Hypnotic - Ameaça Invisível

Robert Rodriguez is an immensely gifted cinematographer and has quite a vivid imagination, and both of these great qualities are abundant in Hypnotic. It has a wonderfully clever concept that keeps the film watchable and subversive twists that keep the experience unique.

Sadly, what keeps this movie from being powerful and memorable is it's excessive reliance on exposition. So much of it is necessary to explain the overly complex plot and possibly over half of the dialogue is clumsily-written rapid-fire exposition. It just isn't fun.

And the script keeps us from forming any sort of emotional connection with this story because it's so concerned with explaining WHAT is happening that it forgets to let us in on the intimacies of WHY it's all happening-who these people are, really, and why we should care.

I find this to be a very frustrating film, because it had so much more potential than was tapped into by this extremely rough screenplay.

Oh my goodness, how in the world did Ben sign up for this lazy writing? If this is all it takes to write movies these days then anyone can write any crazy unexplainable story and not care of it makes sense or not. Sure it's fiction and we know fiction isn't real but it ought to make some sense, unless it's cartoon.

I am very much disappointed in the whole premise. So many loopholes and when the great reveal happened, it just confused the movie even further. It was like you suddenly were watching a different movie.

The continuity didn't make sense. One minute someone is here, the next minute they aren't the one but someone else. I couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening. The acting was bad and bland.

It could have been so much better. It had the Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange and Professor X vibes but I guess they didn't have the budget to make it that huge.

I watched an early screening of Hypnotic as part of Regal's Mystery Movie Monday. I did not know what movie I was going to watch. And I had never heard of Hypnotic or seen a trailer. This is as blind as I've ever gone into a movie.

Hypnotic is an interesting mystery with a cool premise. I enjoyed the story and the way it was told. I was mildly intrigued throughout. There are some really cool scenes with good visuals. And it has some compelling and creative ideas with how to use the premise.

At the same time, I wish I liked it more. Not everything works. A lot of it feels like it could have been done better. And I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters or the story. At times I felt like it should have been a streaming movie.

I still had a good time with Hypnotic and am glad I watched it. It's good for a one-time viewing. And it was cool to see Affleck and Fichtner in a movie together for the first time since Armageddon and Pearl Harbor.

(1 viewing, early screening Mystery Movie Monday 5/1/2023)

Mini review of Regal Cinema's Mystery Movie Monday:

I generally don't watch trailers and try to avoid every detail about any movie I plan on watching. I would even prefer not to know the actors and director. So when I heard about this, I was immediately interested. To watch a movie without knowing the genre or even the title?!?! I had to try it. Plus it's only $5.

Of course there is a risk of it being a movie I have no interest in. I don't mind if the movie ends up being bad, as long as it's something in the general range of what I go for. I got lucky with this one. I imagine I will not be pleased if it ends up being a chick flick.

My only problem with this experience is that, right before the movie started, the director has a voice over telling us the title, director and actors. He doesn't say what it's about, but he says something like, "get ready for the ##### and #####," which told me what I was in for.

I tried plugging my ears but I heard most of it. I wish the movie just started and let me find out who's in it and what I was in for.

Hypnotic is a solid B movie aspiring to be Christopher Nolan's A-movie Memento or Inception with a whiff of Matrix. While it may play on notions of memory and hypnosis (see the title), it doesn't reach the nuances of Nolan's work. Yet it amuses and hints at the dangers lack of memory can cause.

For early summer and Ben Affleck in his prime (see Air), it's a safe bet for an evening that may cause you and your companions to philosophically speculate on its allegorical properties (social media mind bending, anyone?).

Danny Rourke (a perpetually glum Affleck) grieves to find his abducted daughter, Minnie (Hala Finley and Ionie Olivia Nieves), but has been searching for her for 4 years, even after arresting the kidnapper. You see, kidnapper doesn't remember a damn thing, and lo and behold more characters don't remember things either. It begins to sound like Hitchcock's Vertigo, whose re-release director Robert Rodriguez claims inspired him.

Something has a hold on their minds, a weapon far worse than guns and bombs. With the help of Detective Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), Rourke tracks from the heist to the master mind to get at the hypnosis generator. Along the way, a Hitchcock MacGuffin called Domino fades while our hero experiences a surprising facet of the titular weapon.

Although this is in no way a superhero film, it resembles one thematically with the emphasis on finding a daughter and making family whole again. That theme is more satisfactory than gaining riches or beating the hell out of bad guys.

The ending is sentimental to a fault, and the mid-credits sequence promises more of the same with a possible sequel. Summer fare could be worse, so relax in a comfy modern theater with your best bud and howl at the screen.

Hypnotic is an energetic B movie with a fleeting moment when Ben smiles. Now, that's entertainment!

Danny Rourke is determined to find his missing daughter, or at least learn what happened to her, he finds himself investigating some bizarre and inexplicable cases, where the crimes seem almost impossible.

I was almost quick to switch off, and simply dismiss it as a poor man's Inception, and whilst there are definitely some shades, that obscure surrealism, it's kind of worth sticking with.

I'm a big fan of Ben Affleck, and I'd watch him in anything, and boy has he been in some awful films, this one is far from awful, but it should have been so much better.

The narrative at times is non existent, you'll be sat wondering who, what, where, and on the other side, you have the psychic explaining bits of the plot, presumably to try and give the audience a clue as to what's going on, if you're not concentrating, you will lose it.

On the plus side, it looks great, and it does feel a little different to what's out there, Affleck and Braga are both good, though I feel their characters are both stuck in second gear, neither really offer up too much.

All in all, it's watchable, but it's a frustrating watch.

5/10.