Hugo Weaving Accuses The Government Of Terrible Experiments In New Vid
Hugo Weaving accuses an unknown government of terrifying human experiments on unwanted children, and has a pretty great beard too.
This article is more than 2 years old
Anglo-Australian actor Hugo Weaving is no stranger to terrible technological experimentation by unseen forces. After all, he was the voice of Rex the Sheepdog in Babe. In this clip from his upcoming science fiction film Expired, Weaving is rocking a thick white beard, wire-rimmed glasses, and a seriously receded hairline. All in all, he has some serious reclusive scientist vibes, which makes it make more sense for him to be breaking down some backstory for a character played by True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten. Although the scene is simple, just Weaving and Kwanten sitting across from each other in a sterile-looking, coldly lit diner, Weaving’s inherent gravitas gives it a lot of weight without even the context of the rest of the movie. Check it out:
Expired stars Hugo Weaving as a Dr. Bergman, who is explaining to an assassin played by Ryan Kwanten that an unnamed government has been secretly experimenting on human beings. In particular, said government has been capturing unwanted and lost street children, injecting them with hormones that apparently remove their emotions. We can assume that Kwanten’s assassin character Jack was one of those children. As seen in the full trailer for the film, Jack appears to kill without remorse or hesitation, which would make sense for someone whose emotions have been chemically removed. Jack asks Dr. Bergman what will happen if he can’t stay away from a nightclub singer he has encountered (played by Jillian Nguyen), and is told that only terrible things will happen. All in all, this is one foreboding and dystopian future.
The full-length trailer for Expired reveals a little bit more atmosphere of the movie, including a shot of the bearded, brooding Hugo Weaving standing in a city street. Overall, the movie (written and directed by Ivan Sen) is taking a lot of rainy, murky neon-lit city cues from Blade Runner, but what science fiction film doesn’t? Ryan Kwanten’s Jack also sports a scruffy beard and weary look that hearkens to Ryan Gosling’s replicant detective in Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. But given Expired has one of the most iconic stars of dystopian science fiction in it, hopes can be high for the movie. While Weaving is not above the occasional Super Bowl commercial or two, the man has a pretty good track record when it comes to conveying the desolate inhumanity of the future.
Since Hugo Weaving’s miracle run in Hollywood from 2000 to 2012, in which he starred in The Matrix franchise, the Transformers franchise, the Lord of the Rings franchise, and in the MCU as The Red Skull, he has largely returned to Australia to act in quieter dramas. Although he did not appear in 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, that appears to have been a scheduling issue more than any issues with the Wachowskis. Aside from all those blockbuster series, Weaving also appeared in the underrated Wachowski science fiction film Cloud Atlas and as another malcontent warning of a secretive, malevolent government in V for Vendetta. Expired is scheduled for limited release on March 18.
