Curvature (2017)

As a rule, critics hate everything. And the few exceptions that prove that rule, show conclusively that art's general audience and the art critics are rarely on the same page. This movie is a good case in point. The critics categorically hated it. And lots of viewers who either never knew or forgot the point of what the general public calls sci-fi hated it, too. Unfortunate.It's of note, that within the writing community (and I means books, not screenplays) sci-fi is usually regarded as an insult. For them, it evokes trite stories of little thought, frequently involving large lizards stomping on cardboard towns in Japan. Among serious writers, the term sci-fi has been replaced with s.f., and it's not just a rebranding. s.f., almost always lower case, stands for speculative fiction. The use of the term is intended to remind writers that if a story isn't genuinely speculative, it's probably just sci-fi (meaning crap, usually). s.f. is fundamentally about speculation, not about sets, actors, directors, budgets, or any of the other things that "critics" like to harp on, perhaps just to sound smart. To be sure, those things do matter, just like the production quality of any art does. Just not as much as the speculation.This movie contains two core aspects of speculation, one well-known and frequently used, and the other fairly original. The first, of course, is time travel. And it's used in this story in the usual way, to travel back and change the past. Arguments abound in s.f. and in science about that possibility, as well as the practicality. The second is the use of nested time travel. Though it's appeared in a few stories over the years, it's not common. It's very difficult to plan and plot. Planning is the process of designing what happens and why. Plotting is how you tell the audience what happened and through which character's eyes. One of the interesting things here, though not explained, is the amnesia in the subjects. Without that apparently trivial thing, there would have been no story because she would have known everything in the moment she woke.Think through the plan with me. Wells dies, she finds him. A month later she goes back, as Alex said, and this time, decodes his clue and watch's the video. What's unclear is that if she decides to kill Thomas, why did she need to travel back in time? She could have just killed him in the present. Instead, she protects the video, puts the camera back, buys a rifle and leaves it under her bed. Then she waits several days and sneaks in (somehow) and jumps back a few days, never intending to come back. So did she ever intend to kill Thomas, or just to make her other self *think* she had? Then she hides out giving her other self warnings and clues. What "other self" you ask? You'll see shortly. She waits for her other self to go to Thomas and get taken into the lab. In the confusion she sneaks in again with her bomb to blow up the time machine while her other self watches her from Thomas's office. She jumps back, the machine blows up, and she *becomes* her other self with amnesia in the June 2 wake up scene. A straightforward plan.But the *story* is only of her other self. And it all works, not because of time travel as much as the amnesia. No, wait. The amnesia, as far as we know, happens after you come back. And she never did come back. Or, did she do another jump, in between, *just* to come back and cause the amnesia. Or, perhaps she ...See? Isn't that fun? And speculative, even a bit of science (sort of) thrown in. The real measure of s.f. is how long you keep speculating after you finish the story. And, contrary to the critics, this movie delivers. Are there paradoxes? You bet. Are there mistakes? Yes. And finding those inconsistencies is the other half of the fun.There's plenty here to speculate on here.

Nothing about this film is game-changing, but it does so much right that i hope more people appreciate. First, the science behind the time travel device at the heart of the government conspiracy- based on a real covert R&D operation! - all checks out. Yeah, not as fun as the DeLorean but more interesting in my opinion. Second, and i think other people have said this already , this is really a movie about grief. After her husband's mysterious death, Helen - still processing all the anger and confusion associated with the death of a loved one - desperately searches for answers. And when she realizes that the same people who killed her future self (who's moved past the anger and onto complacency/ acceptance), she's able to help that future self (and be honest, with most time-travel movies its the other way around). And lastly, three words Linda. F***ing. Hamilton.

Let me get one thing out of the way, any plot involving characters going back in time to change the past WILL be paradoxical. Most movies work very hard to keep that paradox in the background and keep the audience happy. What I liked most about this movie was that it did not follow that impulse. As time tales go, this movie provides a fresh take on the old narrative. Instead of following the character that goes back and changes the past, this movie instead follows the character whose life got changed instead. Yes the plot IS hard to follow and at the end it leaves a lot for the audience to figure out for themselves but THAT'S THE FREAKING POINT!!

Time travel films always pique my interest and the premis of this new film looked intriguing. As you'll soon become aware modernity does not guarantee quality. I began to lose interest about 10 to 15 minutes into the film. It is dreadful B-movie rubbish. The plot is hard to follow - if you can be bothered - the dialogue is cheesy and action sequences are cliched. A lot of the acting is wooden and unengaging. I suppose the blame must lie as much with the film maker/director as with than the actors. It should be noted that well known actress and Terminator star, Linda Hamilton has a very small part in the film.. Oh dear I hope the paycheck was worth it and in the future she finds better vehicles than this.