Movie Review: Divinity

Most of the time after watching a movie, it’s pretty easy for me to form at least some sort of an opinion about it. It might change a little bit between the moment the end credits roll and when I start writing about it, but at least the basis is there. Every now and then though, a film comes along for which I am not really sure what to think, like Eddie Alcazar’s Divinty.

Executive produced by Steven Soderbergh for some reason, Divinity follows a pair of unnamed brothers who fall from the sky (Moises Arias & Jason Genao) to stop scientist Jaxxon Pierce (Stephen Dorff) from producing any more of a product named Divinity. In a dystopian world that seems to be ruled by a few mega corporations, Divinity is a serum developed by Jaxxon’s deceased father Sterling (Scott Bakula) that promises to stop aging and disease at the cost of rendering users infertile. As a result, only a small portion of the human population is still able to reproduce, and so a group of “pure” women, who can also teleport inexplicably, try to find and protect others like them.

The 2 brothers easily succeed in capturing Pierce, promptly tie him up, and begin pumping his elixir directly into his veins. When he awakens, he begs them to release him, explaining that the dose they are giving him is likely to cause his death. They are unmoved however and leave him alone as they roam around his mansion. A call girl named Nikita arrives (Karrueche Tran) and mistakes the brothers for her client before discovering their captive. She nearly releases the now-deformed doctor before the brothers show her the reason for their mission, which leads her to side with them and begin falling in love with one of the pair. Jaxxon has a birthday celebration planned for that evening though and soon the guests begin to arrive, including his brother Rip (Michael O’Hearn), who suspects something is up and sets about trying to find his sibling.

If this all sounds strange, you have no idea. Visually and tonally, Alcazar seems to be going for something reminiscent of early David Lynch, and in some ways I suppose he succeeds. He claims to have shot the film without a script, which feels very apparent in hindsight. The cast do what they can with what little they’re given, but aside from Dorff who gets to go a little bit crazy, everyone is primarily tasked with maintaining a look of detached disinterest.

Alcazar and cinematographer Danny Hiele do prove capable of setting up interesting shots, with much of the film looking like a stylishly grungy music video, perhaps due to Hiele’s work on many such projects for artists like Rihanna, Lizzo, and Kanye West among others. The editing work of Steve Forner (also from the world of music videos) and Kevin Greutert (known for directing 3 later Saw movies) further cements that impression, though they do an admirable job of pulling some sort of a story out of the material. Stop motion animator Kevin Glick (of Coraline and Robot Chicken) is called in to execute the moments that otherwise would have fallen well outside of the presumably minimal budget and does some impressive work, so much so that it almost feels like the entire thing would have worked better if he had been allowed to produce it.

Despite the weirdly high pedigree of many both in front of and behind the camera and an engagingly odd premise, Divinity never really comes together into a satisfying whole. It’s certainly memorable and unpredictable, keeping the viewer watching just to see what weird thing might appear on screen next, but aside from some clunky stabs at philosophical moralizing it never really feels like it means anything. Appreciate the life you already have maybe? The ending feints at delivering a pro-life message, though I doubt the crowd that would appreciate that will be willing to sit through everything that precedes it.

All in all, I don’t think Divinity is very good. Except maybe I also do. Though probably not. There was something almost hypnotic about its insanity and it’s hard to get out of my mind. I’m just not clear if I ever wanted it there in the first place. ★★