Paradox

I've seen worse. Let's start with the music. Very soap opera reminiscent and a tad too loud. The lighting seemed fine, but the sound was odd. During the scenes where the actors were speaking in a normal volume, it was good. During the scenes where the characters were in a panic (and the actors were way over the top), the sound was somehow...hollow. I can't explain it. It was almost as if they knew the sound quality wasn't great, so they bumped up the volume on the music.

The premise, of course, is always fun. You could spend hours pondering the time travel paradox through your mind to no avail. The screenplay itself wasn't bad. I can only assume that the direction given the actors was to be intentionally over the top. Less is more in film, they know that. These are experienced actors. Was Michael Hurst simply catering to the B film fans?

Then again, Michael Hurst is providing work to actors that need to keep working. He's also likely having fun shooting, making a little money and building his own resume. I love Scifi...quality Scifi. If you enjoyed Ex Machina, Europa Report, Predestination, Snowpiercer, Automata, et cetera, then you will not find this to be worth your time. It could have been quite good had they slowed down and allowed for quality acting to come through. It felt like they rushed through to save money and were quite satisfied with just another B movie. It's a shame.

I was tricked into giving this one some time by the first 2 reviews in the list. They lied. While the story synopsis implies there might be an interesting sci fi setup floating about, the first 10 mins of terrible acting, stale scenes and exposition make you not care about waiting to find out. The first scene was like an 80s kids drama of 'acting'. All fake urgency and 'drama'. The next scene with 2 cops in a car giving us the run down on the central group of scientists they were watching dragged on for what seemed like hours. I'm not sure it ever stopped. The 'scientists' were giving it their best 'teen 80s delinquent' impersonations which made me wonder if this movie was a tongue in cheek nod to those crappy movies of that period, (like we need more of them?), but that thought soon left my mind as I wished it to be over as soon as possible, but that wasn't going to happen till the full 90 minutes of excruciating was over. This is not worth your time. It's not clever, it's not funny, it's just boring, and badly done at that.

Deep in the heart of the city, a group of brilliant young scientists, led by the mysterious Mr. Landau, are on the brink of completing a machine that will let them travel one hour forward in time. When the first to time travel comes back with dire warnings of the rest of the group's impending demise, who can they trust? More to the point, will they survive, or is their fate already sealed?

Paradox has all the usual ingredients of modern, low budget sci-fi thrillers, from the convoluted story packed with twists and turns, to wonky sets, ropey CGI and hammy acting. The thing is, it actually seems to work for the most part.

The movie is pacey, energetic and unpretentious. Despite it's obviously low budget and limited crop of acting talent, the ensuing 90 minutes are rather enjoyable. Naturally, Zoe Bell is the cream of the acting crop here and she's always worth watching. Her physical talent is a touch underused during the film, but when she gets the opportunity, she uses it well. The rest of the largely unknown cast, despite having some truly naff dialogue to work with, are at least appealing despite some, shall we say, enthusiastic performances.

The direction and editing are pretty snappy and the movie motors along at a fair old click. It's silly, perils of time travel sci-fi hokum, so if you're expecting anything more, this movie is not one for you to watch. If however, you fancy some cheesy, undemanding fun with some campy acting thrown in with your thrills and spills, then there will be no contradictions in you giving Paradox a view.

I wish they'd mention somewhere this is based on 11 A.M. or Yeolhansi the Korean sci-fi film which in my opinion was far superior.

Over-all it's a fun film and I liked the changes they made to the storyline but again the original is fantastic!

This flick is clearly not for everyone. If you need a fix of mindless entertainment, keep looking. If you want to try meeting the challenge of following multiple time loops that fold over on themselves, you'll be right at home.

Best viewing might result if you separate the movie into categories of Acting and Premise. Yes, the acting is uninspired, and the half dozen or so characters are largely under developed. They display a liberal helping of the nerd quality that goes with a small team (somehow) building a time travel machine unnoticed. But, their judgment ratchets back to plain ordinary or worse as they deal with mounting problems.

IMO, the premise and writing are where this story shines. There have been a lot of sci-fi tales that toy with time travel and multiple (or alternate) time lines. The easiest to understand and follow is the classic reboot, where events don't quite match a previous story, but story progression is relatively linear. Even when there is some interaction or movement of characters between parallel time lines, it's still relatively easy to keep up.

"Paradox" is the other flavor of time travel. In this case, the timeline includes not one, but multiple loops between the present and one hour into the future. Characters try coming to grips with concepts such as destiny, and whether they can alter the fates that seem to await all of them. At the heart is the question whether one can go into the past to change an event responsible for a current undesirable situation, and, of course, what happens if you meet yourself (or can you?). There is even an honorable mention of "Schrödinger's cat." The fact that a writer kept this all sorted out is worth the watch.

So to repeat: if you don't want to think, move along. If you want a challenge, press "Play."