Part of me was intrigued before watching 'Check Point'. It sounded interesting with a great concept, but it did look like a not very well made, ridiculous and by the numbers film with not particularly good actors so there was a little apprehension. Saw 'Check Point' anyway out of curiosity, being intrigued by the idea and having been a lot of low-budget films recently (most not very good to put it lightly).
'Check Point' managed to be worse than expected, even with mixed expectations. It started off pretty badly, got even worse quickly and never recovered. It picks up marginally at the end, when it gets a little more eventful and wasn't as dull. Sadly that's saying little, it feels too late when that happens and the climax is badly bungled and clumsy.
On a visual level, 'Check Point' looked shoddy. Drab and simplistic, with haphazard editing, far from slick photography and very artificial-looking visuals on the whole. The scenery is one of the two least bad aspects of the film, but the low budget look of everything else in the production values makes it difficult to appreciate.
The sound is intrusive and obvious, making a waste of the other least bad aspect of the film (the music, which is a little more than the one-note, repetitive stuff it could have been) and the direction has no sense of atmosphere or pacing, nothing to be thrilled by and nothing much engaging.
Script is awkward-sounding and ponderous, with lines that do make one cringe. A lot of it is gibberish and juvenile, with a stilted improvisatory feel that shouldn't have made it past draft stages.
On top of that, the story goes through the motions with no tension, suspense or thrills, a lot of intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, implausibility and pacing so dull that it makes a reasonably short length much longer. It is very derivative and parts also felt incomplete. The action sequences are more preposterous and by the numbers than they are thrilling or fun. The terrible way they look also hinder them.
Characters are basically every stereotype in the book it seems and are one-dimensional caricatures with no likeability or development and with the inability to behave logically. The acting is very poor all round, even from those who have been in films for years and in roles they should have been perfect for.
In summary, very poor. 2/10 Bethany Cox
