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Netflix Low-Budget Sci-Fi Movies
Time Lapse – Three friends discover a camera that shows their future, one day at a time. I'll admit that one of the draws here was Danielle Panabaker (who plays Caitlin on The Flash), who does a nice job with what could have been a one-note character. Does this fall into some horror film tropes and occasionally run on stupidity? Yes, but it's also on a small enough scale and featuring characters who aren't supposed to be geniuses (they don't invent anything; they just happen upon it and spend most of the movie running on guesses), which makes it work reasonably well. And the twist is telegraphed just enough to feel earned.
Paradox – A guy sent forward one hour returns warning that everybody's dead in the future. The thing is, this could have been a much better movie, working from this premise. It's clearly an exploration of the predestination paradox, where knowing about the future and attempting to stop it is what makes it come to pass. But in practice, they needed the crunch of the killer in a gas mask to actually make it all work; and a better movie could have avoided that. There's a clearly-telegraphed bit where, early on, somebody's head appears in the time machine, and it was mentioned that you need to keep your arms close when you time-travel because things outside the machine's field don't travel. Okay, duh, he's decapitated by the machine. But while this would have worked better as an accident of panic and fear, instead they just have the killer wrestle him onto the machine. Between time travel (within a one-hour window), building paranoia, and lack of information, you can totally end up with a room full of corpses. And a proper exploration of hubris and predestination, rather than an attempt that turns into a standard slasher flick.
Listening – Two guys create machine telepathy. It ruins their lives and then the government gets involved. I feel like this movie's big problem was one of scale: Part of that is, two-thirds of the way through, it changes the entire premise from “small-scale garage work” to “running a government black site,” which feels like they ran out of one movie so they grafted on half of a different one. The other part is constantly offering the threat of implanting commands the the government's “real” goal. There's plenty of danger in just “listening” that the movie displays perfectly well! The thought police don't need write access to be terrible; and to imply that it “isn't bad enough” to require action is doing your entire premise a disservice. (Also, they clearly had no idea what to do with their female characters, as Jordan seems to change motivations in every scene and Melanie is a one-note harpy.)
Synchronicity - A scientist opens a wormhole to the future, but complications arise when he tries to open the other end, and a mysterious woman walks into his life. This would work out better if the people involved acted like humans, rather than set-pieces who do whatever the plot require of them at the moment. Jim and Abby have no chemistry and Abby's motivations (even after the reveal that Jim-2 has been interacting with her) indicate that the writer doesn't really understand women or romance. There's no good explanation for how Abby's journal reflects Jim's life as closely as it does (even if she's been following his work up to that point) and the twist that he's in an alternate dimension rather than being screwed by a predestination paradox...doesn't really work. Really, this tries too hard to be clever and instead just manages “disjointed.” And someone should point out to the filmmakers that there are colors other than blue that appear on camera.
Paradox – A guy sent forward one hour returns warning that everybody's dead in the future. The thing is, this could have been a much better movie, working from this premise. It's clearly an exploration of the predestination paradox, where knowing about the future and attempting to stop it is what makes it come to pass. But in practice, they needed the crunch of the killer in a gas mask to actually make it all work; and a better movie could have avoided that. There's a clearly-telegraphed bit where, early on, somebody's head appears in the time machine, and it was mentioned that you need to keep your arms close when you time-travel because things outside the machine's field don't travel. Okay, duh, he's decapitated by the machine. But while this would have worked better as an accident of panic and fear, instead they just have the killer wrestle him onto the machine. Between time travel (within a one-hour window), building paranoia, and lack of information, you can totally end up with a room full of corpses. And a proper exploration of hubris and predestination, rather than an attempt that turns into a standard slasher flick.
Listening – Two guys create machine telepathy. It ruins their lives and then the government gets involved. I feel like this movie's big problem was one of scale: Part of that is, two-thirds of the way through, it changes the entire premise from “small-scale garage work” to “running a government black site,” which feels like they ran out of one movie so they grafted on half of a different one. The other part is constantly offering the threat of implanting commands the the government's “real” goal. There's plenty of danger in just “listening” that the movie displays perfectly well! The thought police don't need write access to be terrible; and to imply that it “isn't bad enough” to require action is doing your entire premise a disservice. (Also, they clearly had no idea what to do with their female characters, as Jordan seems to change motivations in every scene and Melanie is a one-note harpy.)
Synchronicity - A scientist opens a wormhole to the future, but complications arise when he tries to open the other end, and a mysterious woman walks into his life. This would work out better if the people involved acted like humans, rather than set-pieces who do whatever the plot require of them at the moment. Jim and Abby have no chemistry and Abby's motivations (even after the reveal that Jim-2 has been interacting with her) indicate that the writer doesn't really understand women or romance. There's no good explanation for how Abby's journal reflects Jim's life as closely as it does (even if she's been following his work up to that point) and the twist that he's in an alternate dimension rather than being screwed by a predestination paradox...doesn't really work. Really, this tries too hard to be clever and instead just manages “disjointed.” And someone should point out to the filmmakers that there are colors other than blue that appear on camera.
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