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This is no slight against Ellen Page, a good actress who provides Jodie's image, via motion-capture technology and voice. Likewise, Willem Dafoe and Kadeem Hardison deliver sympathetic performances as the lab geeks who monitor Jodie's maturation. But they're all let down by Cage's script
-- in Page's case by monotony and in Dafoe's case by a preposterous late-game character U-turn. The story isn't helped by its non-chronological presentation. I
get what Cage is trying to achieve with this approach, mixing the
more action-heavy sequences from Jodie's adulthood with more
emotional moments from her youth. But I just didn't find Jodie's
childhood traumas plausible or compelling and would have preferred a
more conventional narrative that showed the gradual development of
her talents. I'm a fan of David Cage, and I admire his storytelling ambitions. But as
the video-game audience matures, we're seeing more sophisticated narratives
all over, from low-budget indies like "Gone Home" to best-selling
blockbusters like "The Last of Us." "Beyond: Two Souls" is hackneyed in
comparison, a promising tale that gets bogged down in thriller cliches. Two
stars out of four. ___ Online:
[Associated
Press;
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