Realive

Marc Jarvis (Tom Hughes) is a rich, young, successful artist who is suddenly told that he has cancer and has at most a year to live. He decides to freeze his body in the hopes that future medicine can cure him, but his girlfriend Naomi (Oona Chaplin) is horrified that he means to take his own life in order to ensure that his body is in as good condition as possible when he dies. Nevertheless, he does just that… only to wake up some 60 years later; Dr. West (Barry Ward) and his team have learned, through trial and error, how to reanimate frozen humans. Marc is their first complete success, and with the help of nurse/assistant Elizabeth (Charlotte Le Bon), Marc struggles to find meaning in his new existence, while his long-ago past still pulls at his heart…. I'm not sure why this is a Spanish film as it's in English and features British actors; but, no matter. It's a really thoughtful science fiction film that addresses not only technological advances but the moral and ethical problems associated with them. I very much liked Tom Hughes (who looks a bit like Cillian Murphy) because he was able to take his character through a very complex maze of emotional realities; then again, everybody in this film is good. Interestingly, the problem of how to portray the future was solved by simply having Marc remain in the facility in which he was reborn, because his body was not strong enough (yet) to adapt to outside conditions; a neat explanation that means the viewer isn't taken out of the picture by seeing a future world that looks cheesy or contrived or otherwise unnatural. Well done, filmmakers!

This science fiction tale (with a moral standpoint and quite a few serious questions about mortality) is done really well. It may not qualify for a classic, but it's still encapsulates a lot of things that we've come to love from these types of movies. That's literally to a point, where you may recognize where some of the inspiration has been drawn from. But it has enough to say on its own too.

It may seem cliché at points in the story and you may feel like you've seen similar things before, but it's tough to be completely original. It's hard enough to be good in what you're trying to say. And this makes a lot of points about living and dying. And being able to accept things. Some things do not translate as good though and it's tough for the main actor to convey certain feelings that none of us have gone through (to that extend). Still more than solid and very gripping

So, a lot of people went into this movie expecting to be dazzled by hi- tech conceptualizations of the future, and were disappointed. That's understandable. The tech is a background at best, although every character does seem to blend seamlessly with it. It is a background that is tastefully crafted, realistically employed and never flickers.

To add insult to injury, however, the 2 hour hypotech is stuffed with sentimentality and philosophy, rather than action and sex, as many sci- fi's are. For most people, action and sex are a far better filler than the heartfelt musings of a struggling soul, regardless of the context.

For those of us not seeking to escape to the future, we were treated to a salient, cerebral wine-tasting, of sorts...and a sobering one at that. The film seems to offer up so many spiritual, cultural messages, from so many vantage points, that it's impossible to label one bottle and drink from it. For the single-minded it's a mess. For others, it's an awakening to new flavors of suffering, and a perversion of our taste buds. Some things, once sweet on our tongue, now stain with an aftertaste. Other drinks, like death, may now crisply tinkle in the glass and repel us a bit less.

All I'm saying is that this film is more art than entertainment. Some people drink wine to get drunk and have sex. Others sip it carefully to explore its variety. Realive is certainly a film for the sipping class.

When Marc Jarvis (Tom Hughes) is diagnosed of an incurable throat cancer, the plans his life to commit suicide and keep his body cryogenically frozen in the Progeny Company awaiting for technology to revive. In 2084, he becomes the first man to be successfully revived by Dr. West (Barry Ward) and his team. The nurse Elizabeth (Charlotte Le Bon) helps Marc in his recovery and he learns that his beloved lover Naomi (Oona Chaplin) did the same expecting to live with him in the future. However Marc finds previous fails in the project with several casualties. Further, he is losing his only belongings – his memories – and he does not recover his previous health. Out of the blue, Marc takes a decision for Naomi and him.

"Realive" is a thoughtful sci-fi by Mateo Gil, the writer of the magnificent "Abre los Ojos". The story is interesting, approaching themes like ethics, afterlife without the original memories, adaptation to a future society with different moral and behaviors and so on. However the narrative is too cold despite the intriguing screenplay and the film does not work well. Marc Javis and Naomi should have been better developed in the beginning in order to make these characters likable. The hot Charlotte Le Bon is also wasted in a very limited character. Anyway, the story is original and provides a different view of immortality that makes the viewer think. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not available

I didn't read any reviews or see a trailer before watching so I had no preconceptions. Afterwards after reading the other 4 reviews I wondered what the really good reviews saw in this film. My guess is that maybe they expected a film that was less competently made, or maybe they expected a less serious film - and were surprised at how well made and serious this was. My guess also is that the obvious flaws of the film were overlooked or not noticed by them because of how well put together it is, just a guess. The problems with this film outweigh the good production and good story. Those problems are: the slow pacing; repetitiveness; morose lead actor; lack of anything stimulating and generally a drag. To give an analogy I would compare this to a college lecture by a really smart teacher who is really good at explaining the lessons but is dry and pedantic and puts students to sleep vs. an entertaining teacher who keeps students on the edge of their seats. While I am not asking this movie to be Transformers, still the script needed much more work before this was made. The story is interesting and with I imagine a limited budget they were able to pull off an impressive production, but with a boring script it ends up being a waste of time since it is so repetitive and really does not go far enough story wise. This would have worked well as the first 40 minutes of a different story, as it stands it will leave most people cold and few will stay to the end, and if they do most of them will regret it since nothing exciting or entertaining ever happens. It moves slowly and dull till the end.