the head researcher at the pioneering Restoration Institute, and his wife turn up murdered, all signs point to the protestors: More surprising is that neither has a valid backup point to enable their revival.
Tough police agent Em Trochinowska (a terse, purposeful Andrea Mohylová, cast from similar steel to Noomi Rapace) is assigned to the case, which proves not quite so cut and dried. Restoration Institute CEO Rohan (Karel Dobrý) is oddly uncooperative, while Em’s investigation is continually obstructed by aggressive Europol agents: David, resurrected via some roundabout plotting, is along for the ride. The ensuing tangle of conspiracy upon conspiracy is convoluted but never uninvolving, given heft and interest by knotty considerations of the political, economic and environmental factors defining this chaotic future — where, with death now off the table, taxes are the last certainty left.
This makes for a talkier enterprise than a U.S. studio version of the premise would likely be, but not dully so — “Restore Point” never feels stymied by its budget (not inconsiderable by Czech production standards, but frugal relative to many of the film’s genre touchpoints), instead taking equal interest in the verbal and visual expansion of its ideas. (Aurally the film is less exciting, with a conventionally pile-driving score supplemented by Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” as an overly recurring motif.) Hloz can certainly mount a tight, pulsating action setpiece when he wants to, but the film, coming in efficiently under two hours, isn’t crammed with unnecessary chases or surplus gunfire, keeping its powder dry ahead of a twisty, fighty finale.
It’s on the design and effects front that “Restore Point” is most effective and resourceful, digitally embellishing existing brutalist architecture with holographic intrusions and scrolling information-burst screens to build a world in an advanced state of progress and decay. Outside the city, glassy, hard-edged solar farms stand in for countryside, as far as the eye can see; gnarled, sprawling factories fill the remaining space, silhouetted behind their own smog. Hloz’s smart, far-reaching debut answers many of its questions, but leaves audiences to consider one for themselves: If this is the future awaiting us, do we really want to live in it twice?
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