This review contains two spoilers;
Together, they make up the entire story, so double warning there. Not only you risk knowing the whole film from reading them, you are also forewarned of how little plot this film has.
The Traveler is bad, dull and really, really poor.
Val Kilmer (nice acting, but very limited role) is The Traveler, the spirit of a drifter killed by six policemen a few years back, as they were trying to get a confession out of him. He walks into the police station, and confesses that he has murdered six people. So far, so good. Few minutes later, and we learn - directly through the characters speaking - that the "confessions" are the murders of these six cops, about to happen. Then , he "kills" them, or rather, they get killed by invisible stuff in ways that remind of how he the Traveler was beaten by the cops.
OK, ghostly revenge, we get it.
This film is a ghost thriller, very old-skool at that. Some hints of a good story that never happens. Sound is decent, if a little bare. Not much else going for this film. There is plenty of gore, but it isn't even well done. There is very little suspense, since the plot is laid bare right away. The film reaches an end when another ghost turns up, and tells the last cop standing that if he says "Stanley" and then shoots him, he's gonna kill him, and he does. The End.
I'm not against films that bring out the plot right away, but only on the grounds that the bring on an unexpected twist later in the story.
"It leads you to believe you get the plot, but then strikes you!" (i hope nobody quotes that line) Well, not only The Traveler doesn't do that, it cheeses up the already bad ending by killing that last bit of dread you'r supposed to feel with a shotgun blast that, as we all know, is the ultimate ghost-deterrent. But only if you say "Stanley".
Lately i'v been seeing some films that have really zero quality control; Don't they have some guy in Hollywood who reads the script, who can tell them how crap it is? The Traveler is a real waste of time, the only audience that might have any use for this film is horror fanboys who want to see new ways of people getting killed (there aren't any), and even then they would be disappointed. And the idea of having ALL the lights in the film be failing at once, throughout the film resulting in the dodgiest flickering ever captured on camera, was just plain *expletive* dumb.
I'm no filmmaker, but my humble opinion is that if someone wants to be in charge of a few million dollars, they should have at least gone through filmmaking school. This story would have made (and probably has) a decent Twilight Zone episode, at a cool 40min long. At 90min, its one hour too long.And it's not like you can pick the good bits out of it, since suspense films are based on the concept of scary stuff happening at proper intervals. That is SUSPENSE.
I dare anyone to watch this film and come to a different conclusion than mine. Its so bad, the reel it's sitting on is a waste of space. Seriously, don't spoil your evening on a DVD of The Traveler, it's really, really bad. Get yourself ANY other film, its guaranteed to be more entertaining than this one.
Vote 4/10 (tempted to go back and vote 3)
Together, they make up the entire story, so double warning there. Not only you risk knowing the whole film from reading them, you are also forewarned of how little plot this film has.
The Traveler is bad, dull and really, really poor.
Val Kilmer (nice acting, but very limited role) is The Traveler, the spirit of a drifter killed by six policemen a few years back, as they were trying to get a confession out of him. He walks into the police station, and confesses that he has murdered six people. So far, so good. Few minutes later, and we learn - directly through the characters speaking - that the "confessions" are the murders of these six cops, about to happen. Then , he "kills" them, or rather, they get killed by invisible stuff in ways that remind of how he the Traveler was beaten by the cops.
OK, ghostly revenge, we get it.
This film is a ghost thriller, very old-skool at that. Some hints of a good story that never happens. Sound is decent, if a little bare. Not much else going for this film. There is plenty of gore, but it isn't even well done. There is very little suspense, since the plot is laid bare right away. The film reaches an end when another ghost turns up, and tells the last cop standing that if he says "Stanley" and then shoots him, he's gonna kill him, and he does. The End.
I'm not against films that bring out the plot right away, but only on the grounds that the bring on an unexpected twist later in the story.
"It leads you to believe you get the plot, but then strikes you!" (i hope nobody quotes that line) Well, not only The Traveler doesn't do that, it cheeses up the already bad ending by killing that last bit of dread you'r supposed to feel with a shotgun blast that, as we all know, is the ultimate ghost-deterrent. But only if you say "Stanley".
Lately i'v been seeing some films that have really zero quality control; Don't they have some guy in Hollywood who reads the script, who can tell them how crap it is? The Traveler is a real waste of time, the only audience that might have any use for this film is horror fanboys who want to see new ways of people getting killed (there aren't any), and even then they would be disappointed. And the idea of having ALL the lights in the film be failing at once, throughout the film resulting in the dodgiest flickering ever captured on camera, was just plain *expletive* dumb.
I'm no filmmaker, but my humble opinion is that if someone wants to be in charge of a few million dollars, they should have at least gone through filmmaking school. This story would have made (and probably has) a decent Twilight Zone episode, at a cool 40min long. At 90min, its one hour too long.And it's not like you can pick the good bits out of it, since suspense films are based on the concept of scary stuff happening at proper intervals. That is SUSPENSE.
I dare anyone to watch this film and come to a different conclusion than mine. Its so bad, the reel it's sitting on is a waste of space. Seriously, don't spoil your evening on a DVD of The Traveler, it's really, really bad. Get yourself ANY other film, its guaranteed to be more entertaining than this one.
Vote 4/10 (tempted to go back and vote 3)