Predestination - 2014

Predestination - 2014 - Michael Spierig · Peter Spierig

Predestination doesn't really fall into the horror junkie category but... it's my blog so deal with it :)

Lets talk about time travel shall we.  If your a fan of
time travel /mind bending movies like "Primer" "Butterfly Effect" and "Triangle" you will adore what "Predestination" has to offer.   Its intricate story and Sarah Snook's superb acting make this one to put on the top of your "Timely" movie queue.  This can be a tricky review do write considering the potential spoilers that are involved, so here we go.

The movie explores the possibilities related to the Predestination Paradox also known as a causality loop. It's an event that triggers another event that prevents changing the first event.  Good luck wrapping your head around the possibilities but "Predestination" makes it fun.
Ethan Hawke is a Temporal agent in charge of tracking down a terrorist who will eventually and does kill thousands of innocent people in New York City.  One night he meets John played by (Sarah Snook) in a bar and they get to discussing John's life story and how he was once a woman.  John/Jane was abandoned as an infant by a mysterious stranger at a orphanage.  Identified as a female, he is raised as "Jane". Jane later tries to join the Space Corps and excels in the recruitment tests, but is removed from the list because of an incident.  After being expelled she meets a mysterious stranger who gets her pregnant and then vanishes.  During the birth of her child the doctors discover that Jane was born with both female and male reproductive organs, allowing Jane to give birth to a baby with her female reproductive organs. The baby is kidnapped while still in the hospital. And without Jane's consent, the physician forces Jane to undergo an operation to remove her female sexual organs — irreparable after birth complications — therefore becoming a man named John.

Still with me??

The temporal agent (Ethan Hawke) feels that John would make an excellent recruit for the "Temporal Bureau" so he begins to expose and train him in the art of jumping to a specific date in the past or the future.

I love the endless possibilities that "Predestination" lays out in front of us and the conundrum and consequences that the temporal agency faces with each time jump that they make. If you enjoy actually having to think not only during the first viewing of a movie, but to ponder it afterwards.  And to even go as far as to research the potential of time travel you will hands down LOVE this one.

The Pyramid - 2014

The Pyramid - Grégory Levasseur - 2014

The best part of "The Pyramid" is its feeling of claustrophobia.  And thats it...  The acting is okay but the CGI and story are seriously lacking.
 
A new pyramid has been discovered just outside of Cairo at a time when there is civil unrest. There is violence that is near to the archaeologists that are attempting to unearth thousands of years of sand and dirt and they have been ordered to leave the area in 24 hours. During the excavation an entrance is located and opened causing the closest worker to get engulfed with a deadly mixture of toxic gases. The team leader is reluctant to send anyone inside so they turn to a NASA rover that they just happen to have borrowed into the never ending catacombs. During its short exploration of the tombs someone or something incapacitates it. Unwilling to leave the expensive piece of equipment behind the team decides to enter the Pyramid to recover it. Once inside they quickly get turned around and lost with no way of getting out. One by one each member of the team is killed by an dark creature that looks very much like Anubis the jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion.



The CGI is sub-standard at best and definitely pulls you out of the experience every time Anubis or the little sphinx are on screen. They're almost cute the way they scamp around and drag people to their grisly CGI death. Theres a better way to build tension and horror (gore) without the use of BAD CGI. The story is a cheap knock off of Alien meets The Descent so it becomes predictable. If more time and money was spent on developing practical SFX and a better story well than you'd have a "Hollywood" POS.  The point being; if its a low budget film then stay true to that premise and don't try to be something your not.

So Lame!!