It's a good day to die." There are a number of problems with this movie before it has even begun. With an incredibly revealing trailer, most of the plot has already been divulged before we've seen any of the main characters. The opening scene takes us back in time to the devastating moment in Courtney's life when her carelessness leads to her sister's death. This is the morbid basis for a very depressing and convoluted movie trying too hard to address the question of mortality. There are some rare and disparate moments of good-quality filmmaking, but the third act is particularly lost in its own land of pseudo-science. Whilst a lot of the events that happen in the movie can be attributed to hallucinations, a lot of the effects are so extravagant that the element of the unknown disappears.
I'd like to start with the positives. Ellen Page, an actress everyone will remember from Inception, is quietly confident as the aspiring medical student, who's haunting past encourages her extra-curricula investigation. She steals every scene, and her character's demise is psychologically damaging. Credit to the director, this scene quickly transformed the movie from a science-fiction thriller into a horror drama, and Page pulls all the stops out to portray a frighteningly tormented woman who's shocking death is the most gripping moment of the entire two hours. It's just a shame this was followed by another half hour of miscellaneous insanity. The music, whilst not always prominent, was quite effective at building the tension, but by the end, that wasn't often. Whilst the movie looked grand and beautiful in its psychedelic scenery, the point was quickly lost. Never mind the afterlife, the writers may have been indulging too much in the depiction of beauty, rather than the rational possibilities of a brain suffering asphyxiation. The science may have been present in diagnostic and revival scene, but as one character mentioned within the film's context, it was all pseudo-science in the end. Marlo's perspective in the afterlife was the best example of the production going overboard on its use of the unknown. If they'd kept the effects and visionary to a minimum, the final product may have been a little more mysterious, and a lot less chaotic. My main problem with the film is its incapacity to write its characters. A lot of the time, they are very quick to assume things, almost as if the writers are trying to intentionally push an agenda. But, in general, the characters are very unlikable. Candid, rash and uncharacteristically stupid. They don't suffer any consequences, despite all the rule-breaking they've committed, and because we're concentrating so much on them, the rest of the world is forgotten about. This doesn't help the fact that the afterlife story is unbelievable already. Whilst there was so much emphasis on what the characters saw, the explanation was not as thorough, meaning that by the end of the movie, we lack any understanding of what's just occurred. Simply put, a messy plot, filled with inconsistencies and errors of character. I haven't seen the original, but I imagine it has a similar story. The premise of flatlining has its interesting propositions, but inevitably - because this is something unknown in the scientific world, and often ridiculed - there's no standing in whatever is depicted. Despite a strong lead performance from Ellen Page, and a nice cameo for Kiefer Sutherland, the rest of the film is riddled with overcomplicated scenarios with morality and mortality attempting to combine to create non-existent threat. The conclusion is particularly unsatisfying. It's a shame, because the horror genre had a reawakening of a sort in this film, and there are some genuinely creepy moments, even if they're nonsensical in the story's perspective. 6/10
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8/10/2022 10:22:17 pm
Sağolasın bizi bilgilendirdiğin için. Kemer transfer: https://www.alanyagroup.com/kemer-airport-transfer/
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AuthorA very passionate Welsh nerd... Archives
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