“Able Edwards” is really quite an impressive piece of work all the way around. The story is about Able Edwards who is basically Walt Disney cloned with Charles Foster Kane. And he really is a clone too…of the original Able Edwards who started a Disneyland type franchise years before, when people could still inhabit the earth. Now they’re all confined to somewhere outside earth’s atmosphere, living in a futuristic world where cyborgs are servants and life kind of sucks. Enter the cloned Able Edwards.
Able is brought back to give new life to the company his originally left behind. In order to somehow ensure this, he’s assigned a “best friend” cyborg named Gower who will assure that the new Able has the same situations presented to him while he was growing up that the original had. Sounds cool, huh? Wait…it gets better.
Graham Robertson did this entire film on his home computer with consumer bought products. Final Cut Pro, Photo Shop, Combustion and a scanner. He also shot the entire film using a green-screen background then used his computer to create the fantastic futuristic world we see onscreen. It’s really pretty impressive.
Granted, some of the effects look pretty bad. But for the most part, “Able Edwards” has the look of a Classic Hollywood Cinema film with lavish and monstrous architectural backgrounds. In a way the disparity between the good effects and bad effects takes you out of the story, but I was still pretty impressed by what Robertson pulled off given what he had to work with.
I also think an incredibly smart script and fine acting by Scott Kelly Galbreath as the witty but disillusioned Able Edwards help get the viewer over the technically challenged moments that occur. “Able Edwards” isn’t a perfect film, but it’s pretty damn good. It’s also a glimpse into yet another arena of future filmmaking in which great acting and a great story need not be limited by lack of funds or scene locations.
