Presence is all chill without the thrill

I recently watched Steven Soderbergh’s Presence and I was prepared to be impressed, especially with David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Panic Room, Spider-Man) as the screenwriter.  Impressed… not quite, but I was let down.

Firstly, the acting was incredibly weak.  In the first few moments alone I half-expected the entire cast to start asking for directions to the nearest acting school.  Secondly, there was a lot of talk in the pre-show clip about the special camera technique Soderbergh used in Presence.  While the camera floated between rooms like a “ghost,” it was as groundbreaking as a new flavour of vanilla ice cream.  A younger Soderbergh had a flair for seamlessly combining storytelling with sleek cinematography, sadly both are missing in this film.  Thirdly, while the film introduces a mysterious element it never achieves Poltergeist levels of intensity.  The ending does manage to sprinkle in some excitement with a second story nose-dive but it was all too little too late.

Presence does not redefine cinema and it does not redefine the supernatural genre.  Instead it putters about the house being more of a annoyance then fearful entity.  I wonder why both Koepp or Soderbergh have resigned themselves to taking fewer risks and creating subpar work.  Meanwhile, iconic filmmakers like Martin Scorsese continue to have the same passion for their recent movies that they had in their earlier works.