Auxilsun
is a typical green tech firm. They talk a good game, but they are suspiciously
secretive about their operations. Now that the vast majority of the world is
powered by their fission reclamation plants, hardly anyone is willing to
challenge them. However, a rookie engineer will stumble upon some awkward truth
when she is sent to repair a remote desert station in Dagen Merrill’s Atomica (trailer here), which opens
tomorrow in New York.
When
three nuclear reactors simultaneously melted down during the backstory, it
nearly destroyed the Earth. Fortunately, Auxilsun saved the day by developing
clean and green power stations built to surround older unsafe plants, like bell
jars that would be fueled by their radioactive contamination. Of course, there
is a double fail safe built into Auxilsun power stations, so no need to worry.
When the remote Gibson Desert North facility loses communications, Abby is
dispatched to make repairs. Initially, she assumes it will be routine mission, just
like the Marines in Aliens.
Unfortunately,
Dixon starts getting bad vibes as soon as she meets the squirrely maintenance
technician, Robinson Scott (hmm, are screenwriters Kevin Burke, Federico
Fernandez-Armesto, and Adam Gyngell I Spy
fans?). Apparently, the station supervisor, Dr. Zek just up and left a few
days ago, which is a really bad idea, given the overpowering radioactivity of
the surrounding desert. Yet Scott does not seem particularly worried about him,
or anything else for that matter.
Atomica is the second
theatrical release from Syfy Films, but it is disappointingly more in keeping
with their grind-em-out network originals than the surprisingly challenging and
moody 400 Days. Let’s put it this
way, Tom Sizemore appears in Atomica as
the missing Dr. Zek, which rather lowers expectations, doesn’t it?
On
the other hand, Sarah Habel’s Dixon is smarter and more proactive than your
standard issue naïve protag and the hulking Gibson Desert station is strikingly
cinematic, in a grungy dystopian kind of way. Still, Dominic Monaghan is way
too over-the-top jittery as Robinson. Any rational company employee would have
tazered him in under twenty minutes.
