From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a quick spoiler free film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Anna to the Infinite Power released in 1983.
Starring:
Dina Merrill, Martha Byrne, Mark Patton
Directed by:
Robert Wiemer
Genre:
Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
Not Rated
Budget:
N/A
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
6.6
The Synopsis is:
A troubled 12 year old girl by the name of Anna Hart discovers that she is part of a secret cloning experiment.
The story is from a novel written by Mildred Ames and director Robert Wiemer adapted it for the Blue Marble Company.
The story is compelling right away as we have the setup of a mysterious woman moving in across the street from Anna Hart’s house and then inspecting a file of various other look-a-like children with the first name, Anna.
The suspense and intrigue starts of very well and has some really fascinating surprises threading through the film, but many moments in the film dragged and really takes it time to get to the juicy parts.
Nearly everyone Anna Hart trusts is involved in the cover up about the experiment except her brother Rowan and her father.
Albacore is the evil corporation in this film that wants to replicate a woman by the name of Anna Zimmerman who lived from 1931 to 1957. She was a physicist close to creating a food replicator that could end world hunger just before she died in a fire in her laboratory.
Dr. Henry Jelliff who runs Albacore is really the only true villain character that we only really get to experience at about the end of the film and displays a complete disregard for human life as he acts as its creator and destroyer. From his reasoning, the noble mission to end hunger is worth unscrupulous killing for.
Albacore cloned Anna Hart and many more girls since 1958 to recreate Zimmerman’s brilliance and build the machine, but the experiment keeps going wrong. It’s all very fascinating.
For Anna Hart, all is fine until the new neighbor, Michaela Dupont who is a music aficionado begins to play a song, Reverie, that stirs up Anna Hart’s memories from Zimmerman’s real past of being in a Nazi concentration camp and a psychic link with one of the other clones.
Anna Hart is probably one of the most unlikable characters, so much so that even her brother and her father are relieved when they discover that she is not really related to them.
She’s arrogant, lies, and steals anything she can get her hands on, even if she doesn’t need it. Her mother, who knows about the experiment, has been filling Hart with so many lofty ideas of being destined to be an important scientist and praises her constantly for being a gifted student. So in many ways she’s raised a spoiled brat who has no regard for others.
After convincing her brother Rowan that something strange is happening, he decides to help her along the way. At first Rowan only helps out of a curiosity but then grows to love her as she begins to blossom into a kinder person during puberty. It's actually a lovely transformation.
The film is shot well, but not with any cinematic style save for a few moments of riveting suspense. All other in camera tricks or effects are relegated to a very basic level. It's still very enjoyable, but undeniably shot for Television.
However, the one area the film outdoes itself is in the music scored by Paul Baillargeon, who also makes and appearance in the film as Rowan’s music teacher.
The film's main piano piece, "Anna's Reverie" was particularly outstanding, lending the film a more haunting and ominous feel.
Another outstanding feature of the film is the wonderful performance given by Martha Byrne as Anna Hart carrying the film. There is something so very engaging about her performance, using her eyes and body language to really sell the story.
Equally fantastic was Mark Patton who played Rowan with an earnest sensibility. I enjoyed seeing these two actors work together.
Unfortunately many of the other performances in the film weren’t as compelling and I feel very strongly that part of it had to do with the dialogue and the staging of the scenes.
I wasn’t crazy about all of the dialogue. It has a very small screen feel to it. However, I must say that I really enjoyed the flow of how the film slowly uncovered of all of the details Anna Hart unveils to seize her true identity. It was truly brilliant.
Just when you think that the Hart family is in the clear and the story is over… we get a whopping last 5 minutes of a totally “what the flip” scene.
It’s shocking, it’s fascinating, but it's hard to call it an ending.
It lacks is a sense of completion. It’s unfinished and it does raise a lot of exciting questions. It’s a shame that the filmmakers missed opportunity to franchise this property that an audience would have loved. I just wish the ending was more satisfying.
It's not like there is a second movie or a series to satisfy the itch so it has a feeling of underwhelm to it as well as the viewer may yearn to see the film again to get more out of it.
Although I love the idea of cloning, some of the other ideas in this story are far fetched, like the ability to replicate food is more complicated than trying to replicate human beings? It might have been more of an impact if the reason for Zimmerman to be brought back was to cure a disease of some sort instead.
The film premiered on HBO and later went to home video, but I didn’t even know that this movie existed until about a week ago. The cover really intrigued me and so I gave it a try.
I was pleasantly surprised, enjoying it right away because I absolutely love this kind of science fiction idea that entwines real world probabilities. Though its slow paced, it really has a beautiful gritty feel to it with amazing music, fantastic suspense, and heart as our protagonists last name Hart indicates.
It’s definitely worth checking out for the oddity of saying you saw it.
My Rating:
7.6
That sums up my quick spoiler free review. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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