Noah Hutton’s Lapsis makes a worthy expedition up the movie mountain but slowly loses steam towards the top and gets sluggishly lost on its way to the finish line.
It starts out strong with some thoroughly engaging exposition. The characters are modern and real, especially its main character Ray. He’s nothing special, he’s older, out of shape, not the most honest, questionable career choices but he’s nowhere near scumbag territory. He’s just trying to get paid to get his little brother the help he needs for his Omnia.
The premise is freshly brilliant and sinister in nature. It introduces us to this new near futuristic industry of work known as Quantum Cabling. All you gotta do is lay a shit ton of cable to power the worlds Quantum technology as you experience the great outdoors, hiking, camping, even socializing with other fellow cablers and you can make a respectable amount of money. It would appear to be a win win for everyone involved. Its yet another brand new industry scheme and a realistic concept we can very well see exist in our own world. So when Ray quickly finds himself in this new line of work for obvious reasons, it’s very much a fish out of water scenario also for obvious reasons. With all things considered, the high rewards imply some high stakes are soon to follow.
So once we have all of our exposition essentials packed up and ready to hit the trails for some hard work and some fresh air it quickly becomes difficult for various reasons. Tagging along with Ray on his deep natural trek provides some clear struggles in his abilities to finish what he starts. Even with the reasons why these people are out in this forest in mind, it feels calming to see people living off the grid even if it’s only temporarily for monetary gain. Conflict exists biologically, other human cablers and mechanically, these little cabling robots, to nudge along made up slogans like challenging your status quo, yet the conflicts and stakes never feel like they live up to the set up.
Lapsis loses all of its momentum once Ray, despite all obstacles, mainly the natural ones, finishes the advanced routes he was illegally provided. It should feel like a satisfying accomplishment but instead it feels anticlimactic. And from here it gets completely lost in what feels like 1,000 different glossy motives, morally and monetarily, existing at once, which is believable but any clear focus is now incoherent and lost deep in the cabling forests.
Despite Lapsis falling flat on its face before crawling to its unfulfilled conclusion, it’s still a fantastic movie for that strong first half alone and more than anything the point remains, that everyone is just trying to get paid.
The Spectators' Odyssey 