Thursday, June 30, 2011

Primer

This was a brilliant movie. The story was incredibly clever and meticulously plotted and thought out. The acting by a cast of complete unknowns was absolutely first rate. The dialogue was as intelligent as you'll find in any movie, written by a man who clearly knows a lot about engineering, mathematics, and physics. This movie was completely original, brilliantly conceived, and meticulously constructed. It's just too bad it wasn't very good.

Well, I didn't think it was very good, anyway, although a lot of people will disagree with that opinion since it has become something of a cult film. Although a cult film, by definition, is one that is still mostly unpopular, often for valid reasons. Most people will probably be put off by the labyrinthine story that challenges the audience to think and follow along very carefully. Me, I just didn't like it because it was boring and ultimately pointless. I didn't really like this characters, I didn't find their work interesting, and I never really bought into the concept that there was any real moral dilemmas at stake, even though the characters all acted dramatically and thought very important issues were being discussed.

It's well worth checking out, however, if you are into hard science fiction or just want to see a completely new take on a story about the invention of a time machine, since the device in this movie is one of the best I've ever seen in the genre. It just doesn't have a very interesting plot, and the entire thing is filmed in such a cold, removed way that I never really found it interesting and engaging. I liked it enough to watch the entire film, however, even though I never really liked it nor even enjoyed what was going on most of the time.

2 comments:

Justin Garrett Blum said...

I never heard of this movie. Is it as good as You'll Always Be There?

But seriously, what do they do with the time machine?

Donald said...

Uh... they experiment with it. I don't want to talk too much about it because I think it's the kind of movie that's better if you go in cold. They don't go back in time and kill Hitler or anything. But you should check it out, because it was very clever and interesting.