I give this film props for creating a mystery then slowly unravelling that mystery to show a deeper story. There were a few problems I had with this film that I think kept the movie from being a success.
To start off, the movie is about a girl named Jess who goes sailing with her friend Greg and a couple of his
friends. At the beginning, we see Jess is really freaked out about something. She's on edge and spaces out frequently. When a freak electrical storm causes their boat to capsize, a big steamboat comes by and picks them up for rescue. When they board the ship, they see no one is around and then some crazy stuff starts happening to Jess and the others. We don't know anything until the plot starts unravelling itself towards the end.
**Contains Spoilers...**
The first problem I had with this movie was the characters. The only character that was sufficiently developed was Jess. We saw she had multiple problems to deal with that gave her character some depth. All the other characters had no depth at all. The other characters were just shallow pawns used to carry the plot along. The other characters just had stereotypical personalities or no personality at all- like Victor whose character was just a hot bod that had little to contribute to the film. If all the characters had a stronger relationship with each other perhaps the movie would've been more interesting and fun to watch.
The second problem I had with the film was the amazingly slow pace. After an hour I was thinking surely this film must be over soon! At the one hour mark, the characters were STILL running all over the ship yelling "HELLO!" in their clearly fake American accents. I was actually very surprised to learn that there was still 40 minutes left to the movie. It was very slow and I got pretty bored. Nothing remotely interesting happened until probably 1:14 minute mark. I hate slow paced movies.
The next problem I had with the movie was the plot. There were so many plot holes it was frustrating to watch. At the end of the film, we learn that Jess is stuck in a time loop that repeats itself only when all the others (e.g. Greg, Victor, Sally, etc.) are dead. Once they are dead, the entire movie repeats itself. As we find out, Jess has been stuck in this time loop numerous times. Jess can leave the time loop at any time-- all she has to do is choose not to go on the sail boating trip or choose to not kill everyone when she gets on the rescue ship. The reason Jess stays in the time loop is because she accidentally gets in a car accident and kills her son after she escapes from the rescue ship. In order to bring her son back to life, she decides to re enter the time loop and try everything again-- hopefully this time not killing her son. It was too confusing and honestly- quite boring. The whole thing was her just kicking everyone else's ass over and over and over again. You would think after being in the time loop for days, she would realize that hey you know what? Maybe I should take a different approach. Jess' character obviously had some psychological problems. Her rash decisions were illogical and stupid. The entire thing could've been avoided. Also, Jess uses that double barrel shotgun like a motherfucking pro. Where did that come from? A girl with that amazing aim? Yeah, right. She karate kicks and fights like a hero. It felt slightly choreographed and fake. But anyway I digress. At the very end we see Jess is a fuck up of a mother and beats her son. Then she has an epiphany and says "Oh my god, I'm a terrible mother. I will make things right again." So she goes and kills her other self. Then she says to her son "Let's get out of here!" and they flee: 1) Where the hell are they going? 2) Why are they leaving their safe house? 3)Did Jess completely forget WHY she re-entered the loop in the first place? To save her son? If by getting in a car and driving her son, it's inevitable the son will die again. Why doesn't she remember? It just didn't make any sense. Then after her son is dead, she goes back to the dock and goes on the sail boating trip again! How can Greg, Victor, Sally, etc. all be at the dock? She just killed them all! Are these people immortal?? Did any of it even really happen or is Jess a schizophrenic and hallucinating all of it? It was just too confusing. There are other movies that pull it off much better.
I respect what the plot was doing, but it really was just a huge unorganized mess.
February 4, 2012
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