An ordinary guy takes an extraordinary step through time in this science fiction thriller. Hector (Karra Elejalde) is spending a few days in the countryside with his girlfriend, Clara (Candela Fernández), when he sees something that catches his attention while playing with his binoculars. Looking at a nearby house near a wooded area, Hector spies a beautiful woman taking her clothes off, and decides to take a stroll and give her a closer look. However, when he arrives at the house several
minutes later, the woman is lying in the grass and appears to either be dead or passed out. As Hector examines her, he's attacked by a strange man and flees on foot. Hector seeks refuge in a building that turns out to be a research facility owned by a mysterious scientist (Nacho Vigalondo), who gives him a place to hide inside a futuristic closet. However, Hector realizes it was actually a time-travel machine when he emerges a few minutes later and looks out the window to see himself standing over the unconscious woman in the distance. Los Cronocrimenes (aka Timecrimes) was the first feature film from writer and director Nacho Vigalondo, who also appears as the scientist. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
The key here is to keep things moving without letting the logical (or illogical) complications weigh down the action, and [director] Vigalondo does this well.
Timecrimes is like a temporal chess game with nudity, voyeurism and violence, which makes it more boring than most chess games but less boring than a lot of movies.
The idea isn't bad, and Vigalondo makes the pretzel logic of the situation lucid, but he doesn't have the chops to give the tale the suspense and humor it needs.
Watching "Timecrimes" is like stumbling in a pitch-black haunted house. Hitting walls where paths should be is fun, and time-travel tropes of choice versus fate are inventively goosed. Even with five minutes left, it could conclude in any number of ways.
The idyllic but mundane world of the film's opening segues smoothly into a sequence out of a highly intelligent slasher film, before finally settling into its niche as a darkly funny, and at times mildly disturbing, sci-fi thriller.
While I enjoyed the film a great deal, I honestly wonder if there'd be this amount of hoopla if the picture, say, starred a yamhead like Val Kilmer and was set in New Jersey.
Nacho Vigalondo's bleak time-travel thriller... [chronicles the travails of a] classic film noir schmuck: No matter what he does, sooner or later fate will stick out her foot and trip him up.
An enterprising Spanish time-travel thriller, that's light on DeLoreans and lightning bolts, but heavy on fiendish cross-currents of temporal interaction.
So as the movies started I have to say I was a bit weary. I was like of there is nothing in this movie, i got the plot already. then they started throwing the little twists. And I was like oh hell no there is no way they can pull this off now. Lo and behold they did. A very solid time travel story that actually MAKES
SENSE and when all is said and done. You understand what has happened. Well worth finding.
A decent time-travel film that seems like an extended Twilight Zone episode lacking a strong main character. It starts really mysterious and intriguing in its first half hour but soon becomes extremely predictable - until it reaches a clever twist in the last act of its circular plot.
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