syehia.eid

7/10

I got to say that I have not been mind fucked by a movie like that in such a long time.. It is the kind of movie that mid way you would say "I do not understand anything", and by the end of the movie you would say.. "Fucking Hell, Now I get it. I Wish I didn't but I do" I am just scared from the way that they keep upping the plot twists and endings of movies that at some point in time you would be watching a movie and then you would realize that it has all been a trick and that you are actually not watching a movie at all.. Another thing that below me away through out the movie was the performance of Sarah Snook. While still not over her creepy performance in Jessabelle. She really took me by surprise with her performance.. I have not seen before someone who can say so much with just their eyes.. I can tell that the 28 year old Aussie is going places after this.. On Rotten Tomatoes, The film has a "certified fresh" score of 82% based on 71 reviews with an average rating of 6.8 out of 10. The critical consensus states "Fun genre fare with uncommon intelligence, Predestination serves as a better-than-average sci-fi adventure and offers a starmaking turn from Sarah Snook." On Metacritic The film also has a score of 68 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews" If you are ready to be mind blown all the way, watch it but make sure to not miss anything cause it will add to the inevitable sense of "What the fuck was that? that you already going to get when you watch it attentively.

Rob

0/10

This movie is quite beautiful to look at, especially the opening sequence, with a very noir aesthetic which really grabbed my attention. The huge exposition dump in the bar early on utterly kills the pace the beginning sets you up to expect. But by the end of the movie, it's obvious that couldn't be avoided. A bit of a mind-bender, and although a little predictable very imaginative and absorbing.

CinemaSerf

0/10

It all starts with a mysterious character setting what looks like a timer, only for something quite unexpected to happen and for that perpetrator to disappear. What's going on? Well, we meet the "Barkeep" (Ethan Hawke) who is the ultimate in crime prevention agents. He uses the temporal vortex to travel back and forth through time trying to identify those who commit heinous crimes and either talk them out of it, or just plan thwart their plans. He's been doing this for quite a while thus far, but his final mission might prove to be his most difficult. There's just one criminal who has continually eluded him and it's the "Unmarried Mother" (Sarah Snook) that he has to ensnare. Now it does take it's time to get going, but it resists the temptation to use it's time travelling theme to bombard us with different scenarios and timelines and gradually focuses us on quite a characterful study of hunter and quarry with lots of probing dialogue. The effectively intimate location provided by his bar - a sort of "in vino veritas" state of affairs works well, too. What's equally clear around half way in that, well, nothing is at all clear. The characterisations blur, the events blur - and that's not the whisky. The plot interweaves their respective chronologies in such a deliberately confusing fashion as to make it impossible to readily discern just who is who or what is what, though at least that does explain why this individual has proven to difficult for "Barkeep" to apprehend over the aeons. It has a very simple, industrial, feel to it and though the visuals are quite potent they don't overwhelm the personalities and both Hawke and an impressive Snook deliver a story that I found myself caring about. If you need your cinema to be structured with beginning, middle and end then this probably isn't for you, but if you can let it wash over you then it's quite an intriguing watch.

artlawless

0/10

This is a film based on the short story by Robert A Heinlein called All You Zombies. It's a fantastic film with a portrayal of paradoxes and the extent to which they can become convoluted if Time Travel was possible. And when I say Time Travel, I mean with the ability to interfere with the past and future, and not just witness. It's a tough movie to get your head around so be prepared to go back and watch it again. The cast is fantastic. _Ethan Hawke_ delivers as always. But we need to talk about _Sarah Snook_ - man she can act! She's the heart of the film and brings together the first half of the film so convincingly. It's rare that a film based on Time Travel is made without ugly holes in the plot. Predestination is one of those rare ones which is complete in its beginning and end.

The Movie Diorama

0/10

Predestination foreordained its paradoxical nature and exploited it with individuality. “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?”. An evolutionary question, now the setup for many punchlines, that has transcended time itself. The causality dilemma that considers both cause and effect. Infinite regression. Unsolvable. What really shapes a person’s biological anatomy or their metaphorical soul? Evolutionary diversity at birth or the nurturing of our surrounding environment? The aforementioned philosophical paradox is one which The Spierig Brothers held closely to the central plot that, on the surface may befuddle even the most avid sci-fi viewers, but dig somewhat deeper and find that the temporal trajectory is bursting with thematic representation. A time traveller is sent back to 1970s New York to prevent a terrorist, known only as the “Fizzle Bomber”, from murdering thousands. To mention certain plot strands, even touching upon their delicate coating, would be to spoil this ingeniously creative film. Therefore, as a precaution, I will not discuss the second half. Including the paradoxical plot twists of conception and death. This is a mind-bending sci-fi tale that purely excels when focussing on the human elements of its characters. Forget about the jarring tonal shift from exquisitely detailed flashback narration to sudden sci-fi extravaganza. Put aside the occasional heavy hand-holding (although justified for the dense concept) that unimaginatively explains the limitations of temporal shifting. Exclude the multitude of entrancing twists that seemingly allow the narrative to crumble towards its inevitable conclusion. Predestination works best when it’s exploring the human condition. The drive that constitutes our soul. And a central focal point, but not the sole purpose, of the story is Jane’s gender reassignment into becoming John. A “woman” valued as intersex. Internalised male organs as well as female. Despite raising transgender issues and justifiably exploring the emotional conflict of such a scenario, it’s never treated as unfamiliar territory. Much like the film in its entirety, it garners an identity. Enhancing accessibility by turning an irrelevant piece of fiction into a relevant transcendental concept. Snook gave an arousing performance of someone undergoing such a procedure. Harnessing female and male acting qualities and nudging them subtly through her performance. Returning to the preliminary question though, the eternally talented Hawke offers this dilemma to the prognosticating Snook, who simply replies “The Rooster”. And yet whilst it was a humorous retort, it maps out the ingenious narrative cohesion that The Spierig Brothers moulded. That intimidating evolutionary deliverance, providing a cathartic allure of inevitability. They masqueraded causality through a simple life story told vividly within the confinements of a cigarette infused bar. Strangely, much like with other labyrinthine features, the second viewing allowed me to sniff out breadcrumbs more clearly. The hidden clues that the Brothers had deliberately positioned to reach the predetermined final destination. Extraordinarily clever. The minuscule runtime should’ve been extended to better build the narrative foundations from the weight of all the mind-blowing twists, but The Spierig Brothers defied genre expectations by pushing a time-orientated story to its limits. The conventional boundaries of storytelling now extended indefinitely, addressing common time travel related issues and exploiting them ingeniously. Intelligence prevails once again.