Norman

Ok I'm happy to write the first review for this movie.

So essentially you have Norman, trapped in the present day trying to travel back to the future of 2085. The reasons he wants to travel back I won't spoil. But every time he has some sort of interaction with the outside world, people and such, he gets headaches and flashes from other times and places.

So I really wanted to like this movie a lot more but the lead actor just isn't good enough, its a mixed performances at best with some underacting and overacting. The most lively performance is the A. I. companion A. N. I. (which isn't a good sign that the A. I. has more personality than the lead) who comes in a third of the way in. Another problem is the stakes don't feel high so we the viewer are not as invested as we could be. The third act fails as well because of the tonal shift, it decides it wants to be a action movie with too many close ups of people shooting and not enough wide shots of the action, and the ending is kind of predictable. There are many shots of tea being poured, switches being turned on, rain on the siding of the house. Its a slow burning movie and has some big ideas but its not very well acted, written, and too slow to recommend. But its not a train wreck or horrible. Its just slow, pretentious and the lead actor/character has no personality for us to get behind or care why stuff is happening. It is competently directed and is a good looking film and I'm happy for the filmmaker being able to get his project realized after 9 years but its a watch and forget kind of movie unfortunately.

The concept is decent enough and could have made a great 30 min episode of Black Mirrors or the Outer Limits. I kept waiting for it to get interesting with a plot twist or the action to pick up. But nope... 💤

I gave it a 2, after all, it was shot in color. Perhaps the language should have been French, it has all those deep symbolic moments the viewer is supposed to absorb. sadly, I was only one third in when my fidgety twitching gave way to using the right arrow key on the video player. I'm not unsympathetic to Indies, some have been milestones in movie history. This will not be one of them.

I'm ok with the low-budget. I'm ok with the slow pace. I'm even ok with the the various continuity and plot hole issues.

But Norman is such a dick! And I'm not talking roguish dick like, say, Mad Men's Don Draper. I mean petulant dick like, say, Mad Men's Pete Campbell.

Other than his verbally abused, co-dependent AI, Norman is essentially the only character on screen for most of the movie. So it's a real problem that he's so unlikable.

It was way too slow and boring. The only positive thing was cinematography - close up shots and all sorts of other things done with the camera, it looked professional. However, the script is awful, dialog is boring and actors are, well, pretending to act, they aren't playing their characters. I really wanted to like this movie, since Primer, which is also a low-budget time travel movie was everything I was hoping for.

Producers focused too much on getting this movie to look pretty and professionally shot, whilst forgetting that story should be the central point.

I could forgive for the bad acting, since, I know they aren't professional, paid actors, as long as the script is good and the story is intriguing. In this case, it felt they just wanted to shoot all sorts of objects up close and show off their camera skills.

I am really sad the plot is so dull, I can't recommend this movie to anybody.