Zephyr-light and plenty zany, Michael Duignan's "The Paragon" serves up space-time shenanigans with a smile on its face, in a manner quaintly reminiscent of sci-fi and fantasy B-movies from a bygone era—think "Krull," "Flash Gordon," and "Masters of the Universe"—when stilted action sequences, preposterous plots, and kitschy costume design added up to mad spectacles of cheesy, cornball grandeur.
"The Paragon" may be Duignan's feature debut, but he's well-established in the New Zealand industry scene, having directed local television, commercials, documentaries, music videos, and more. Known for helming episodes of "Power Rangers," he translates some of that series' goofy, intergalactic flavor into his own film, which he also wrote, shot, edited, and produced.
Set in Auckland, his no-budget production is nostalgic not only for the sub-juvenile space operatics of yesteryear but also the scrappy DIY sensibility of those cult classics; when the film made its North American premiere in Montreal this summer at Fantasia, much of the festival fanfare revolved around its $25,000 budget. (That's in New Zealand dollars, mind you; it's closer to $15,000 in U.S. currency.) Notably, not adjusted for inflation, that's the same initial cost of "Bad Taste," Peter Jackson's splattery first feature, though the New Zealand Film Commission ultimately invested nearly ten times that amount to get Jackson's film completed, a luxury Duignan didn't have.
In raising funds from friends and family, then shooting "The Paragon" in two weeks so as not to ask too much of anyone involved, Duignan makes his relative lack of resources foundational to the film's farcical tone, relying on conspicuously handmade effects and cheesily psychedelic costume design to ground all his script's sci-fi gobbledygook in scrappily practical textures and tones. In doing so, Duignan also steeps the proceedings in a cheerfully understated, sometimes self-effacing comic sensibility that will be familiar to fans of Kiwi comedy legend John Clarke — one in which unapologetically earnest silliness can be felt lurking beneath every deadpan delivery.
At the center of "The Paragon" is Dutch (Benedict Wall), a former tennis champion who hasn't moved on with his life since the hit-and-run that ended his career a year earlier; the incident left him dead for six minutes until a good samaritan resuscitated him, but Dutch is arguably more vexed by the fact he still can't walk unsupported, and this lingering resentment has driven more of a wedge between him and his wife (Jessica Grace Smith) than the injury.
Obsessed with tracking down the silver Toyota Corolla that struck him so that he can exact some flimsy revenge scheme, Dutch enlists hooded psychic Lyra (Florence Noble) to help him master telelocation, also known as the power to locate objects. It's one psionic ability in Lyra's arsenal, with precognition, telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection just a few lessons away in the school gymnasium so long as they're out before volleyball practice, but this scarcely registers to Dutch. In fairness, Lyra is consumed by a quest of her own: retrieving an all-powerful crystal before her evil brother, Haxan (Jonny Brugh) can lay claim to it for purposes of interdimensional domination. Not that Dutch much cares one way or the other.
The film gets far enough just on the strengths of its lead actors, both of whom commit to their characters' unlikely cosmic alliance with a breezy charm that suits the story's loopy, low-stakes register. (When Lyra asks Dutch, "Have you ever died?," he responds, "Yeah… Once, a bit.") That's not to say that Wall and Noble don't earn your investment in their psionic escapades. On the contrary, if Wall slips into the role of the reluctant hero with a petulant lack of interest in such matters as his own redemption, let alone who controls the space-time continuum, Noble's bone-dry wit has the amusing effect of cutting through his overly self-involved demeanor — literally, in a laugh-out-loud sequence where Lyra encourages Dutch to concentrate on the gaps between his thoughts, only to insert herself within his prattling inner monologue once he proves incapable of quieting it on his own. Gradually, the two slip into a cosmic buddy-comedy dynamic, one that's not afraid to become tender even as it revels in the awkward energy of their banter.
There's an appealing miscellany to "The Paragon," with Duignan casting about for whatever's at hand and emerging with a pleasantly frivolous grab-bag of visual motifs — spaghetti, lollipops, xylophones, figurines — to imbue with significance, at times recalling "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (though, mercifully, in a far lower key) and culminating in a sight gag of a Bible beside a butt plug that its protagonists barely blink at. Even funnier are stab-happy, plastic-wrapped mind-slaves that pop up alongside Haxan, approaching Dutch with heads empty and knives ready, and Haxan himself, an impossibly sensuous ham that Brugh (known for playing Deacon in "What We Do In the Shadows" and for the madcap "Mega Time Squad") plays with eyebrows wiggling and a perpetual pout.
It's hard to find much fault with a film so sincere about being this silly, and Duignan's earnest channeling of his '80s influences is arguably closer to them in both spirit and sensibility than films made on far larger budgets, especially thanks to a toothily grandiose synth score from the musician Lucola Bang that's all in without outstaying its welcome, and the film's striking use of color filters, altered film speeds, and other clever, spendthrift techniques to convey trippy, mind-altering psychedelia. There's a core sweetness to "The Paragon" that pervades its parallel-universe pandemonium and leaves its cast of eccentrics, ultimately, more connected to their humanity than before but otherwise much the same. Even in its loving pastiche, this is an offbeat, low-stakes original that casts a simple, surprising spell.
"The Paragon" opens in select theaters and on demand nationwide Sept. 6, via Doppelgänger Releasing.
