The idea in this film is nice, pausing time with a videocamera. It begins innocent, stopping time to do some tricks with tennis balls, but slowly it gets worse, stealing money and trying to fix things. The movie isn't slow, but steadily flows past, apart from the times the pause button is pressed.
Rating : 6
Showing posts with label suspension. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suspension. Show all posts
description: Man, family, girl, father, accident, camera, freeze time, liking/helping/obsession
(Geoffrey): (rating 6)
The concept is not really new, neither is the work-out, neither is the CGI/effects. We have a family in a car, who crashes with another car. The husband is the solve survivor and finds out he can freeze time. The man in the other car was the father of a girl who is threatend to loose her house. The surviving father of the other family drops the lawsuite and decides to use his newly gift to help the girl. That helping starts out fun, but get a dul in my eyes. It becomes a cliche and predictable where it is heading.
I guess the script is ok, same goes for the acting.
Overall, the movie has it fun moments, but could be sharper. For example, a more unstable form of the gift (in stead of waiting until the battery of the camera turns dead, how about the camera gets more and more defective? Sounds logical looking at the state it is in).
(Geoffrey): (rating 6)
The concept is not really new, neither is the work-out, neither is the CGI/effects. We have a family in a car, who crashes with another car. The husband is the solve survivor and finds out he can freeze time. The man in the other car was the father of a girl who is threatend to loose her house. The surviving father of the other family drops the lawsuite and decides to use his newly gift to help the girl. That helping starts out fun, but get a dul in my eyes. It becomes a cliche and predictable where it is heading.
I guess the script is ok, same goes for the acting.
Overall, the movie has it fun moments, but could be sharper. For example, a more unstable form of the gift (in stead of waiting until the battery of the camera turns dead, how about the camera gets more and more defective? Sounds logical looking at the state it is in).
Man with a movie camera freezes time and turns into a stalker
Links: AFFF / imdb
This is one of those high-concept sci-fi films. The premise of this film is that the protagonist loses his wife and son in an accident, but finds out that his video camera has magical capabilities - pressing pause freezes time (until the battery runs out).
The key question in these kind of films is whether or not the makers succeed in developing this genius idea into a fully fledged feature. Suspension pulls that off, exploring the obvious ideas like stealing money or voyeuristic adventures, but refrains from turning into a teenage comedy. The protagonist is left without a meaningful life, and finds new purpose in aiding and adoring the wife of the man who also died in the accident.
Nicely tie-ing in with the theme: this film is a good example of John August's advice on coincidence. Better have one big coincidence where you as a writer/director ask the audience to accept it for what it is (in this case the magical video camera that freezes time), then a series of minor coincidences. Suspension completely adheres to its own (and real world) logic after setting up the plot device of the pause button.
Even though I enjoyed the film, I can't escape the impression that it doesn't really leave you with a satisfying feeling at the end. Everything comes to a closure, but somehow I didn't leave the theatre with a happy-sad smile on my face (which is what should have happened). Perhaps they should have done more with the theme of not being able to mend something that is broken. This theme surfaces mainly in the form of objects, not really on an emotional level for each of the characters.
Rating: 7
Links: AFFF / imdb
This is one of those high-concept sci-fi films. The premise of this film is that the protagonist loses his wife and son in an accident, but finds out that his video camera has magical capabilities - pressing pause freezes time (until the battery runs out).
The key question in these kind of films is whether or not the makers succeed in developing this genius idea into a fully fledged feature. Suspension pulls that off, exploring the obvious ideas like stealing money or voyeuristic adventures, but refrains from turning into a teenage comedy. The protagonist is left without a meaningful life, and finds new purpose in aiding and adoring the wife of the man who also died in the accident.
Nicely tie-ing in with the theme: this film is a good example of John August's advice on coincidence. Better have one big coincidence where you as a writer/director ask the audience to accept it for what it is (in this case the magical video camera that freezes time), then a series of minor coincidences. Suspension completely adheres to its own (and real world) logic after setting up the plot device of the pause button.
Even though I enjoyed the film, I can't escape the impression that it doesn't really leave you with a satisfying feeling at the end. Everything comes to a closure, but somehow I didn't leave the theatre with a happy-sad smile on my face (which is what should have happened). Perhaps they should have done more with the theme of not being able to mend something that is broken. This theme surfaces mainly in the form of objects, not really on an emotional level for each of the characters.
Rating: 7
carcrash kills wife and son of a man (car 1) and boyfriend of girl (car 2); resulting broken camera whose pauze-button from that moment on freezes time is used by him to unsuccessfully court her
Seldom did a character appeal so quickly to me. Friendly, bit shy, yet not stupid and readily accepting the strange phenomenon that he witnesses. Though the story slows down after a while, it does create a simple yet elegant and believable character arc (I actively start to abhor this phrase).
SFX guys did sometimes do a bit of a sloppy job on the freeze-time moments during which the eyes of aforementioned girl vibrated quickly horizontally: the tiny red veins in the corner of her eyes stayed steady. At least I know where my nystachmus comes from.
Rating: 7