Prisoner X

The best way to describe this movie would be if you took an average episode of The Outer Limits TV series (1995–2002) or the remade Twilight Zone TV series (1985–1989, 2002-2003), and extended it to a 2- hour format.

Sometimes time-travel movies are overly convoluted as a way to come off as original or smart, but Prisoner X handles it in a very straightforward manner.

The actors are unknown, but the majority do a good job. The story is creative, and the budget is high enough to provide believable sets and decent props without looking like something you'd see on MST3K.

Some of the scenes felt rushed, so better editing plus cutting out unnecessary side stories would have allowed other scenes to be extended.

You'll be disappointed if you expect a Michael Bay pew-pew fest or a Hollywood action/thriller film. It's definitely a notch or 2 above a typical SyFy channel original movie though.

Overall, Prisoner X is a good way to kill a few hours of boredom.

1. Cheap effects; what few there were. Cheap production with basically everything filmed in typical underground concrete bunker type room and lots of quick videos & photos of humanity doing harm to itself. So old & overused. Tiresome; not original. 2. So cheap they have no subtitles coupled with poor English enunciation and poor audio level control.Not that it matters that much since the dialogue was created by scientifically illiterate writers to sound scientifically intelligent. 3. Acting was soooo scripted robotic - stereotypical prisoner and interrogation methods. 4. Dumb science: Time traveler here to warn humanity; shows up out of nowhere and convinces interrogators by listing location and times for astronomical events. Cost to show us such overwhelming time traveler advanced capabilities - a piece of paper and a observatory photo. That's it for a civilization so advanced to just show up.

Low level directing and bad actors. The idea of the movie seemed interesting, but the movie couldn't achieve its purpose: to execute it.

Scientific accuracy and persuasiveness: Despite its attempt at scientific use, this film falls short, offering a poorly researched and inaccurately portrayed depiction of scientific concepts.

Relatedness to the real world: The display of political intrigue fails to grasp the complexities and realities. The depiction of presidential and CIA characters lacks authenticity and fails to capture the intricacies of their roles in real-life politics and intelligence operations.

Acting and characters: Michelle Nolden. Horrible to watch. Being the main character, she's the biggest fail of the movie. If the given dialogue was bad, improve it. If she improvised, even worse. Great actors have great skills for acting. They have a high EQ and are skilled at character analysis, observation, psychological insight, subtext interpretation, and physicality. They master dialect and language, voice control, tonality, modulation, body language, improvisation, and adaptability. Michelle Nolden doesn't demonstrate any of this.

Michelle Nolden portrays her character with such inconsistency that it becomes unbearable to watch. Every scene with her in it will make you cringe and want to look away. Ultimately, she ruins the story and demolishes the potential of the movie.

Now, the other characters weren't great too, but that's what you can expect from a low tier movie. They're just good enough.

Recommendation: Warning: Do not watch.

It's not a recommended movie to watch. If you just stumble upon it and decide to watch it, you will regret it. You deserve quality, this isn't it.

Yes, it's low budget. No, you probably don't know any of the actors...

But...

This is a fantastic sci-fi film that will keep you guessing, keep you entertained and even give you some ideas to think about.

It's well paced, edgy and claustrophobic with an excellent story line.

The actors work hard and work well together.

No, it won't win any Oscars for anything but it will win your appreciation, of that I am sure.

Comes down to what like. For my part, given a home grown Canadian film is not gonna have Brad Pitt or a Marvel Stan Lee block buster bank roll or marketing/releasing company backing them up but with what they had I'd call this a really fascinating product. very entertaining. The unique story and telling of it is their product, not the publicity or cast tours selling it.