ArpitGarg's Weblog

With great expectations, I sat to watch the sequel to 2007 movie, ‘The Man from Earth’. Popcorn and all arranged. The original movie has gone on to attain a cult status. A story of a man who is 14000 years old, who was Jesus, hung out with Buddha and what not. Story told in a fairly scientific manner with proper research. I had many expectations with the sequel.

However, I found the Holocene underwhelming to say the least. First of all, it didn’t add anything to the story. Seemed more like a filler. I understand low budget and all, but the story was missing. Even the first movie was made on 200k budget, but had a solid plot.
Holocene is built upon nothing. 4 students at Johns new college find out his true identity and then he slips away. Writers tried to add a bit of religious discussion to it, but nothing substantial. I so wish they would have left the movie alone and never created this sequel or whatever it was.

Post credit message suggested they want to take it forward as a TV series. But that is no justification to leave the only new plot mystery unexplained. Not only Oldman’s starting to age destroys the soul of the first movie, but not explaining the reasons behind was pure cheating.

If the idea was to explain it in next movie or TV series, it should have been introduced towards the end. You cannot open with him starting to age and then leave it a mystery after 90 mins.

Much as I admire the first movie, I have no feeling towards the sequel. I don’t love it, I don’t hate it. I love the character of John Oldman so much, I would have liked even a fan service movie. But this was not even that. This seemed to be a 90 mins long snooze fest which served God knows what purpose.