Primer (2003)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 120
Fresh: 87 | Rotten: 33
Dense, obtuse, but stimulating, Primer is a film for viewers ready for a cerebral challenge.
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 9
Dense, obtuse, but stimulating, Primer is a film for viewers ready for a cerebral challenge.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 41,919
My Rating
Movie Info
The debut feature from filmmaker Shane Carruth -- who wrote, directed, photographed, edited, scored, and stars -- Primer is a psychological sci-fi thriller about a group of four tech entrepreneurs. Toiling away in a garage, the quartet have successfully created error-checking systems for their clients. But their recent work seems to have created an unexpected and seemingly impossible side-effect. Suddenly, two members of the group realize they are in possession of a device that can double, or
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Cast
-
Shane Carruth
Aaron -
David Sullivan
Abe -
Casey Gooden
Robert -
Anand Upadhyaya
Phillip -
Carrie Crawford
Carrie -
Jay Butler
Metalshop Worker -
John Carruth
Man on Couch #1 -
Juan Tapia
Man on Couch #2 -
Ashley Warren
Hostess -
Samantha Thomson
Rachel Granger -
Chip Carruth
Granger -
Delaney Price
Laney -
Jack Pyland
Aaron's Coworker -
Keith Bradshaw
Clean Room Technician -
Ashok Upadhyaya
Laboratory Technician -
Brandon Blagg
Will -
David Joyner
Rachel's Date -
Jon Cook
Will's Cousin -
Eric de Soualhat
Translator -
-
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Primer Trailer & Photos
All Critics (126) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (92) | Rotten (35) | DVD (26)
Mind-bending thrillers like Primer are terrific viewing with your teenagers. Maybe if you're nice, they'll explain the ending to you.
Top CriticScary, puzzling, and different.
This film imagines its viewers to be smart, possessed of a decent attention span and game for a challenge. It doesn't happen all that often.
An unapologetically cerebral movie of ideas.
It's one thing to admire what writer/director/composer/actor Shane Carruth wrought on his $1.98 digicam budget; it's quite another to have to sit through the mind-numbing results.
The ingenious debut of writer-director Shane Carruth, who assembled the film on his home computer and also plays one of the two leads, is purposely designed to be a little bewildering.
Where's Doc Brown when you need him?
Shot for a begged and borrowed $7,000, 'Primer' looks it: grainy-ish, fuzzy on details and effects, acting running the gamut from A to B, and clipped incomprehensible technobabble for dialogue.
While most time travel movies are usually mind-bending by their very nature, it's no exaggeration to say that Primer is as complicated as they come.
ridiculous, confusing, vaguely noir-ish nonsense
Discombobulating and mind-bending sci fi thriller. I think.
An exceptional science fiction film...
in the second commentary there is some interesting material regarding the film's creative use of shot composition. "Composition is really cheap", is the succinct explanation offered by one of them.
Oh, man, they don't make 'em like this often. A film unabashedly for the nerds in the audience (God love us), this is the type of film you could inflict upon your enemies, watching them squirm as they stare at the screen.
You're gonna love the film. It makes Memento seem linear. The dialog is jargon-packed and never slows down long enough to let you digest even a single sentence. It's like the lightening round on a game show, except that you never find out who wins.
Shane Carruth's ultra-low budget, 78-minute sci-fi film could almost be a 'B' movie from the past if not for its icy intelligence.
Shane Carruth's Primer is a science fiction movie like no other, pushing its experimental tendencies as far as they can go without betraying the genre
Confident and well-woven.
Audience Reviews for Primer
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Aaron: What's worse: thinking you're paranoid or knowing you should be?
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- Abe: Aaron, I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere remotely close to safe. All I know is I spent six hours in there and I'm still alive... You still want to do it?
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- Aaron: Man, are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.
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Latest News on Primer
March 16, 2005:
Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival 2005A 70-mm French comedy by Jacques Tati will open my 7th annual Overlooked Film Festival this April,...
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