Lapso de tiempo

Even though the scope of such an idea asks us to venture beyond the setting of one area and perhaps expand to other parts of the town or even the world, the film-makers did well with the chosen set of spaces. Likely because of the harmonious casting and well knit story. A fine thriller.

A still camera that can peek ahead of time; is indeed a captivating idea, to begin with. On one hand, I feel obliged to show appreciation for the writer who has come up with such a tantalizing vision, on the other hand, I believe, the movie, on the whole, failed to give such a great concept a rightful shape & structure! It kinda falls short of attaining its full potential.

And the main reason was the clueless facade of a write-up that didn't seem to have any idea whatsoever on how to deal with such a tricky subject. Although it started on an encouraging note, putting together justifiable moments in the process that were loaded with palpable tension and suspense but then after a certain period of time, everything began to fall apart.

What started as a pretty straightforward Sci-fi, slowly turned into a familiar drama comprising of friendships, love, cheating; all the stuff that was nonessential, and uncalled for. Why would somebody resort to such paltry dramas where you've got one of the most intriguing concepts at your disposal, You have had a freaking time. Traveling camera for god sake. If only they were more pragmatic with their preferences, things could have turned out differently and that would have been in its favor as well.

Or maybe neither, depending on your view or perspective on the matter or characters that is. But you can't deny, that this movie (clue is in the title), is well thought of. You might not agree with all the twists and turns this takes, but it does so convincingly. Can you see a couple of things coming before our main characters spot them (no pun intended)? Of course you can. Still fun to watch though.

Which all comes down to a neat direction (for a low budget movie that is) and the stellar cast, that really do their best to convey a really "far out" idea. If you like Science Fiction Thrillers, that do use their head a little bit, you could do worse (a lot worse)

It entertains. It's not the best sci-fi film I've ever seen but it's reasonably high up the list and as a bonus, it keeps getting more interesting as it goes along and thankfully, the ending was fitting.

A few suggestions for improvement:

The characters all seemed like strangers in the beginning and they all waited a set time for their turn to speak which gave the film quite a stilted effect. George Finn was the only one who didn't 'look' like he was acting. Danielle Panabaker annoys me in most of her work because she tries to pull off being innocent and sweet when the character she's playing doesn't need it (either that or she just isn't any good at being 'sweet') - it comes across as being quite fake. The camera could have been expanded on for example; its creation, design, and they could have experimented with various settings. As it stands, I still don't know how they figured out certain things about the way it functioned (but I might have missed the explanation while munching).

Some praise:

Matt O'Leary pulled off a really funny 'wtf are you talking about' moment when his best friend and girlfriend were casually discussing a dead body. Although the opening scenes were jarring because of the lack of chemistry and low budget feel, with literally every scene, the film got more and more engrossing so stick with it. The story was really well written. It progressed at a good pace and although George Finn's character development seemed a bit over the top, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and for once, the ending was fitting and extremely satisfying.

I think everyone involved should be really proud, any criticisms are fairly minor, and I can easily recommend this.

7/10

When you're the scriptwriter of a movie dealing with time travel, the easiest and cheapest way is to write a script built with protagonists as moronic as pathetic. Let's name them Callie, Finn and Jasper. Then, the plot twists will follow one after the other, at a frenetic pace, until Callie, Finn and Jasper ineluctably lost control like Juliet, David and Alex in Tumba al ras de la tierra (1994). Although the first twenty minutes are rather encouraging, the last thirty ones are disappointing and almost appalling.