El despertar

I've never liked the idea of test screenings. The changes they make just end up neutering a movie and making it "safe" for the general masses. But if ever a movie needed feedback to prompt a rewrite and alternate ending, this is it.

The first half of this movie is spectacular. It's atmospheric, tense, and confusing (in a good way). It kept you guessing the whole way. Much like Memento, it's an intelligent film that makes you watch closely and think. The story could have gone a number of directions.

...but the last half, it all falls apart. They start changing the "rules", the suspense gives way to straight storytelling, and the ending goes a completely different direction than it could have, and SHOULD have. It's not just that I didn't like the ending or that it didn't match my predictions. The problem is the truth is still unclear and viewers are left confused. Too much is left unexplained.

As it is, the film is wasted potential. A good story and a good movie, but one that could have been so much better with a different ending.

This is a little seen thriller and it's almost a shame, because it has quite a few good ideas. Some work, some might not work for you, but the overall story is very complex and very well told. It's not a movie, where you could say exactly where it is going. I don't think you could tell unless you had read quite a few articles on the film, which would be a shame.

But Ryan Phillipe does a great job, conveying this complex and very difficult emotional role he has to play. It's not only trying to keep up, where you are exactly (in the script), but in the overall structure of the movie. I know that some think that it does fall short towards the end, and I get the sentiment. But I still think the ending is pretty strong, to still make you rather like the viewing, than not.

The first two-thirds of "The I Inside" are fantastic: very intriguing and engaging, recalls "The Butterfly Effect", "Jacob's Ladder" and "identity", just to mention three similar movies. The situation of Simon Cable resuscitated without memory in the hospital in two different years is disclosed like a puzzle, and I was mesmerized with this film. Unfortunately, it seems that the screenplay writer raised so many weird situations that he was not able to conciliate all of them in a satisfactory ending, and indeed the plot has a very disappointing conclusion. I regret and feel sorry, since this movie could have been a masterpiece of the genre. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Terceiro Olho" ("The Third Eye")

Highly entertaining movie, admittedly derivative of old suspense melodramas, full of common places and clichés, but tightly done. I watched it because I liked other works by director Roland Suso Richter, but I was very pleased to also find Ryan Phillippe doing a fine job, with good support from Sarah Polley, Robert Sean Leonard, Piper Perabo, the three Stephens and the rest of the cast in supporting but key roles.

At its core, it is a family drama, an upper-class sibling drama, a tale of betrayal, blackmail, fatal accidents, and apparent insanity: actually more than a "time travel" film, as seen by some, it is a story told simultaneously in planes of the same reality separated by two years, the story of a young man who goes from the year 2000 to 2002, to put together the puzzle in front of him when he forgets his past, after an accident in which he lost his life for a few minutes and was resurrected by a medical team.

The adaptation from stage to film is quite remarkable, I cannot imagine how this was made in theater, and although it relies a lot on the spoken word it is highly attractive from the visual point of view, thanks to the contribution of the cinematography, and the art and design departments. Besides, the score is typical of the ones composed for this kind of suspenseful fantasies, but it effectively helps the evolution of the plot, building tension without overdoing its function. Recommended.

There should be another category to describe films that don't exactly fit the accepted genres of horror, supernatural or psychological thriller.

I call it the "Puzzle-Box" genre. Puzzle-Box films challenge you to think and discover the answers, rather than spoon-feeding them to you. Not everyone enjoys that when going to the movies. Classifying a film as a Puzzle-Box would make it easier for that film to find its audience.

THE I INSIDE is one of those films. Others are MULHOLLAND DRIVE, IDENTITY (same writer as THE I INSIDE), JACOB'S LADDER, and many modern Korean films, such as OLDBOY, HYPNOTIZED, TALE OF TWO SISTERS, and the brilliant but obscure SPIDER FOREST. And to a lesser extent, MEMENTO, which is fun on the first watch, but bored me on the second, since no new clues are revealed.

THE I INSIDE give more answers at the end than OLDBOY or MULHOLLAND DRIVE, but it is still a fascinating film.

This is is Ryan Phillippe's most challenging role, and he does an excellent job, but the standout for me was Piper Perabo-- she went through some tricky personality quirks (I'm purposely leaving things vague) which added to the mystery.