Monday, September 11 11:59 PM RYERSON
This movie is based on some nifty ideas that are well-reworked old ideas combined together and made to look new. Which is usually a winning formula. This time I was kind of disappointed though. I think the first time I've been disappointed by a Midnight Madness movie.
It's all about the past and the future haunting the present, and that part of the movie is well presented. The two main characters quite quickly decide that the doppelgangers that they keep running into are the future deaths of both of them, so the majority of the movie is them trying to figure out why this is happening and trying to escape or avoid it.
And now I'll have to give a bit of it away to tell you why something that could have been pretty good ended up being... just okay.
The main characters are completely unable to escape their fates. Everything they try just leads them closer to their dooms. The movie is very meticulous in that. Every injury is reflected on the character and their doppelganger. Unfortunately though, the truck that plays many important roles has multiple fates that are mutually exclusive. The truck is used in the past by the mother to get the kids out. The truck in the present is a rusty old ruin next to the barn. So I'm supposed to believe that after the kids were rescued someone drove it back to where it came from and parked it there to turn into rust? I don't think so. That's not where it ends, either. The _ghost_ of the truck (really, no kidding) is used to transport the daughter to the island (in the present), is later taken by someone else, and is later still hijacked by the daughter. She then tries to drive it off the island over a bridge that doesn't exist in the present. This leaves the ghost truck in the river. There's definitely only one truck, but it seems quite capable of either escaping or having multiple destinies. And maybe time travel.
It's just a truck, but when half the movie is rigidly consistent and the other half is... the opposite... it was just a little bit too much for me. It gave me the impression that the movie was at odds with itself and couldn't make up its mind.
Posted by Task at September 13, 2006 01:25 PM