Joey Curtis and Paul Sidhu's sci-fi time-waster 2307: WINTER'S DREAM opens in theaters

Unless your movie is a documentary, it's probably not a smart marketing move to place a punctuation mark such as a colon in your title. If only that were the biggest problem for 2307: WINTER'S DREAM, but, no, there are plenty of others. Considering that this film won half a dozen sci-fi film festival awards, TrustMovies can only surmise that the past couple of years have have been dismal ones for the sci-fi genre. Either that -- or there is something I just didn't get about this utterly derivative and tiresome would-be sci-fi thriller/action/dystopian-future film.

As written and directed by Joey Curtis, shown at right, the film takes place in that titular year of 2307, when it seems that earth has turned into a complete snowscape -- a la Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, but without a lick of that terrific film's class or entertainment value -- and is peopled by humans and replicants (as la Blade Runner, but without a lick of... you know the routine) who are at war with each other. Our stalwart and dull-as-dishwater hero, played by Paul Sidhu, below, who also wrote the story on which the film is based, is given the assignment of tracking down and killing a replicant who has murdered our hero's pregnant wife, cut the baby out of her belly and absconded with it. Um-hum. Yeah.

The cast of characters includes the usual suspects -- a bunch of tough-talking uber-violent would-be warriors who do an awful lot of stupid things and mouth some of the worst dialog I've hear all year, maybe several. Samples: the answer to one guy's question about why procrastination is like masturbation, or the oh-so-stern commander (below, right), who, after his lengthy speech about why our villain replicant is to be so greatly feared, adds, "P.S: He's lethal."

The action sequences, too, are, to put it mildly, not so hot. Around 20 minutes in, the supposed good guys come upon a distant figure in the snow and do literally everything wrong. Tons of very clunky exposition via the narration does not help a lot, either.

The film does appear to have had a fairly high budget for a small indie movie; even so, the supposedly extreme cold is not in the least believably captured. The poster above shows icicles and frost on the beard. The movie doesn't even manage that much.

If you last it out, you'll be treated to a -- once again -- highly derivative "surprise" twist toward the finale, to which you will probably mutter, "Gee, I haven't see something like that in a movie in at least a week."

In any case, 2307: Winter's Dream opens this Friday, at various theaters, at least some of which are shown here: AMC Jersey Gardens, Elizabeth NJ; AMC Orange 30, Orange, CA; AMC South Barrington, IL; AMC Rio, Gaithersburg, MD; AMC Arizona Center, Phoenix, AZ; AMC Southfield Southfield, MI; AMC Veterans Expressway, Tampa, FL; AMC Apple Valley, MN; AMC Pompano Beach, FL; AMC Solon Cinema, Solon, OH.