Anti Matter

I can just suffice to tell you this film has a low-budget/student film feel in all of the movie's aspects (writing, editing, flow), so you'll need have patience with everything as you watch.

I guess all positive reviews (e.g. Rotten Tomatoes) seem to keep this in mind but this is not made clear, which has most likely lead to these (in my eyes) problematic recommendations.

If you are expecting a mature or commercial film like I was, move on, as I can tell you I went in with that mindset and was quickly bored here.

I have said before that if I had a dollar for every "auteur" indie (where the writer and director were one and the same) that aimed for the stars but kept hitting the floor, well, I could retire.

But for every dozen or so indies that hit a brick wall, one soars. This is the one that soars.

Indeed it aims high, turning what looks like a basic "sci fi experiment gone wrong" into an existential crisis of the soul.

But it succeeds, astonishingly, at being both entertaining and bemusing.

I was glued to the screen from the beginning to the end. That seldom happens.

The actors, the script, the direction, all remind me of Hitchcock at his peak. YOU CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE PEOPLE.

And the editing, OMG. This is the first film I can recall where aggressive editing was used instead of complex SFX. The editing is beyond brilliant, it moves the audience at a visceral level from scene to scene.

Recommended.

There is a philosophical component to the plot of the movie. I think that ruined it. Other than that, it started cool, the pace was good, the story was interesting, I was hooked. Then, at about half, the entire thing turned into the old "what is going on? Am I insane or is it real?" cliché which I personally abhor. And then the ending explained some things, but didn't really make me understand why I spent a quarter of a movie watching scenes that didn't make sense. And then it ended with a weak "don't play god" thing.

I really wanted it to be more than a back of a napkin plot twist at the end, but it wasn't. So much setup for something that was basically a butt of a joke. Physics doesn't turn into metaphysics just because you equate apples with oranges.

Bottom line: it started great and it fizzled in the end. The structure of the movie was good and the ending was artistic enough to not really matter in the overall story.

A few plot holes but it kept my attention throughout

I see a lot of bad reviews for this film but you have to balance your expectations within the budget of the movie.

This was a low budget movie and didn't have the hundreds of millions; or even millions to spend so they did what they could within their abilities and this hearkens back to the great movies of John Carpenter and others like the original Terminator movies with special effects guys like Stan Winston and Rob Bottin who would use chewing gum and tomato sauce (The Thing) for many effects to save the budget - you don't have to spend a lot to make a good movie and although there are a lot of scientific holes and anomalies in this movie that the anal-brigade seem obsessed with pointing out; these are the kinds of people who have lost the inner child and cannot go to a movie and just shut off and immerse themselves in the fantasy and that's quite sad! I myself can still watch Doctor Who or Blakes 7 and believe its on a distant planet and not filmed in a wet quarry in Newcastle on a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

There seem to be two types of Scifi fans these days - the ones who expect lots of CGI and effects, poor acting and not much story (The new Star Wars franchise comes to mind) and it seems to be our younger generation - that says a lot about society in itself and then there are the old traditionalists who don't need massive CGI , effects and budget but want a good story, good acting and some interesting science; whether its quantum or singular and that seems to be us older Trekkies and viewers who can suspend disbelief!

If you are of the former you wont enjoy this film but if you are in the latter category you might just find this an interesting little film.