Predestination (2014)

It can be difficult to alter the sequence of events in a story.  In the case of Memento, it makes sense.  Telling the story backwards mimics the main character’s amnesia.  We get insight into the character by not knowing what came before.  I don’t always like stories told in flashback, but it works in Forest Gump.  Lost also used it to give background on the characters.  Sometimes, a linear format doesn’t really make sense.  You have to pick somewhere to start and tell the story from there.

Predestination starts with a temporal agent (played by Ethan Hawke) trying to stop a fugitive called The Fizzle Bomber.  The agent fails to apprehend the bomber, but at least mitigates the effects of one of his bombs.  He has surgery to repair his face and is reassigned.  He now works as a barkeeper.  This is how he meets The Unmarried Mother, who’s played by Sarah Snook.  Barkeep and The Unmarried Mother start talking.  She writes confession stories for a magazine.

She’s got a heck of a story of her own, which Barkeep is perfectly willing to listen to.  Not only was she put up for adoption at an early age, but she has a child of her own that was taken from her a few days after the child’s birth.  The latter ordeal really affects her, as she can’t mother a child any more and the father of the child hurt her.  It’s not all bad news, though.  Barkeep may be able to help her in more ways than one.

I don’t want to go into a lot of detail.  Explaining the plot is a slippery slope.  The more I explain, the more I have to tell to explain that.  It’s one of those mysteries that unravels itself as the story goes along. Everyone has a secret and everyone has their own perspective and context.  When you figure all of that out, the story becomes clear.  (In that regard, you have to pay attention.  It’s a lot to take in.)

The movie is based on the story All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein.  The movie seems to stay pretty close to the source material.  If you’ve read the story, there shouldn‘t be any surprises.   This isn’t to say it’s not worth watching.  I’ve always liked stories with a twisted plot.  I enjoy waiting for the next piece to fall into place.

I’m not sure if it’s that I knew the story coming in, but the movie seemed well paced.  It wasn’t rushed and I wasn’t overly eager to find out what happened next.  There were a few aspects that seemed odd, but not to the point of being confusing or contradictory.  For instance, the Unmarried Mother had applied to be in a space program.  I don‘t recall such a program existing, but it wasn‘t distracting.  Overall, it was a great movie. 


IMDb page

Explorers (1985)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

There are a lot of movies that I remember from growing up.  The problem is that I don’t remember any of them well enough to write a review of them.  This is where Netflix comes in handy.  I’ve recently been going through movies that I remember from years past.  I had actually all but forgotten about Explorers.  One day, while goofing around on Wikipedia, I came across the movie and decided to look it up.  Lo and behold, there it was, available for streaming.

I remembered very little about it, except that it was about three teenagers that manage to build a spaceship based on some dreams that one of them was having.  They manage to leave Earth and are taken aboard an alien spaceship, where they make some new friends.  There were a few throwaway lines and jokes, but that was about it.

Ben Crandall is the kid with the dreams.  Ben sees himself floating over what he believes is a circuit board.  He remembers enough of it to show to his nerdy and unfortunately named friend, Wolfgang Muller.  Wolfgang recognizes enough of it to build something.  Along for the ride is Darren Woods, a kid that helped Ben with some bullies.

Amazingly, the prototype is able to work.  It even downloads some instructions.  Wolfgang manages to figure out what’s going on; it’s creating a stable force field.  He can even manipulate it.  They make it big enough for a small home-made vessel to fit in.  When it develops a mind of its own, they shut it down, but make another attempt not long after.

The vessel is brought on to an alien ship.  After being split up, they meet some aliens.  The aliens really like Earth (read: American) culture.  All they want to do is meet some humans.  The five of them hang out for a while before the humans are basically told that it’s time to go.

I have to admit that nostalgia played a huge part in rewatching this film.  I probably would have passed on watching it had I not seen it as a child.  I remembered liking it when I first saw it, but not so much now.  From what I’ve read, it was rushed to theaters, but it does have a complete look to me, even if just barerly.  I’m wondering if there were other scenes that were meant to be filmed but left out.

It’s kind of weird to think of a few teenagers making a functional spaceship off of a lucid dream.  (Granted, they did have help.)  It’s the kind of thing that, if done well, could have spawned a sequel or a TV series.   It seemed to me that the aliens got a small amount of screen time.

It’s definitely a movie that children could enjoy.  There’s not much violence, other than Ben being beaten up.  You don’t have any adult themes.  It’s just three kids going on an adventure.  Do they give up after a few setbacks or do they go into the great unknown?  There is a great deal of trust in restarting the project.

All things considered, I don’t regret rewatching the movie.  It was still kind of fun to see.  I’d recommend checking it out if you have kids.  The aliens are kind of goofy, but I don’t think would be scary for children in grade school. 

IMDb page