Review of Exam (2009) by Mike M — 17 Jun 2009

Edinburgh 2009: Talk about your under-the-radar sci-fi gem. Exam sets its small group of cast in a room and keeps them there for its 97 minutes but through the way it tells its story it treats us to a virus-plagued alternate-future world that's totally believable. This is challenging even when a film throws hundreds of millions of dollars at the screen in the endeavour of creating vast CG skylines to convince us of its universe, so it's all the more impressive in Stuart Hazeldine's indie, literally doesn't leave its featureless exam room for the run.

Hazeldine is already working with the studios as a screenwriter, having done work on both The Day the Earth Stood Still and Alex Proyas' Knowing, but here he marks himself as a director to take very keen note of - if in his debut small British film he can create something this fresh, exciting, epic and, frankly, blockbuster-beating, imagine what could result when he does start making massive movies.