Told ya we were gonna talk about this movie, cause I can’t get it outta my head. It was on my Fill-In Filmography poster filed under Sci-Fi > Heady Sci-fi > Time Travel Loops. I’d seen the DVD artwork here and there and it always caught my eye, I’d just never thought much about it. It being on the list (and ten bucks in Best Buy rewards points, the exact cost the BluRay) made me finally want it. Ethan Hawke starring further sealed the deal. I’ve certainly gotta move him up my priority list because he sure knows how to pick interesting projects. Anyhoo
Hawke is some type of time traveling special agent. His job is to fix big catastrophic events in the past that will significantly impact our future. He’s been sent on his last assignment, one final shot at stopping a terrorist that has eluded him through multiple time jumps. That’s as much as I’ll say about the plot, except to add that while that seems like a kinda basic storyline, it’s really so much deeper than that. The bomber ends up being almost irrelevant as the story unfolds. Well not so much unfolds as gets told and tangled up and creates all sorts of brain breaking goodness.
(And here, I paused to get some potatoes in the oven and cut my finger with the new knife I got at Ikea. Typing with a giant cotton ball taped on. We’ll see how this goes.)
I’ve talked before about how I love a good brain buster of a film
(Pausing again because the typing made me bleed thru the cotton ball. Trying superglue)
Right. Brain buster. Whenever you deal with timetravel, you’re gonna have that to some extent. The timelines are inherently messy and it did take some thinking on it to get it straightened out in my head. I think the film did a pretty good job of helping you stick with it so you can then take it away as homework. What really bakes your noodle is the paradox aspect of it. I know better than to even try to think about that. I’d say the movie plays with paradox, but that makes it sound so light and fluffy. It fully dives into an ocean of paradox and gets dragged by the undertow. Cool tho. Gets you thinking.
(And my finger’s starting to sting. I think we’ll just leave this there.)