Synchronicity

A team of scientist is frantically pursuing a breakthrough in their work. They are developing a kind of black hole back-door to communicate through time and space.

As in most time travel stories, the plot twists and turns and multiple perspectives on the same scene from different angles make up a lot of the fun in these kind of movies. And Synchronicity does this well given the available resources. To be honest, this is not the most sophisticated time travel movie, but it has character and is well-made. It kept me hooked and interested.

Michael Ironside probably is the most appealing name of the cast, he has a minor role as an investor/shareholder in the project. Main characters McKnight and Davis have a nice chemistry together and carry the movie with their performances.

Reading some of the other reviews, mostly focusing on the fact that the movie seems to be almost Bladerunnerish, they do not actually address what the movie is. So what that it has a musical and emotive reflection in a style that reminds one of a silver screen masterpiece? Many rappers have best-sellers based on the borrowed riff or refrain from an eighties classic. And they pull it off. The question is - did this movie get a fair shake in being rated as average? This simply means that some liked it and some did not. But slashing it for merely what it reflects is like smashing the mirror on a bad hair day. The movie is a love story. It's a simple plot, and when one sits back and reflects on it, it pulls off the simple plot. It is low budget, yes, but in a good way. Bad CGI and silly effects would not have added to the love story, but to the SciFi wrapper. And who eats the wrapper and writes a review on it? Quite a few people, if I read through them. I enjoyed the movie and the story and the way it unfolds. Perhaps it will not be memorable, but at least it was filling. Worth a seven, I say.

This "aint" Blade Runner. Sorry Jim Beam but I could not help myself. I hope you don't mind.

Synchronicity tries very, very hard to recapture the music, sets and overall "feel" of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Sad fact is, the latter film is a masterpiece, in a league of its own and any pretenders, are going to come across as Asian flea market renderings of the Mona Lisa.

That said, to be fair, this film is not awful. Its a modest affair and yes, it does do a reasonable job of recapturing the 80's feel found in Scott's film. I'll even admit I had a few "deja-vu", sentimental moments, that took me back to my teenage years. The music and dusky, smoky sets, in particular, were very emotive.

Its also worth remembering too that this film is not Blade Runner. Indeed, the film it most reminds me of is Videodrome, with James Woods. Not because of the storyline but more its slower pace and "surreal" feel. This film is best suited to a thoughtful, patient viewer, who is willing to spend the time and effort needed to understand its various complex, time travel based, paradoxes.

In summary, a reasonable if not exceptional film that, in one way or other pays homage to 80's sci fi classics. Six out of ten from me.

The film has everything you could want: a 1980's soundtrack, a noir look a la Blade Runner, a scientist mad with the possibilities of his time travel machine and a beautiful girl to make it all worthwhile. Add to this Michael Ironside, who just lends gravitas to the entire thing and the only thing you could be missing is a smart script. And you are not, because this movie is smart.

So why didn't it become an instant classic? Because in the end, it was one hour and forty minutes for a punchline. The possibilities were infinite, pardon the pun, but the movie did not capitalize on them. That is why many of the people are either disappointed with the result or frustrated for not getting the complicated mechanics of time travel.

For me, it was a stylistically beautiful movie, with a lot of love poured into it. The acting was good, the story interesting. Most stories are usually broken by the addition of time travel or are based on it so much that they ignore anything else that might matter. Synchronicity did not fall into the first category and came very close to slip from the second and into the one of great films. I am sure that if it would have been done in the 80s, the time it seemed to belong to - pardon the pun again, it would have had a great success.

Bottom line: clearly better than average, but not consistently so. It has great moments and silly underdeveloped ones, it has a story with a lot of potential, but only a bit of it capitalized into anything. Certainly worth a watch.

Not much to say about this movie. The story line was weak. The acting mediocre. But the most maddening thing was the very obvious attempt to reproduce the look and feel of The Blade Runner. In that, it only partially succeeds by making it clear which shots were being replicated (har har).

Deckard's apartment is the most obvious source for the apartments of both the main character and his romantic interest: The light streaming in through blinds of vehicles flying by as an example. The scenes where elevators are moving up and down the external side of a building very much like the Tyrellcorp building elevators is another.

At one point there is a scene where the female love interest is asleep and the physicist is on the left side of the frame backlit. Very very reminiscent of the "do you trust me" scene in The Blade Runner. The apartment intercom is very very much like the scene where Deckard calls Rachel from the bar. Combine all of this with the use of Vangelis-like sounds that never quite go to the right places, and you have the makings of a film that elicits some amount of grief and a yearning for someone to do things right. This is not that film.

If you've never seen The Blade Runner, you need to see it and decide who does this better. Stories are completely different, but the attempt of look and feel is very obvious and ham fisted. If you haven't seen this movie, just go in expecting the quality of a 1990's SciFi original and you will not be disappointed.