Norman

I gave it a 2, after all, it was shot in color. Perhaps the language should have been French, it has all those deep symbolic moments the viewer is supposed to absorb. sadly, I was only one third in when my fidgety twitching gave way to using the right arrow key on the video player. I'm not unsympathetic to Indies, some have been milestones in movie history. This will not be one of them.

Ok I'm happy to write the first review for this movie.

So essentially you have Norman, trapped in the present day trying to travel back to the future of 2085. The reasons he wants to travel back I won't spoil. But every time he has some sort of interaction with the outside world, people and such, he gets headaches and flashes from other times and places.

So I really wanted to like this movie a lot more but the lead actor just isn't good enough, its a mixed performances at best with some underacting and overacting. The most lively performance is the A. I. companion A. N. I. (which isn't a good sign that the A. I. has more personality than the lead) who comes in a third of the way in. Another problem is the stakes don't feel high so we the viewer are not as invested as we could be. The third act fails as well because of the tonal shift, it decides it wants to be a action movie with too many close ups of people shooting and not enough wide shots of the action, and the ending is kind of predictable. There are many shots of tea being poured, switches being turned on, rain on the siding of the house. Its a slow burning movie and has some big ideas but its not very well acted, written, and too slow to recommend. But its not a train wreck or horrible. Its just slow, pretentious and the lead actor/character has no personality for us to get behind or care why stuff is happening. It is competently directed and is a good looking film and I'm happy for the filmmaker being able to get his project realized after 9 years but its a watch and forget kind of movie unfortunately.

It's easy to nitpick a B movie, especially one so limited by its available resources. However, I think the movie as a whole is impressive considering how modest the budget and resources were.

The movie is more of a character drama than a high sci-fi action movie. There is a lot of time spent watching Norman confront his demons and reflect on his invention. This may turn some people off but the cinematography and sound design are impressive enough that I was engaged throughout.

Towards the end we see more of the outside world and although it isn't long lived, the quality of the visual effects and action scenes really shine through here. Everything is polished and well shot in this regard.

It's not perfect, there are scenes where things feel a little too slow, acting is good but has its rough edges, plot could use a bit more direction, and other issues I'm sure others have pointed out.

As an amateur project though, I'm hard pressed to complain. I enjoyed my time watching this movie and I'm happy to see these guys finally get it distributed. The love that has gone into everything really shines!

Can we get past using "slow-paced" as an insult please? Yes, this movie is not fast, but that doesn't make it bad, it has a very deliberate pace, and it moves along very well. The story is indeed told in a disjointed fashion, but that in and of itself is also part of the story, so if you take issue with disjointed storytelling, just don't watch this. Even though it is disjointed, it is not hard to understand, I did not struggle at all to figure out what was going on, nor did I need to see it twice, though I do plan on watching it again anyway because I really enjoyed it. I enjoy low-budget films, I watch a lot of them, and enjoy them more than big-budget films most of the time.

I read several reviews, without spoilers, before watching, and even though they were all universally negative, I had to watch it because it is time travel, and I love time travel films. I am beginning to realize how little I can trust reviews anymore because people conflate their personal taste with whether or not something is good. That's not a review, that is trying to frame your opinion as fact, grow up. If you dislike low-budget films, avoid this, if you dislike slow movies, avoid this, if you dislike out of sequence storytelling, avoid this, if you dislike movies that don't explain very thing for you, avoid. If you watch it anyway, well, you set yourself up to watch something you will dislike, no one is to blame but you. I ended up really enjoying this movie, and I'm glad I ignored the negative reviews, I recommend it to a family member who also liked it as well.

Despite that, I will point out the one big flaw, and that is a scene between Norman and the character Jenny, Just in that one scene, the acting from Norman is pretty bad, thankfully it is a brief scene. Otherwise, while not perfect, the acting is very solid. I have little negative to say about this movie in terms of how it was made, especially for it's budget. The sound and music are superb, the lighting is great, the setting and props in the house are all great, the story is good, the writing is good, the overall execution is good, this is a very well-thought out and well executed low-budget sci-fi drama. It is obvious the director has a previous background in film making, though this is his first directorial effort.

I cannot fault this film for what it is, it is a philosophical meditation on the nature of destiny and choice, and it dos a good job of showing what that looks like in a time travel context. To say more would ruin the film, if you like time travel and philosophy, and don't mind a movie with little action, there is much to love here.

A manic depressive experiments with time travel with predictable results. Young chap mopes about the house feeling sorry for himself while arguing with an emotional computer. His interaction with a food delivery girl is just cringy. Save yourself the bother.