Reviews

Attention: Paragraph of spoilers at the end, which is indicated.

I found the idea interesting, but unfortunately the whole story too far fetched. Too many questions are left unanswered in the end (examples: see spoilers). The actors are okay, but nothing special. The main weakpoint is the story/script.

Warning: SPOILERS ahead The key to the mystery is explained from approximately Minute 62 on, by the boy with the scar (which is caused by a hit by Fred Fitzell): It assumes there is an unnamed, extraterrestrial, parasitic power (picture of a galaxy) which secretly forces every human being on earth to obey the concept of (linear) time. This power itself obeys the concept of time. Only when you're under the influence of the drug named mercury you can escape this concept and live parallel other lives, like in a multiverse. Fred lives an alternate life with Cindy until that certain point, when he says he can't follow her any longer, and so she disappears. Unclear is the role of his mother: It is implied that she's been manipulating Fred in the name of the power from his birth on. But nevertheless Fred is crying when she passes. In the end he makes peace with the life he's chosen with Karen.

Questions, for instance:

• Why does the e.t. Power suppress humans? What's the benefit for it?

• Why can Cindy continue with the multiverse life and Fred can't?

Sorry, this movie was a let-down. It was a totally mediocre, implausible mix of too many different threads. The focus was not on the case, but on the sub-plots. The only positive things about this movie are the cinematography and the showdown, which was fairly thrilling. Even though I usually like the actor Mikael Persbrandt, in this role I found him not authentic. Try to avoid this one and consider my recommendations. I didn't read the book, maybe it's much better than the movie (hopefully).

Recommended movies, which are similar, but far better than this: - Stig Larsson's Millennium-trilogy + US-remake by David Fincher with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara - The Woman in the Cage/The Keeper of Lost Causes - Most of the Wallander-movies - The witness(es), mini-serial - The bridge I + II

*** Warning: Begin of spoilers ***

• the hypnosis-scenes: bad, uninspired, boring. - one of the victims is the persecutor: seen so many times, but in a much better way. - the problems in the relationship of Erik and Simone: superfluous. - the story was in total too unbelievable.

*** End of spoilers ***

I'm a fan of sci-fi, for instance I like "Event Horizon" (1997) from Paul W. S. Anderson (with Sam Neill, Lawrence Fishburne and many others) very much and the first two parts of the "Alien"-Saga, too. Now this movie pretended to be cool but wasn't at all. The beginning and approximately first 20 minutes were not so bad, but then everything went wrong and the movie became a boring mess. It's been a while since I watched such a bad movie. If you do not want to waste your time (or money), miss this one.

!!!!! warning: maybe spoilers ahead !!!!!

Two slightly positive aspects: 1) the design of the helmets; 2) the exploration of the iced station. I think the makers were too ambitious yet didn't manage to write a decent script. Almost all characters were so unlikeable that I didn't care what happened to them, even the main character named Whit. The dialogs were awful, too. Unfortunately, except of the beginning there were no suspense and no real scares, but senseless yelling, running, beating, blood and gore. The twist in the end came out of the blue and was somehow ridiculous.

Saw "Operation Dead End" (Germany, 1986) on TV few days ago. I remembered this movie was shown in cinemas 1986, which caught my interest then, but I never saw it until now. So I had a middle high expectation, which turned out to be a big disappointment. For plot outline, please read the official paragraph above.

Although it began interesting (e. g. the introduction of the volunteers/experimentees, the transport by ship and helicopter to the island, the gasmasks, the shelter), the story went downhill after ca. half an hour. I nevertheless watched it completely, because my mind was busy with thinking about the poor quality of this movie, about the many implausibilities and inconsistencies (see the collection of spoilers below). Moreover, I was too lazy to get up and go to bed.

Why it was so poor: The director wanted to show off by being "cool", but lacked very much in substance. The situation of two men and a woman imprisoned in a shelter for over 60 days was never adequately used. Many times it was ridiculous how the experimentees behave, and the scientists on the ship, too. The behaviours of the characters were most of the time incomprehensible and full of clichés, the psychology behind was unbelievable. The actors were not so bad, but given such a bad script (with bad dialogues) they didn't get a chance to redeem the movie. There was little suspense/thrill, much boredom and in the end a big question mark: What sense did it make?

Begin spoilers **************** Some of the main implausibilities/inconsistencies: - The island is (supposedly) contaminated with a germ (anthrax, for example), therefore one must wear a gasmask there. But in the shelter, there is no airlock! Instead, the whole shelter must be air-cleaned every time the door is opened. This procedure is not believable, because every shelter with autonomous air supply has an airlock. - In the shelter it's uncomfortably cold, the experimentees said. Why? Is this part of the experiment (to investigate what exactly?), a technical incapability/failure or because of supposed sadism of the scientists? It is not explained. - What do the inhabitants do the whole day? They have no things at all to do (neither work nor leisure time activities), so it is only a question of time, that they will get a nervous breakdown. What is the purpose for such hard preconditions? Even prisoners get something to do. - A rat is in this small high-tech shelter with video and audio surveillance all around, and no-one of the scientists/technicians recognized this before? This is unlikely/hardly believable. - Boris (the blond man) outwits the scientists by disturbing the video transmission and they have no idea why, although they are actually watching him doing this? Ridiculous. - When Leslie (the dark-haired man) out of the blue went nuts and tried to rape Kim, Boris makes no attempt to stop him. Maybe he thinks: That's none of my business, so I'm ignoring this. But we can't learn, because we get no insights in the characters whatsoever. - When the 60 days are over and nobody comes to pick them up, the inhabitants plan to destroy the (for 30 days) remaining food rations to force the scientists to come. In order to do this, they must leave the shelter (why? Also implausible! They could have dumped it into the toilet), but the door can only be opened (remotely controlled) by the scientists, which they actually do despite their knowledge of the plan. This is completely illogical: The scientists make it possible, that the inhabitants can end the experiment, which wasn't the intention of the scientists. End spoilers **************

Result: 2 points out of 10, because of the quirky 1980's atmosphere (especially the suddenly starting cheap synthesizer music) and the mediocre first half hour. Besides there are worse films than that.

Recommendations: If you like this sort of movies, I recommend you "Das Experiment" (2001, Oliver Hirschbiegel), "A Cold Night's Death" (1973, Jerrold Freedman), "Quiet Earth" (1985, Geoff Murphy), "Operation Ganymed" (1977, Rainer Erler, rare!), "Phase IV" (1974, Saul Bass), "The Andromeda Strain" (1971, Robert Wise). These are much better movies.

For me this one is a ghost story in the most traditional way: it creates a frightening atmosphere, there are few very well set shock effects without any blood/gore. The story is quite good, but could have been asking more questions (and some of them being answered).

After seeing a movie I ask myself mostly the same key questions: Did I like it (and why/why not)? Was it so good that I would want to see it again? Can I recommend it? Was there something new/original in this film? Yes, overall I liked it and I can recommend it, it is worth looking. I would watch it again, but only after a longer period of time and not in cinema (although the surround sound effects were really impressive). Maybe it is not quite fair, but the similarity to "the sixth sense" is close at hand. Compared to "the sixth sense" this one loses a bit, and not only because I saw "the sixth sense" first. There were not enough new things to make it a classic of the genre. Unfortunately I could not sympathize so closely with the characters as I did in "the sixth sense".

! Warning: possibly spoiler ahead! I think the story is incomplete in some ways: for example in the end the question "why did Grace do it?" comes up, but there is no hint of an explanation ("crazy" is not satisfying enough) and I could not detect a sufficient motivation for it in her acting before. But I see this as a lack in the script, not in the acting of Nicole Kidman.