Black Pearl (2008) - Post-Apocalyptic Film Review

Black Pearl is the re-release of a micro-budget epic originally released in 2008 under the title 10,000 AD: Legend of the Black Pearl. Co-directed by Raul Gasteazoro (The Protector) and Giovanni Messner, with a story written by Gasteazoro (who also co-stars), this film has a very impressive amount of ambition, but its indie budget and super serious, yet hard to follow plot makes this not so much a black pearl, more so, a diamond in the rough.

The intro states that deep in the past there was a terrible war that completely destroyed the world. Nearly all evidence of humanities past has been lost, and the surviving people have reverted to a tribal existence devoid of technology. The Plebians make up the majority of the surviving humans, roaming the land in tribes. The Huron are evolved humans, they are able to use mystical powers that allow them glimpses into the past and future, as well as the ability to channel energy as well as an advanced lifespan. Recently a third group have emerged; the deadly Sinasu, these dark robed figures are sweeping the land wiping out Plebians wherever they go, and corrupt the Hurons into joining their mission.
It is destined that one day a warrior will arise who will be fated to locate the legendary black pearl - a MacGuffin that is said to have the power to restore the world back to as it once was. Kurupi (Julian Perez) is believed to be this fated warrior, and so he sets out on a quest to find the black pearl and save the world.

First things first, I got a wonderful sense of Horizon: Zero Dawn with the way this is set in the deep future, yet features characters who have reverted to a primitive lifestyle; almost caveman like in their appearance. These future humans wear animal furs, and fight with weapons made out of animal bones, and mostly exist out in the wilds. Like Horizon also, the ruins of past civilisation are very few and far between, little more than basic ruins, and a sole rusted tank. Sure, there may not be robot dinosaurs here, but the world has a dedicated atmosphere to it, and is the most Horizon like thing I have seen outside of the game (obviously, the film came out a long time before that game did, not suggesting it was influenced, but it had story beats that did feel similar).

The biggest thing that lets Black Pearl down is its near impenetrable story. It got to a certain point during my viewing of this when I just gave up trying to understand what was going on. There were a multitude of male characters who looked almost identical, all bare chested with long flowing dreadlocks, I was only really able to separate them via the clothes they wore. My plot synopsis I included earlier was completely based off the press release I received, without it I don't think I would have actually been able to say what goes on within the eighty minute mini-epic.
The film is split neatly between scenes of talking and scenes of fighting. The former almost always just featured the two characters, speaking extremely seriously, but in a way that made them hard to understand. For the first twenty minutes or so the characters don't even speak in English. I wasn't sure if it was a made-up language or not, but at a certain point the characters start speaking normally; stating that important matters should be spoken in their ancestors language. That was a decent enough explanation, but doesn't really explain why every single character after this point decides to speak exclusively in English. It made the film a little less exhausting to watch at least.

There are plenty of high energy fight scenes here, a couple of battle scenes, but mostly singular characters fighting amongst themselves. The choreography was mostly cool, but the frantic editing style of quick shots piled on top of each other made these fights a bit difficult to follow. It doesn't help that several include two different fight scenes happening at once, meaning the constant quick cut of shots felt even more hard to follow. There are some fun special effects, mainly related to Matrix style energy channelling, and I thought the black and white surreal flashbacks to the apocalypse were very well done. The quality of the film wasn't that high, plenty of blurry looking scenes, and the early subtitles looked a little low in quality also.

I enjoyed Black Pearl, it should be lauded for its ambition, its dream-like feel, and its impressive filming locations. The film's low budget is easy to see however, and more than anything, the near nonsensical plot made it really hard to care what was happening, especially when so many of the characters looked near identical to each other. Black Pearl is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime.

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