Omni Loop

Greetings again from the darkness. Writer-director Bernardo Britto has delivered a modern-day cinematic rarity: a Science Fiction film without overblown special effects. Time travel is a vital part of the story, but at its core, this is a film about human emotions, and it has quite a message for viewers.

Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds") stars as Zoya Lowe, a quantum physicist and our story's time traveler. Only this isn't the kind of time traveler you are thinking of. Zoya neither travels back to medieval times nor forward to some future high-tech civilization. See, the magic pills she found as a kid only take her back 5 days. This is less THE TIME MACHINE (1969) and more GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) ... without the laughs or Ned Ryerson.

Zoya has been diagnosed with 'a black hole growing in her chest.' Now, I'm not sure if that diagnosis is an actual medical affliction or rather a metaphor, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Zoya has been given a week to live, which means with those pills, she's forced to re-do every day since her diagnosis in hopes of discovering what the pills are and how they work. To do this, she collaborates with Paula (Ayo Edebiri, "The Bear"), a community college science student with access to the campus lab. For some reason, this particular lab hosts an extreme sci-fi secret that Zoya and Paula believe can help solve the mystery.

Part of the gag here is that Zoya must re-live the terminal diagnosis, blow out the candles on her early birthday cake, and then convince Paula to assist over and over again. As Zoya goes through her daily re-dos, the supporting cast around her consists of Carlos Jacott as her husband, Hannah Pearl Utt as her daughter, Eddie Cahill as a brilliant scientist, Fern Katz as her assisted-living mom, and Harris Yulin as her old college professor. We may overdose on the electronic music that plays through most of the movie, but there is a terrific message here - being there for others is so important, and we should focus on what really matters in this all-too-short life.

In theaters and on Digital beginning September 20, 2024.

A very tedious movie with a theoretically interesting premise, but super badly executed. The problem is not with Marie Louise Parker who acted soporifically beautiful, but with the whole ensemble cast, family and especially that "partner" of hers who was terribly chosen. The professor was the better and more interesting character with little screen time.

That's not a sci-fi movie, that's a philosophical drama with an ounce of science-fiction.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 5
• Production value/impact: 4
• Development: 7
• Realism: 4
• Entertainment: 1.5
• Acting: 6
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 5.5
• VFX: 3
• Music/score/sound: 4
• Depth: 6
• Logic: 2
• Flow: 1.5
• Sci-fi/drama: 4.5
• Ending: 3.

First off, the movie is watchable. You can get to the end. You just need to turn off your expectation for answers. For those of you who like relationship and character drama, this is a great movie you'll enjoy.

This movie dangles some interesting tidbits the heavy scifi fan enjoys but would like a payoff on in explanation: a time loop, a black hole, a small man in a box who has been shrunk to subatomic levels. ALL of this is dropped halfway through for some thinking time and character development. While the plot is resolved, your questions about "why?" and "how does this work?" will go unanswered. The answers you do get will be arbitrary with little leadup to them.

Still, not a bad movie. I've seen worse with clumsier handling of science.

Generally a fan of low budget indie high concept sci-fi movies especially ones that are interested in time travel. Going by the casting of Ayo (one of the most employed movie actors in the industry right now) it was understood that this would lean more towards the comedic aspect rather than something like Coherence or Time Crimes that investigates the scifi premise indepth.

This movie however fails to be a good ide driven scifi movie and as a comedy, even with a runtime of 1hr and 50 mins this feel thrice as long especially with the 2nd half of the film dragging excessively.

Just straight up avoid it.

It's quite a long movie for the content that is on offer. I found myself lagging after 45 minutes and never really regained the level of interest that I experienced at the start of the movie, and indeed, my interest wanned considerably after that.

Its not really a science fiction movie at all, more of a drama initially burgeoned with a science fiction narrative. The goundhog day theme is excercised fairly well and even though I rolled my eyes a little when this came into play in fairness its done well and doesn't give you that sense of fermented nostalgia that normally detracts from a screenplay.

I think the movie is half an hour too long, and the script and story needs to be condensed into something that doesn't cause your attention to stray and your patience to wear a little thin. Although Mary Louise Parker is pretty good, I found Ayo Edebir's style of delivery painful to experience. Her hesitant, stumbling, deliberately inarticulate manner of portraying natural interactioon is overplayed and irritating. I found the exact same issue with her portrayal of Sydney in 'The Bear' so this certainly seems to be a characteristic of he acting style rather than one of direction. There are no stand out performances here, the meterial is handled competently but never really ventures far above mediocre.

The 8-bit styled score thats overlayed throughout sections of this movie will give you flashbacks of you early Atari and Sega game systems and repeatinig piano sequences are a little threadbare in some places. It becomes noticeable at times, but its just another one of the poor factors at play which don't bode well for an viewing experience.

All this said, the main issue I found is the movie just drags and is without the excitement or key development events that are really needed to keep it interesting. A bunch of stuff happens but nothing signficant or essential that couldn't be omited without detriment. Its also worth mentioning that there is no big payoff or resoution in the ending, which isn't what you'd normally expect in with this type of repeating history endevour.

So, all that said, it's not a bad movie its just a bit... meh. It was interesting enough for me to watch to the end, (primarily because I wanted to see what eventually happened) but not good enough for me to be anything more than moderately interested after the first 20 minutes. It certainly works way better as a drama than a sci fi, but I think a bit of focus would probably have gone some way to making it a better production.

Truthfully there just isn't any payoff in watching this, it's a drama but without the emotional depth to bring it to the fore, its has a sience fiction theme, but witout any substance or investment in the science to peak the interest, and in all honesty you're better off giving it a miss.

5/10 from me.