The Lost Zeppelin is a film that gives the promise of high adventure. The idea of an exhibition of men travelling to the permanently icy centre of Earth's most southern point.
But unfortunately all its able to do is patter around a very mundane story of men being lost in the Arctic and wandering around aimlessly. All in full head gear so you can't tell who anybody is.
The most interesting part of the film was the setup to the dirigibles flight involving an incredibly straightforward and simplified love triangle.
It's kind of sad that I'm sitting here watching a movie wishing that we could back at the beginning. Going through the trauma of Donald witnessing his wife kissing his second-in-charge / best friend Tom.
Then having to weigh his options on what to do.
In a way he's lost his wife and his best friend.
Part of him wants to get a divorce. Not out of spite but because he wants what's best for his wife.
Then the idea of having to spend a long Voyage on a trip with the very man who caused you so much grief.
There's a great idea for a film with that premise.
But unfortunately it just doesn't deliver on any of that.
Instead we deal with a blimp floating through the sky constantly reporting back it's status as it goes closer and closer to its goal.
It's not even that that part of the film was all that bad. It has its own interests as you start to wonder what's going to happen to this big ball of helium floating through the sky becoming more isolated from civilisation.
But then once it gets the South Pole it just drops off immediately. Ironically that is both the story and the physical blimp.
And it never really recovers.
I think one of the biggest issues here is the lack of characterisation. It starts out moderately okay with the aforementioned (love) triangle but then we never see any interaction between these two men as they travel on their Voyage.
They just kind of ignored each other or work as intended. And you can make the excuse they're just trying to be professional but let's face reality here.
You just caught a man having affair with your wife and it's someone that you've known for over 30 years.
There's going to be some tension there regardless.
In reality you probably wouldn't even bring them on the voyage or if he was crucial you might have to postpone the whole thing.
Which they might be able to get around in the story or even making an interesting plot Point by bringing up the pick up for their men who are already in the South Pole.
Once again there's another dramatic story there that you could build on.
But we just don't do anything.
It really shows with a runtime of only an hour and 10 minutes. Honestly this feels like it's been cut down somewhat. As some scenes just seem to end or begin out of nowhere or with an almost established conversation happening before.
Overall with the disappointing movie. If they focused in on the story or just a greater amount of time being dedicated the character development you could have made this more enjoyable.
A little part of me wanted to be more lenient on the film but this apparently is based on a real-life Expedition that had a documentary made about it only a year later.
And from what I understand that movies received quite well so where's the excuse for this film?
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