Catalyst

I kept waiting for something to actually happen the entire movie, but it never did. Maybe it's a special form of cinema art that only select few will appreciate. To me, it's just a bunch of nonsense. I feel like I was lied to. I had no expectations going in other than "the plot is good" based on the reviews and the trailer. But even that bar was set too high.

In addition, you may start twitching from all the flashing in the movie even if you're a healthy person. That's one thing I'll remember about this experience: "it was a movie with a crazy amount of flashing".

The trailer is very misleading. Or, rather, it's very truthful in the sense that it 100% reflects the movie. What you see in the trailer is exactly what you see in the movie. Imagine replaying the trailer 60 times in a row and, voila, you got the entire movie.

I've seen movies where all events happen inside of 4 walls. It's all about the clever and evolving dialogue, good acting, interesting story that hooks and reels you in. In Catalyst you'll find none of that.

I had to make an account JUST to review this movie. What's been more entertaining than the movie is coming to read some of the 10/10 reviews and doing some research on the creators.

The movie opens with a quote by "Shaman Durek" who, I've discovered, is an "American conspiracy theorist, convicted felon, alternative therapist, and self-professed shaman as a practitioner of Neoshamanism. " which is, to put it mildly, a hysterical way to open your movie.

The story follows a guy named Alek who we see preparing to murder a priest. He fires a shot, leaves the church and is preparing to commit suicide when masked men taze him and pull him into a white van.

They tell him some cryptic things we will hear over and over again throughout the movie. We will keep flashing back to things that previously happened revealing more context each time, or sometimes revealing absolutely nothing new. They were perhaps assuming that since the target audience is your average Joe Rogan listener that they need a reminder of what they saw five minutes ago.

Alek wakes up in the desert next to a car. He finds a jumpsuit in the trunk and puts it on. A phone rings on the ground and he picks it up. A couple of robotic voices give him instructions which he proceeds to not follow and gets tazed again.

Now he wakes up in a room with a bunch of other guys. They're given instructions to "kill the parasite among you" within 60 minutes or they all die. They've been fitted with fancy shock collars and theres some kind of forcefield separating them from their masked captors. They argue for what feels like forever and somehow none of them try to kill one another despite them all being extremely volatile individuals with sordid pasts.

It basically turns into a group therapy session somehow. By the end of the sixty minutes they are taking turns around the circle, confessing their sins and offering words of encouragement. It makes absolutely no goddamn sense and feels extremely forced. I was laughing at the dialogue and pacing of the whole thing.

The camera would NOT stay put for one second. Gratuitous use of digital effects for the tazers, forcefields, computer terminal overlays, etc. The actors were often speaking over each other, seemingly trying to mimic "real" conversations but instead feeling like a badly rehearsed stage play. CONSTANT cuts between them wearing some kind of holo-helmet, past events, current events, reiterating points over and over again that had already been established.

About halfway through the movie, I had "gotten the point" about a dozen times already and was waiting for there to be something, ANYTHING else added to the story or themes. I could see them leading up to a twist but it was telegraphed from a mile away and had essentially no substance.

The thesis of the film is stated from the get go, but it is hilariously summed up at the end when Alek speaks to the organizer/architect of the whole program, group, whatever you want to call it. She LITERALLY quotes the freaking two wolves story. "There are two wolves and they are always fighting. One is darkness and despair, the other is light and hope. Which wolf wins? The one you feed"

Basically their organization kidnaps people and forces them under duress to either become better people or die/be imprisoned forever. And this is unironically offered as an ideal scenario for entering a new and better era of humankind.

Anyways steer clear of watching this if you want something good. If you like bad movies, it might be fun in a group-watch setting but even then I find it too boring to recommend.

This movie is terrible. So many stupid synthetic voices and visual cruft. No amount of echoed voices, black and white scenes and broken bike (hologram device) helmets can cover up a pretentious waste of time.

Ignore below character count padding.

This movie is terrible. So many stupid synthetic voices and visual cruft. No amount of echoed voices, black and white scenes and broken bike (hologram device) helmets can cover up a pretentious waste of time.

This movie is terrible. So many stupid synthetic voices and visual cruft. No amount of echoed voices, black and white scenes and broken bike (hologram device) helmets can cover up a pretentious waste of time.

Once upon a time, when there were video stores, there was, on the shelves, an arrangement of films by genre, but also by popularity. And then, in every video store, at some point, you had a shelf on which there were random movies, which, due to bizarre circumstances, were found in the video store and on which there was a thick layer of cobwebs, because no one ever rented them. Under that shelf, there was often a box with "art" even worse than the one on the shelf in the corner, waiting for the worker not to be too lazy and to finally take them to the dumpster. This, at best, deserves a position in a dumpster-ready box.

There is no way to describe how bad this movie is and how it manages to fail in every possible area. The scenario is catastrophic. For more than 90 minutes of the film, there is practically no action, no meaningful activity. The dialogues are completely meaningless, illogical and so badly written that it's not even funny. A special category is the content of "guardian" sentences, places and the way they are pronounced. The directing is below every category of professionalism. It is especially bizarre that this is a film that supposedly explores essential themes, human interactions, etc. Absolutely laughable. Don't be fooled by the many scores reviewers have given the film.

If you look a little, you will see that only one high rating was given by a reviewer who previously had a comment on IMDB. All other scores and revisions were given by auditors for whom it was the first review, most likely members of the film crew. Skip this nonsense and don't put yourself in a situation where you irretrievably lose ninety minutes.

Totally amazing! A thinker movie that fits times before and now. You can't miss a minute of it ! Makes you think about choices in your life and how to be the catalyst for change. How that needs to be in the world today. Michael Roark & the other actors, how they worked and played off of each other was awesome. They keep your interest and made you think with them.

And you were with them to try to solve the questions posed. Definitely a movie to watch more than once! So glad it finally was able to be seen, along time in the making! But so worth the wait! Bravo to all involved! Kept us thinking! Everyone needs to be that catalyst! 10+++++++++