Now streaming on Netflix is the Brazilian sci-fi thriller, Bionic (aka Biônicos). Directed by Afonso Poyart, the movie stars Jéssica Córes and tells the story of a young sportswoman who is willing to go to great lengths to achieve her goals.
In the movie, the year is 2035 and Gabi Santos is a successful para-athlete in the I Pan-American Bionic Games. Using bionic enhancements she competes at an incredible level, and along with her peers she has helped change the face of the sporting industry.
Gabi is so successful she has become the envy of her sister, Maria – an able-bodied sportswoman, who is struggling to get a footing in the industry. Since the advent of prosthetic enhancements, bionic sport stars are all the rage, and this is having a significant impact on Maria’s ability to compete.
But one night, Maria’s life is turned upside down when she is involved in a traffic accident. As a result of the accident, Maria’s leg is
amputated and it’s not long before she is given a bionic replacement which puts her on par with her sister.
However, Maria’s new prosthetic limb comes at a price. Before long she is caught up in a murky world of criminal activity, which is far from the dream she envisioned.
*Yawn*
Fairly dull, and executed with no real flare, Bionic is a bland sci-fi movie which you may wish to avoid on Netflix. If you’re not bored within the first ten minutes, you certainly will be by the mid-point, and there’s a very good chance you may lose the will to live too.
Bionic is slow, uneventful, and way too long for its own good. It never really goes anywhere, all of the characters are bland, and the athletic action sequences look like an advert for antiperspirant.
If you do make it to the end of the film you won’t feel like you achieved anything and you may even feel mildly annoyed. With countless things to watch on Netflix, streaming Bionic seems like a complete waste of your time, and it probably is.
After the initial set-up, which introduces a potential rivalry between the two athletic sisters, Bionicstruggles to do anything of any real interest. The film slips into the doldrums pretty quickly, as it becomes a low-rent futuristic crime thriller, and it remains here for the rest of the running time with no improvement.
I genuinely believe there could have been a good film in here, had this whole thing been rewritten, recast, given a bigger budget, and re-shot. What I’m essentially trying to say is, if this was a completely different movie I might be on board.
Is Bionic the worst film in the world? No, but it is boring and generic.
At best, Bionic is watchable but derivative, while at worst it is sleep-inducing. If you’re an insomniac you may wish to give it a whirl, as for everyone else, don’t bother.
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