Rastros do Além

I watched this at home on DVD from my local library. My wife chose to skip, not her kind of movie.

Bella Thorne is the main character, high schooler Veronica (Ronnie) Calder. Every morning at the breakfast table she witnesses exactly the same thing, her father sitting there, reading a newspaper, smiling and nodding to her, then his image dissolves and disappears. The title is a reference to this.

Some ten years earlier in the Chicago area an incident during experiments with a heavy particle accelerator causes a flash that killed hundreds, including Ronnie's dad, and their images return every day.

But that just sets the story up. The meat of it becomes the search for a person who may be a serial killer, and may be tracking Ronnie so that an "exchange" can be made to bring someone else back from the dead.

It is a pretty interesting take on the ghost theme and I enjoyed watching the movie, although I will not count it among my favorites.

After the explosion of a research laboratory in Chicago known as The Event that kills a great number of people, the living people cohabit with ghosts known as remnant especially near the ground zero. Ten years after The Event, the teenager Veronica Calder (Bella Thorne) has classes about the remnant laws with her teacher August Bittner (Dermot Mulroney). She also coexists peacefully with the remnants until the day she is threatened by the mysterious remnant Brian (Thomas Elms). She seeks help with her schoolmate Kirk Lane (Richard Harmon), who is an expert in remnant, and they need to the Chicago's No-Go Zone, a place forbidden to humans, to learn secrets about The Event and the killer.

"I Still See You" is a surprisingly good supernatural thriller with an original ghost story. The screenplay does not have the usual clichés of the genre and the acting is good. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

I don't agree with the reviews that say that the script tries to pack too much in, I really don't get that criticism. It's fine. The problem that brought this movie down from a 7:00 to 6:00 for me is a disappointingly common plot development toward the end, such a cliche that it pulls the movie down from good to just fair. I haven't read the novel it's based on but I suspect the same thing happens there. If that's correct you can't blame the script for following the novel.

My own rule of thumb is that a 6 is a decently entertaining movie and a 7 is worth watching more than once. I probably will never watch this movie again but it was an entertaining way to spend 100 minutes.

Within moments I was oddly gripped, I loved the concept and the whole thing looked sleek, original and fascinating.

Starring the stunning Bella Thorne and underappreciated Dermot Mulroney this is one that is very hard to pigeon hole as it doesn't really fall under one category.

It tells the story of a science experiment gone wrong and a world where ghosts walk among the living frequently, though they are unable to interact nor aware that they're deceased.

The ideas within the movie are remarkably clever but I quickly began to think that they'd be better suited to a television series rather than a movie. By the end, I had that belief confirmed. Don't get me wrong I Still See You is a very enjoyable movie but I think it was perhaps released in the wrong format.

Genuinely clever, interesting and captivating I can't argue that it isn't without its flaws as truth be told it has many BUT the quality of the film outweighs them.

I'd recommend the film to anyone and everyone, sure it has that teen-sci fi vibe about it but thankfully manages to be considerably better than that.

I'd love to see this become a television series, I'd rush to watch that every week. But if this is all we get, then it's enough.

The Good:

Looks great

Bella Thorne and Dermot Mulroney

Some great ideas

The Bad:

Some of the ideas don't feel fully formed

Leaves a lot of unanswered questions

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

There is still life in the ghost sub genre

We need more original movies like this and less reboots

While not exactly being a fan of Bella Thorne (can't stand 'Shake It Up' for example), it was the concept that had me sold on watching 'I Still See You'. A concept that was among the cleverest and most imaginative, and one of the most ambitious, ones for any film seen recently and really had me intrigued. Even the advertising grabbed the attention and did hear good things about it, so the potential was certainly there and it was not exactly small.

'I Still See You' however could have done quite a lot more with this concept. It is not a bad film and it is not a complete waste of the potential it had, but there was a big deal of room for improvment and the potential is far from fullfilled. It also struck me after watching that the concept would have lended itself better to a mini-series and that it was too ambitious for a feature film. It really does annoy me somewhat when a film like 'I Still See You' has such an intriguing and ambitious concept, that could have been done very imaginatively, but executes it in a too ordinary, mundane and muddled way. Far from being one of the worst cases sure and there are flashes of greatness, but a concept as good as this deserved a much better film.

There are good things here in 'I Still See You'. It actually looks quite professional visually, the photography is slick, the moodiness of the lighting fits the atmosphere beautifully and the effects are surprisingly polished and like time and care went into constructing them (even if they weren't what one would call special). The moody atmosphere is reflected very effectively in the score, which doesn't overbear what's going on and doesn't sound cheap or inappropriate, the placement never questionable.

Direction is competent and the acting is well above average and while not award-worthy it's acceptable. Bella Thorne surprisingly carries 'I Still See You' more than capably, was expecting her to be too lightweight and out of place but she was neither. Dermot Mulroney is up to her level and their chemistry works. 'I Still See You' also started off very promisingly indeed, with the imagination, suspense and intrigue present.

So it is sad that the second half is nowhere near as good. 'I Still See You' comes rather mundane and one loses interest. The dialogue can be very cheesy, of the difficult to take seriously kind which jars when the film itself is quite serious. There are a lot of predictable moments and there are parts that are of pure stupidity.

Am now going to elaborate on my opinion of the concept lending itself better to a mini-series. There are too many ideas, all great but never given the chance to be fully explored, and the film tries to be too much all at once which creates a tonal muddle which really confuses the story. 'I Still See You' becomes convoluted and cluttered, and the mundane feeling comes from the pace slackening (think the makers realised how much they were trying to pack in and tried to slow down to accomodate) and the suspense and imagination becoming lost under the over-ambition. The characters never fully develop either and are basically flimsy cliches no matter how decently acted they are. Then there is the somewhat hasty ending which leaves too many unanswered questions and loose ends and leaves the viewer crying what in frustration, a twist is also attempted but it felt rushed and didn't ring true. All of this giving off the sense that the film is too short.

Overall, great idea with very average execution. 5/10 Bethany Cox