Save the Green Planet (2005)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Alien-ated

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Imported from Korea, Jang Jun-hwan's Save the Green Planet packs a lotof ideas into its running time, but they never coalesce into anything.This story, about an intense kidnapper who believes he's rescuing theplanet from aliens disguised as humans, suffers from abrasivecharacters, an overpowering dankness and a terrible predilection forbogus climaxes. The movie has more false endings than The Lord of theRings: The Return of the King, and every time you think it's over, itjust keeps on going long past its welcome, like the thing that wouldn'tleave. The trick, of course, is to discover whether the hero (ShinHa-Gyun) is really doing the right thing or if he's crazy. At the film'sstart, he kidnaps a prominent businessman (Baek Yun-Shik) and holds himhostage in a basement. The hero's girlfriend (Hwang Jung-Min), atightrope walker with low self-esteem, helps. The movie features abizarre use of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," a roomful of mannequins anda creation-of-the-earth montage right out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, butSave the Green Planet just can't shake its repellent, stagnant mood.