Z/Web

This movie is a sequel to the mediocre Independence Day, a film that was better than the sum of its parts since it had some heart and patriotism. This one picks up 20 years later after earth has been transformed by alien technology, while we’re preparing and waiting for the aliens’ inevitable return.

Unfortunately, this is a lot of awkward jokes and attempts at humor, characters that are mere sketches with obvious stereotypical characteristics (The Jock, The Innocent, The Toughie, The Hero, etc.), and special effects that are so ambitious they utter fail to be convincing at all.

There are still a handful of good moments, a few heroic scenes, and some interesting/cool effects, but overall everything is paint by numbers and the plot is sleep-inspiring in its predictability.

Okay action flick about a retired hit man being forced to kill three “impossible” targets. The idea is good, and the action is good, but the manipulations are absurd.

For instance, they track down and chase this hitman all over the world, losing dozens of men in the process — if they have the resources to do that, why can’t they kill the targets themselves? Then extort an innocent woman so that the hitman somehow falls in the love with her (after meeting her for two seconds); this hitman is such a softie that when they kidnap the girl, he’s powerful to do anything but obey them.

Pretty silly, but still fun, and has a few good moments. A good movie to watch while reading a book.

This is a very strange movie with some big stars (like Harrison Ford in a wasted role). It’s filled with clichés and lame stuff transparently stolen from the headlines, such as Steve Jobs-like tech moguls, fake smartphone tech that looks incredibly cheesy and unrealistic, and a plot filled with coincidence and silliness.

The basic idea has some merit: a tech wiz is blackmailed to go work for the competition in order to steal tech secrets, thus embroiling him in a complex spy world.

But the writers ruin it by doing stupid stuff like having the two companies being run by former partners who now hate each other (gee, that’s original), our hero having previously had a one-night stand with one of his new colleagues, and idiotic spy-within-spy scenarios that are just too convoluted to be interesting.

It’s made worse when they can’t get basic reality right, such as how our hero is fired from the first company for being incompetent (he’s worked there for years as a nobody), and yet suddenly he’s like the top guy at the new company.

In short, very little of this works. It’s all a muddled mess and there’s next to nothing that relates to the inappropriate title. The top actor names chew scenery with corny dialog and the young ones seem to clueless to realize their in a bad movie. Pretty sad waste of potential.

Shockingly good character-driven film that’s not all about special effects and mutant powers.

Set in the future, it deals with the end of the X-Men, after mutants are essentially cured. But there’s one new mutant, a little girl, that’s being hunted, and that gets Logan (Wolverine) and a half-drugged Professor X to try and protect her.

There’s good action and a lot of unusual scenes, like Logan getting old. The movie feels small, in a way, intimate, and that makes it much more powerful. By far the best of all the X-Men movies.

I assumed at first that this was little more than a ploy to get more money out of Harry Potter fans, but it’s not: it’s a real movie with great new characters and an excellent story.

It’s set about 70 years before Harry Potter, in 1924 New York City where Brit Newt Scalamander arrives and runs into trouble. He’s a sort of zoo-keeper animal behavioralist for magical creatures. There’s fun stuff when some of his strange beasts escape, but a darker plot when he runs into a threat to NYC that could reveal the magical community to the general “no magic” public.

Like Harry Potter, there are serious things behind the fun, with real deaths and threats of death, and some people might not like that for young kids (though I think it’s fine and better than the saccharine-coated world most modern children’s literature gives us).

The casting and acting is superb (though two characters looked so much alike I got them confused at first); Eddie Redmayne is perfect as Newt.

This is supposed to the first of a whole series of “Fantastic Beasts” movies. I can’t wait!

I had little interest in seeing this from the previews. I was expecting a new movie to continue last years’ story and this is another prequel. (The premise is this takes place before “A New Hope” and covers how the Death Star plans were obtained to bring to Princess Leia.)

But I finally went to see it anyway and it’s surprisingly good. There’s great action, fun characters (I loved the sardonic robot), and a decent plot. It’s not “important” in terms of carrying on the whole Star Wars story, but it’s interesting.

I really liked this! I couldn’t tell that much about it from the previews, and that’s because you can’t really explain much without giving away the story.

It sounds generic — about people in suspended animation on a huge starship’s 120-year voyage — but the visuals, good acting, and the intriguing psychological complexity of the plot make it worth your time.

I skipped this in the theatres because it seemed so derivative and lame. It shows up on my movie channel and I read that it’s based on a “classic” 1993 book that’s taught in schools. Why, I’m not sure. The book must be a lot better than the movie!

The movie has a lot of potential: a decent cast, high production values, and some good direction, but it misses on several key levels.

The first is the poor explanation/presentation of the dystopian world we’re in; this is not shown very well, and since the whole point of the story is the contrast between the empty, meaningless, controlled world and a world with emotions and pain, the story fails. Sure, there is an excellent attempt to show this contrast by filming the earlier parts of the film in black and white and then showing color once our hero starts to see the real world for the first time, but that’s a metaphor, not a way to show us how this odd society actually functions.

The second and even bigger problem is the way our main character is shown to change. As he learns the truth about humanity’s past and his society, he’s changing, but that isn’t clear. For instance, he starts to get angry and act out, but since we never saw much of him before, or any of the regulated society, we don’t realize this is a huge shift. The film does this quite often: as a viewer we don’t understand the significance of what we’re watching until much later and by then it’s lost all emotional impact. I suppose if you’ve read the book it’s clear what is going on, but not just from watching the movie.

Another awkward problem is the way memories are shown. Supposedly our hero receives memories from the “Giver,” an old man who stores all of mankind’s memories. This happens throughout the film, but the presentation is lame: we just cut to whatever memory he’s experiencing. It’s jarring, awkward, confusing, and much too plain. At least give us some sort of transition in and out of the memory sequence.

There are lots of other problems, such as the story being dull without any action until the very end (and then it ends much too quickly and easily), and how our hero somehow instantly understanding concepts — like death, bullets, and cruelty — that should have been utterly foreign and incomprehensible to him, but we’ll just leave it at that.

None of this is to say the film isn’t watchable or interesting. It is confusing at first, and the pace is slow, but there is a little magic in the combination of cast and filming that makes this appealing. It’s not great, but it has its moments, and though the idea feels derivative, it has some clever aspects. I can see how if you liked the book you might enjoy the movie. Those of us who haven’t will need further encouragement.

Fun dark comedy zombie parody set in the idyllic 1950s. Uneven, as these things usually are, but quite brilliant in some ways. In this world zombies are part of normal society and used as slaves. A boy befriends a zombie who becomes like a dog to him, until “Fido” starts killing people.

I’m not sure why this is getting high marks; it felt very ordinary to me. It’s well-done, and there are a lot of good moments, but the story is awkward, a weird buddy movie about an American CIA agent and a Russian KGB agent joining together against their will to track down a bad guy.

Part of the problem is the casting, since every actor is cast as from different country then their native one (i.e. the British actor plays an American, the American plays a Russian, etc.). It’s weird and confusing (and I don’t see the point other than the actors showing off).

The story is convoluted, as these things usually are, but not especially interesting. There are the expected betrayals and twists you see miles away, and the ending is anticlimactic.

None of this is to say the movie isn’t enjoyable. Despite the flaws and unevenness, I had a good time. But I’d only give it a six out of ten.

Fun movie. Great special effects, cool action, and good story about a brilliant guy who took a wrong path and is trying to redeem himself. There’s not much depth here — it’s just a popcorn superhero flick — but it’s well-done. There’s a great balance of all the elements: humor, action, plot.

I like that the bad guy is kept relatively modest, unlike so many superhero movies where the bad guy is building a death star or something ridiculously over-the-top. There’s still plenty at stake for a satisfying film.

Strange film. Remarkable in some ways, and idiotic in others, this seems like a film that should have been more famous. But I’d never even heard of it. Seems like it was a terrible flop despite having known stars like Chris Evans, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, and Octavia Spencer.

The premise is weird: in a future ice age, everyone on earth is dead, except for a handful of survivors who managed to board a luxury supertrain. The train is on an elaborate track that takes it around the entire planet, through almost every continent, in one year. It’s supposedly completely self-sustaining and will never run out of power (no explanation of how that works), so it makes sense (I guess) that people onboard can survive the frigid cold.

On this train a strange class system has developed, with the tail passengers at the low-end, eating refuse, and struggling to survive, while the rich live in the front and live in luxury and eat steak (no idea where the steak comes from).

Thus the story of the film is about a rebellion, where the low-class try to fight their way to front of the train. There’s a lot of good here, in terms of heroic characters, dramatic scenes, terrible violence, and over-the-top villains. The film has echoes of Brazil and 1984 and other classics. Visually the film is amazing, with fantastic ice and snow exterior shots, and a wide variety of interesting indoor scenes (different parts of the train).

Unfortunately, the plot is so convoluted and there are so many obvious flaws of logic and important details unexplained, that the whole thing feels awkward and incomplete.

As one example, there’s a small dramatic moment (slight spoiler here) where our hero discovers the “protein bars” they live on are made from ground-up cockroaches. There’s a giant vat with millions of them being ground up into a gelatin-like paste. The first and obvious thought (besides being disgusted) is where the heck do the cockroaches come from? In a frozen world with almost no living thing, I can believe that cockroaches survived, but how are they harvested? Especially in enough numbers to sustain the lives of hundreds of people on a train?

That’s just one flaw; there are probably 50 such plot holes in the film. It’s as though the filmmakers just wanted certain things to happen so they did them that way, regardless of logic or the rules of reality.

That makes this film incredibly disappointing. While on the whole I liked it; the great visuals and interesting storyline are quite compelling. However, the film is so stupid in other ways, it’s absolutely baffling. Worth seeing, but with caution: turn off your brain and just enjoy the show.

This is a terrific new film from Woody Allen; his best in ages, if not ever. It’s billed as a comedy but it isn’t very funny unless you like dry or wry humor. I’d call it playful.

The story’s about a depressed philosophy professor who is sick of a life of abstract talk and no action and finally “commits an existential act” — that’s a fancy way of saying murder. He discovers this changes everything and he’s suddenly a new man, full of life and passion. Of course, then some obstacles come up as nothing’s perfect.

The ending is too good to spoil so I’ll just say it’s terrific, full of witty poetic justice. The whole film is wonderfully acted, photographed, and presented, with just the right light-hearted pacing and tone. It is a bit heavy on the dialog and philosophy, so I can see how this wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but if you like films that make you think without being too intellectual, this is right up your alley.

Fun action flick that’s great from start to finish. The plot’s ridiculous and makes about as much sense as mud, but the actors are all having so much fun and the action’s so cool that none of that matters. The story’s is little more than something to string together fantastic action set pieces, but that’s okay, as it somehow works.

This seemed silly-but-cool, and that’s exactly what I got. The plot is ridiculous — aliens mistake footage of 1980s video games as our reality and attack us via technology that works just like games (except it’s deadly) — and it’s up to a ragtag team of video game nerds from the 80s who have to save the day.

It’s fun. The special effects of the attacking video games are totally awesome and impressive: Pac-Man eating the streets of New York, Centipede descending from the heavens in London, Galaga’s patterned spaceships, a life-sized Donkey Kong, and so on, are all terrific. The nostalgia of seeing the classic games of my youth is wonderful and brought back tons of memories. Seeing nerds become the heros over muscled jocks is immensely satisfying.

Yes, the whole idea is a joke stretched very thin, and this isn’t a classic film by any means, but it’s shameless in accepting that it’s silly (Kevin James as the president of the United States???) and it’s just mindless fun. I saw negative reviews where people were clearly trying to take this seriously. Get over yourselves. This is just supposed to be funny!

The idea’s pretty standard — a billionaire is dying, and learns of a process where your consciousness can be moved into a younger body. He’s told it’s a genetically engineered body, but after he makes the transfer, he learns that’s not the case, of course. He ends up meeting the wife of man whose body he’s using, and complications ensue.

The whole film is competently done. There are few surprises, but it’s a pretty good paint-by-numbers canvas. It’s got intrigue, some action, and some good performances. But just nothing… remarkable. The creatives involved seem to think the basic idea of consciousness transfer is radical and interesting enough to hold the film. The real problem is the predictability of the bad guys, though the vagueness of the transfer process — exactly how the rich guy settles up his life and prepares for a new one — isn’t shown enough to be interesting. None of the characters are that interesting either: the rich guy would be utterly boring except that he’s portrayed by the awesome Ben Kingsley (who is excellent but underused), the husband is a generic soldier, the wife just a pretty woman, and their sick little girl is cute. Even the supposed dramatic moments are generic: the rich guy pines for the daughter he ignored while she was growing up, and now she spurns his help in running a tiny non-profit, the antithesis of his capitalistic ways.

Despite these flaws it’s still a fun movie: you get exactly what it says on the label (presuming you read the label). Don’t expect more and you’ll be fine with it.

Strange film. Remarkable in some ways, and idiotic in others, this seems like a film that should have been more famous. But I’d never even heard of it. Seems like it was a terrible flop despite having known stars like Chris Evans, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, and Octavia Spencer.

The premise is weird: in a future ice age, everyone on earth is dead, except for a handful of survivors who managed to board a luxury supertrain. The train is on an elaborate track that takes it around the entire planet, through almost every continent, in one year. It’s supposedly completely self-sustaining and will never run out of power (no explanation of how that works), so it makes sense (I guess) that people onboard can survive the frigid cold.

On this train a strange class system has developed, with the tail passengers at the low-end, eating refuse, and struggling to survive, while the rich live in the front and live in luxury and eat steak (no idea where the steak comes from).

Thus the story of the film is about a rebellion, where the low-class try to fight their way to front of the train. There’s a lot of good here, in terms of heroic characters, dramatic scenes, terrible violence, and over-the-top villains. The film has echoes of Brazil and 1984 and other classics. Visually the film is amazing, with fantastic ice and snow exterior shots, and a wide variety of interesting indoor scenes (different parts of the train).

Unfortunately, the plot is so convoluted and there are so many obvious flaws of logic and important details unexplained, that the whole thing feels awkward and incomplete.

As one example, there’s a small dramatic moment (slight spoiler here) where our hero discovers the “protein bars” they live on are made from ground-up cockroaches. There’s a giant vat with millions of them being ground up into a gelatin-like paste. The first and obvious thought (besides being disgusted) is where the heck do the cockroaches come from? In a frozen world with almost no living thing, I can believe that cockroaches survived, but how are they harvested? Especially in enough numbers to sustain the lives of hundreds of people on a train?

That’s just one flaw; there are probably 50 such plot holes in the film. It’s as though the filmmakers just wanted certain things to happen so they did them that way, regardless of logic or the rules of reality.

That makes this film incredibly disappointing. While on the whole I liked it; the great visuals and interesting storyline are quite compelling. However, the film is so stupid in other ways, it’s absolutely baffling. Worth seeing, but with caution: turn off your brain and just enjoy the show.

This movie is so bad it’s hard to know where to begin. But I might as well start the with wimpy title. Supposedly “John Wick” is a hard-core hired killer for the Russian mob. They say the name in awe as though it’s supposed to induce shivers. Huh? Why wouldn’t he go by some cool killer name like the Barracuda or something?

John’s retired, and living a peaceful life with his wife, until she dies of a long illness. We only see her via idyllic flashbacks, making her seem perfect, yet why did she marry a soulless killer like Wick? We get to endure Keanu Reaves pretending (badly) to grieve. She’s made arrangements to have a dog sent to him after her death, a surprise to help keep him from being lonely, so we get to see tough Keanu fake-cry.

Then the film really starts to go downhill. While Wick is at a gas station, a dude comments on his classic car and wants to buy it, but Wick isn’t interested in selling. It turns out the kid is the Russian mobster’s idiot son. He apparently doesn’t know who Wick is (odd, since Wick’s supposed to be such a badass), and he and his buddies break into Wick’s house in the middle of the night, beat him up, kill his dog just for fun, and steal his car. Yeah, he’s sure a tough guy allowing that to happen.

This starts a bizarre revenge plot. Wick goes after the mobsters, just walking into their den and shooting people. He’s shot up himself in the process, I guess to show vulnerability. The mobster’s dad puts out a $2 million hit on Wick, so next we have contract killers out trying to kill him, too (and nearly succeeding, as once again, Wick doesn’t seem very skilled).

The whole movie is bizarre, with everyone speaking reverently of Wick and his nearly superhuman killing abilities, and yet Wick nearly dies like 10 times. He’s actually caught and captured by the bad guys, doesn’t even count his shots so he ends up running out of bullets multiple times and pulling the trigger on empty chambers, and several times requires the aid of friends to save his hide. Then the climax is him and the mobster dad duking it out in a gunless punch fight!

In the end, this is a Game of Thrones-like death feast, with pretty much everyone dying, and no point to anything. The film has a few interesting moments and concepts, like the strange “hit man” hotel, where hit men are promised security while they stay (and yet the windows aren’t even bullet-proof), but mostly is tedious with laughably implausible scenes and weak action. Shocking they got the quality cast (Keanu aside) to participate.

Not what I expected. It’s a strongly gimmicky film, with a bunch of kids in trapped in a glade with no memories of who they are, and seemingly the only way out a giant maze with walls that move each night and strange monsters that roam the paths. Clearly the kids have been placed here by some unknown people, and their situation is enforced, but we have no idea who or why.

That becomes the central mystery that doesn’t get explained until the very end, and even then it brings more questions than answers. I won’t spoil that twist, but just say it wasn’t very satisfactory. It does set up for the sequel (which I belief comes out this summer), and it promises a different sort of challenge, which is promising.

Despite the movie’s annoying flaws, it’s not terrible. There’s action, conflict among the boys, and some puzzles are solved. Still, the weak ending ruined a lot of the good of the rest of the film, and the middle part was tediously long. The whole thing is like a long joke with an unfunny punchline.

Not quite the reboot I was hoping for, but fun and not bad. Nothing like the classic original one and two, though. The new cast does a decent job, but it always feels a little awkward and weird, like watching a re-enactment of a scene from your favorite childhood sitcom with different actors.

The plot is convoluted and doesn’t make much sense, nor does the new “tech” that’s supposed to be hip, but I do like the way the old timelines have been obliterated and now we have an all new future for the Terminator series. The action is over-the-top and pretty good, as always. Don’t expect too much, but fans should have fun.

This was my favorite book as a kid; I actually had it memorized and would recite the whole thing. I was curious to see how they were able to turn such a short story into a movie.

The previews didn’t look that good — mostly showing slapstick comedy and silliness — but it’s only got some of that (though it’s still more than needed). I initially liked how they added in the twist of the boy wishing a bad day on the rest of his optimistic family so they’d know how he feels, but then that means the whole movie is really about the rest of the family’s bad day, not Alexander’s, which is… not what the book’s about.

The film still has some good moments and is quite pleasant with good lessons for young kids, but it leaves out some of the best parts of the book. For instance, in the book the key line — repeated throughout — is the boy wishing he lived in Australia. In his mind, that’s as far away as he can get, so he’d rather be there than having a bad day at home. In the movie they that turn that concept into him being obsessed with Australia (with kangaroo posters on his walls, etc.), with zero mention of why (which is the only thing about his obsession that actually matters). Rather bizarre.

Another criticism which touches on a pet peeve of mine since it’s an industry I know something about: the whole plot point about the mom’s book company somehow printing a book with a bad typo after she’d given the okay on the final proof is just absurd. It might have worked if they’d offered some explanation for how it happened, but they never did, and just blamed it on the printing company. Ridiculous.

Overall, I’d give this a C+: a decent effort, well-done for the most part, harmless, nice morals, but somehow falls flat and doesn’t do justice to such a classic book. The key flaw is having the bad day be about everyone else, not Alexander, which is just weird.

I missed this last year and wanted to see it, though I was puzzled at all the great buzz about it. It seemed to tell a very familiar story and I couldn’t figure out what was supposed to be innovative or surprising about it.

Well, there are a few surprises, mostly at the direction the film takes for the resolution, but it’s an unsatisfying conclusion. It left a bad taste in my mouth and basically ruined the movie for me. What makes the rest of the movie good is the acting, pacing, and script, which, while a predictable story, is done extremely well.

But all that is moot if the ending doesn’t work, and it doesn’t for me. Others may feel differently. I applaud that the film is trying to do something different and unusual, but it fell flat for me. It’s “poetic justice” didn’t feel like justice at all (more like a scam, with me the victim).

I also thought the psychological problems of the main characters were too severe to not be noticed earlier. (You could argue that the problems were developed later, but that doesn’t fly since part of the plot is proof that the behavior was part of a trend and similar characteristics had happened several times in the past.)

Oh well. Decent film, but not as good as the publicity made it seem.

I was not expecting much with this as the premise (personalized emotions inside a little girl’s head) seemed old and used to me (it’s just like the old Herman’s Head TV show), but once again Pixar surprises.

The key for me is that there’s a lot more innovative stuff than just talking emotions. The world inside the girl’s head is vast and well-done, with clear rules of its own. For instance, each emotion (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust) having their own color (yellow, blue, red, purple, green). There are “memory balls” — colored spheres that contain a video of key memories — that roll into as they are created, with the most special ones becoming “core” memories that define the girl’s personality. The spheres take on the color associated with that memory (happy ones are yellow, sad ones are blue, etc.). There are different places in the brain where the balls are stored (long-term, short-term, core, etc.), while less important memories are thrown away for good.

There are wonderful places inside this internal world, such as Imagination Land, and fun things like the “train of thought” which runs around rather randomly.

But all of this would be pointless without a good story, and here the writers have done a great job of keeping the outer story simple. Riley, the little girl, has moved with her family from Minnesota (where she played ice hockey all the time) to San Francisco. She’s lost all her friends, her house, her hockey, and is stuck in a new school. Her dad’s over-busy with work and stress, and their moving truck is stuck in Texas, so she doesn’t even have her things.

As these things make her sad, we see panic inside her head, where Joy, who’s usually in charge and always keeps Riley happy, is struggling to contain Sadness, who seemed to bumble everything and is turning everything blue. Then when Joy and Sadness get separated from Headquarters, that leaves Anger, Fear, and Disgust running the ship (er, Riley), with hilarious and predictably bad results. As Joy and Sadness wander around in the brain trying to get back to control things, Joy has to learn that there’s a place for Sadness, who she thought was a useless emotion. It’s a pretty cool concept as both Riley (outside world) and Joy (inside world) have to learn new lessons.

There are aspects of the film that weren’t perfect. The resolution is too easy-peasy (and we don’t get to see how Riley actually adapts and makes new friends in San Francisco, we only see that she does).

The film also violates one of my biggest pet peeves, which is showing memories from the camera point-of-view. (When you remember something, say a favorite birthday party from your childhood, do you see yourself in the video playback in your head? Of course not: you remember what you saw, not what other people saw.) But this film repeatedly shows memories of Riley ice skating and such — views she wouldn’t know. I do realize there’s a practical element to deciding to do it this way: if all we see is Riley’s viewpoint as she spinning around on ice, it’s hard for us to tell what’s going on, that’s she skating or whatever, but still. The film does open with her viewpoint, seeing her parents for the first time, etc., so it does mix both viewpoints.

Still, this is a minor gripe. Overall, the film’s more original than it sounds, has an interesting world, and a solid story, and is worth your time.

I will add that though it’s not related directly to this film, I was seriously disappointed with the opening short, Lava. Usually Pixar’s shorts are one of my favorite things about their films (and sometimes I like them better than the main feature). But this one was shockingly lame.

The premise is neat — a humanized volcano island in the ocean seeking love — but the execution is abysmal. The main volcano looks great, like a rock but with eyes and a mouth. But his love interest looks like a woman and only vaguely volcanoish. Top all that with an over-long talky “song” that narrates exactly what we’re seeing onscreen, and you have a tedious short that feels like it’s five-minutes too long. The music is weak, and the art is worse. I’m shocked this made it off the rough draft table, let alone got approved to precede a major film. Very strange.

You go to this kind of movie for the special effects and these are pretty good. It actually gives me a headache to think of all the work required to make a movie like this. Just a crazy amount of destruction.

But the actual story, while stereotypical (a man in the middle of divorce tries to rescue his family), is decent enough that we actually care about what’s going on.

Ultimately this is about non-stop action, about peril after peril (such as when the characters reach a breathing point and think they’re safe, and suddenly there’s a new threat of a giant tsunami hitting San Francisco). The film’s good at that, though certain aspects are too predictable. Still, it’s a fun ride: over-the-top, a bit silly, but surprisingly watchable.

Strange and fascinating film. It involves a scientist who is into eyes, searching for “eye origin” gene, which he could use to grow a worm without eyes into a seeing creature and therefore prove Creationists wrong (since their argument against evolution is that the eye is too complex to evolve and must have been designed).

We don’t get much into the man’s motivations or why he hates religion so vehemently, but we do get some interesting debates on spirituality versus science. This leads up to the key premise of the film where his scientific research leads him into a direction that seems to prove reincarnation.

Unfortunately, we aren’t really taken to a place where the man has to confront such a thing — the findings are ambiguous — but it’s still an interesting ride. I wouldn’t call this a great film, as it is slow in places and not enough happens, but it is thought-provoking and worth watching if you like your thinking to be challenged.