Predestination Review

Ethan Hawke is a temporal agent sent back in time to 1975 to prevent a catastrophic bombing where 11,000 people lose their lives. In order to do this, he must find out the identity of the so-called ‘Fizzle Bomber’ which leads him to question a mysterious person in a bar who promises to tell Hawke the best story he’s ever heard. The androgynous storyteller begins the tale with a baby being dropped at an orphanage in the 40s, growing up to become a gifted young woman before being asked to join the work of a secretive company called Space Corp. Is this the story of a killer?

Time travel paradoxes can be fun, and with a good enough story, it can be easy to forget how ridiculous the whole idea is. Predestination is built on paradoxes that would make Sarah Connor’s impregnation by a man from the future look positively straightforward in comparison. It is a twisty-turny thriller that is smart and mostly gripping, even if by the end it doesn’t hold up to any further scrutiny. 

Considering much of what occurs is simply a conversation between two people in a bar, interspersed with frequent flashbacks, Predestination is attention grabbing from start to finish. While Ethan Hawke is dependable, it is Sarah Snook who emerges as the real star, taking on a brave role that requires her to do a lot more than the average actress. To say too much about her character would be to give away some major revelations, suffice to say that Snook rises to the challenge. 

Predestination feels familiar from the likes of Timecop, Looper and Source Code but doesn’t quite manage to satisfy in the same way as any of these, despite some more original elements in its DNA.

Watch the trailer:

More reviews:

Love is Strange

Coherence

Jupiter Ascending

Selma

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Son of a Gun

Big Hero 6

Ethan Hawke in The Purge and Before Midnight

Ethan Hawke is all sorts of awesome and over the next month(ish) there are two films to look forward to featuring the star; The Purge and Before Midnight. The Purge trailer really surprised me a while back. Usually I'm pretty good at guessing the film from the first few frames or at least the first few seconds of a trailer but when I saw this, I had no idea what it was.

I hadn't actually heard anything about The Purge until I saw the trailer. The opening laid out the premise that sounded completely implausible and ridiculous. Then once it got into the action, I was hooked. For some reason it reminds me of a 90s film I used to LOOOOOOOOOVE as a kid called Judgment Night with Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr and Denis Leary. That was about a group of guys stuck in a ghetto with a madman on their tale chasing them down because they wtinessed a murder. Perhaps it is the dark tone, lighting and all set over one night thing that reminded me of The Purge.

The Purge is set in an America where the government have decided to let everyone have one night off from being law abiding citizens. The night is called the purge and is a way for society to let off steam and apparently has been very effective in reducing crime the rest of the time. Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey play a couple who lock all the doors and bar all the windows to their big, nice house and wait for the purge to pass. Then one of their kids lets a terrified stranger into the house and a group of masked psychos come a-knocking to get their prey back out.

No matter how ridiculous that premise sounds, I can't wait to see this film! Crime without consequences and people having to protect themselves from all kinds of degenerates without the help of the emergency services. Get me a ticket! It also reminds me of the upcoming You're Next which also has masked psychos causing madness after a home invasion.

Here's the trailer for The Purge:



Then if that isn't enough Ethan Hawke for you or The Purge just doesn't sound like your kind of thing, Before Midnight is finally out later in June. (Holy crap it's nearly June already?!) This could be the final part in what has been a beautiful trilogy about falling in love, rekindling an old flame and now marriage. Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have crafted beautifully written characters and revisiting Jesse and Celine is a constant pleasure. Set on a beautiful Greek island seeing the couple finally settled down with kids, I'm really hoping this is going to be a somewhat happy ending for the pair but who knows?

Here is the trailer:



Which bit of Ethan Hawke are you most looking forward to? Anyone seen either of these yet?

Check out more trailers on I Love That Film here.

Before Midnight Before You Know It!

Here's a new picture straight from the set of the just wrapped trilogy closer Before Midnight, courtesy of Total Film.  Ever since Before Sunset left fans dribbling for more in 2004, people have speculated about whether we would ever get to see Jesse and Celine back together again.

Then today comes the news that not only is the film definitely going to happen, it's already wrapped in Greece and will be hopefully sold to buyers at the Toronto Film Festival which starts today!

Anyway here's the picture.  Look forward to more on this soon.

Read more over at Filmoria.