A New World Order a.k.a. A Living Dog now graces our screens after doing the festival rounds in 2019. A Sci Fi thriller from director Daniel Raboldt in his feature debut, makes a play for the A Quiet Place / Birdbox arena of films entirely devoid of dialogue.
The war between mankind and intelligent machines has begun – and the machines are winning. Tomasz is a deserter who tries to hide as far away from the battle as possible. In the vast emptiness of northern Scandinavia he meets Lilja, the last survivor of a resistance group, who is determined to fight the superior machines. With every minute that passes the machines get closer, searching for the last remains of the human race. And the enemy doesn’t just shoot on sight – their perfect sensors are programmed to recognize human voice patterns. So if you speak or even whisper – you die.
Think A Quiet Place meets War of the Worlds and you perfectly sum up A New World Order. The two main protagonists in Stefan Ebel and Siri Nase have a lot to shoulder in A New World Order, having to emote throughout, other than an occasional guttural cry or grunts or sighs, sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, overall despite the basic CGi, Raboldt just about carries it off.
There are far worse AQP genre movies out there and A New World Order is one of the better entries. However, with no real storytelling, it’s hard to piece whats going on in the first 20 minutes or so. The Aliens when they finally appear are a throwback to Tripods (A failed BBC TV series that never finished the story before it got cancelled). Then it’s mostly running and hiding while trying to communicate with each other.
Muddled but watchable, if you a fan of the silent dystopian sci fi’s then A New World Order is definitely worth a look.
A New World Order is on DVD and digital 23 August 2021 from Reel 2 Reel Films.
