A slam bang premise is destroyed by terrible execution in this dreary sci-fi sludge.
The most awkward set up ever finds Anthony Mackie, whose character is dying of cancer, dabbling with a drug that allows users to zip to other points in time. He wants to find the daughter of his partner and best friend, played by Jamie Dornan, who looks like he wants to be anywhere but in this movie. She took the drug, went back in time, but got stuck there, because that can happen. The exposition and drama is doled out in haphazard chunks, the film flirts with racial themes about the difference between how white people and black people view the past, nothing coheres with anything else, and to top it all off the film looks terrible, like the whole thing was smothered in colorless gravy.
Mackie tries mightily to do something, anything, with this movie, but he's let down by virtually every single other aspect of the film. Dornan comes as close to being embalmed that a human being can be without being actually embalmed. There are a couple of moments (that scene with the wooly mammoth!) that tease us with the promise of what could have been, which are mostly just cruel because of what we're actually given.
Grade: D.
The most awkward set up ever finds Anthony Mackie, whose character is dying of cancer, dabbling with a drug that allows users to zip to other points in time. He wants to find the daughter of his partner and best friend, played by Jamie Dornan, who looks like he wants to be anywhere but in this movie. She took the drug, went back in time, but got stuck there, because that can happen. The exposition and drama is doled out in haphazard chunks, the film flirts with racial themes about the difference between how white people and black people view the past, nothing coheres with anything else, and to top it all off the film looks terrible, like the whole thing was smothered in colorless gravy.
Mackie tries mightily to do something, anything, with this movie, but he's let down by virtually every single other aspect of the film. Dornan comes as close to being embalmed that a human being can be without being actually embalmed. There are a couple of moments (that scene with the wooly mammoth!) that tease us with the promise of what could have been, which are mostly just cruel because of what we're actually given.
Grade: D.