User Reviews

I find that while some indie horrors work well despite the low budget, an indie science fiction film automatically has the lack of money working against it, and so it proves with THE BENDERS. This is a false-reality thriller that seems heavily indebted to THE MATRIX as it tells of a young woman who discovers that our own reality is not quite real. There's no money for special effects of any kind, so instead the viewer is treated to endless chit chat and small talk and shots of characters wandering around. I found it vapid and dull.

"The Benders" centers around a normal woman who suddenly gets drawn out of her everyday's life and confronted with the possibility that all she considers true could really be just a simulation. It ranges somewhere between Sci-Fi and dystopia.

While the topic itself is of course not revolutionary and the idea that our world could in fact be nothing more than a thoughtfully programmed script has already been basis for quite a range of films, I really enjoyed that the film carefully tries to provide an explanation for the events happening that actually adds up in a way and thus pushes it above many cheap Sci-Fi film that try to make quick money out of such an idea. I could well see this movie being adapted with a higher budget and I'm quite convinced that it would make for a decent blockbuster. In fact the biggest issue with "The Benders" is, that you can easily tell the budget wasn't that high. Especially when it comes to special effects, what we see can't really keep up with the film's general focus on advanced electronics and at times seems even a bit unwillingly funny. While all in all I enjoyed the script very much, I would have let out the fighting scenes. None of the actors are actual fighters as it seems and lacking the money to hide that, the fights underlined with the most epic soundtrack are more an element of confusion.

Nonetheless these few critical points shouldn't distract from my opinion that this is a film more Sci-Fi Fans should give a try. It is easily better than a lot of lower budget movies I know and probably even better than some of the bigger ones.