Agent Revelation (2021) Film Review
It’s natural to have the drive to tell stories. Some are better than others, but I like to think there’s a story to be told in each of us. Even if it means telling how you brushed your teeth today, you can add a pinch of emotion to it. There lies a story.
And every story begins with an idea. That spark of your imagination that comes around when you’re sleeping, jogging, or taking a shower.
I feel curious about how Derek Ting came up with his concept for his trilogy. It’s far from simple and its depth could be fascinating. He realized part of it years ago when he made a smaller movie called Agent Intelligence. In that first entry, a group of friends unleashed something they couldn’t understand.
Now, Ting’s vision gets enhanced. With a sequel that doesn’t work as a sequel, he continues to tell the story he thought of at some point and stays faithful to his drive. He doesn’t do a magnificent job out of it, but at least he makes us look. Sometimes that’s what it takes.
In Agent Revelation Jim Yung (Ting himself) has been exposed to a strange dust. That dust gives him the ability to communicate with alien beings. And it also makes him a super soldier. However, he doesn’t understand very well what’s going on with him.
Yung is part of an experiment led by a corporation that’s trying to avoid a catastrophe: aliens are trying to take over Earth. In Yung there lies the secret. And through combat exercises, and guided by a mysterious man, Yung will play an essential part in our survival as a species.
At least, that’s what I understood.
Agent Revelation is more of a test than a full feature film. Yes, it’s a work of passion, but those are entitled to reviews also. And Ting does what he can while staying truthful to the path of telling his story.
This is how the film strays from a structural point of view. The script is launched from a story that already began, and while the film tries to shed some light, it also focuses on some elements that aren’t quite as relevant. The combat exercises, the zen conversations, the unnecessary flashbacks. It’s all a mess that’s supposed to be part of the story but fails terribly to adhere to Ting’s goal of telling a compelling story.
I’m not interested in watching the same scene over and over, and while the film has some great shots in the battle scenes, it just feels lazy at the end to depend solely on these. There are some things in Agent Revelation that should have been justified story wise.
There’s something in the Agent trilogy that’s morphing into a noteworthy sci fi action epic. It just doesn’t happen this time. Perhaps a higher budget (or a better administration of it) could improve Ting’s vision, or perhaps doctoring the script could do better for the structure of the story.
As for me, I will keep on enjoying those cool shots and camera moves, and kick ass aliens. They allow me to think there’s something attractive in Ting’s drive to tell a story.
Let’s see how the trilogy ends. There could be a surprise.
