Prisoner X

Comes down to what like. For my part, given a home grown Canadian film is not gonna have Brad Pitt or a Marvel Stan Lee block buster bank roll or marketing/releasing company backing them up but with what they had I'd call this a really fascinating product. very entertaining. The unique story and telling of it is their product, not the publicity or cast tours selling it.

I had this movie on my list-to-buy for a long time, just never got convinced to take the risk. There are no critical reviews for this movie and only a few hundred reviews on IMDB. And those reviews are wildly varied from low to high.

But, I finally took a chance on this movie today and watched it. I watched the whole movie from beginning to end, and I can honestly say it's a little sad that a movie this good seems to have been ignored by so many people, probably for the same reasons as I did.

After watching this whole movie, which I'm convinced most of the people who left low ratings did not bother to do, I can say this movie has one big thing going for it: pure science fiction. Not all the science is accurate, but it's much better than most movies that are considered sci-fi. Blended with the sci-fi was some decent drama. Together, they give this movie a very strong underlying story. This story is the kind of sci-fi story I can imagine paying to read.

The budget for this movie seems kind of low, but I expected that. And it doesn't really matter for this story. The acting was surprisingly very good considering I didn't recognize anyone in it, and I kind of expect poor acting in a low budget movie, but I saw no real sign of that. There were a couple of parts that had "OK" acting, but maybe only about 5 minutes out of the whole movie.

There were a few times during the movie when it seemed like it was getting predictable, like I knew where it was going and I'd been there before. But, that's the key with movies like this -- you have to take the whole thing in before making a judgement. In the end, it was not predictable, I didn't know where it was going until I got to the end, and I was very satisfied with that ending.

So, take a chance on this movie if you are a pure sci-fi fan and/or reader. Not only was it worth the money I paid to buy it, but I'll be watching it at least one more time. I honestly didn't believe I'd be saying that when I took the chance, so I'm very happy I took it.

1. Cheap effects; what few there were. Cheap production with basically everything filmed in typical underground concrete bunker type room and lots of quick videos & photos of humanity doing harm to itself. So old & overused. Tiresome; not original. 2. So cheap they have no subtitles coupled with poor English enunciation and poor audio level control.Not that it matters that much since the dialogue was created by scientifically illiterate writers to sound scientifically intelligent. 3. Acting was soooo scripted robotic - stereotypical prisoner and interrogation methods. 4. Dumb science: Time traveler here to warn humanity; shows up out of nowhere and convinces interrogators by listing location and times for astronomical events. Cost to show us such overwhelming time traveler advanced capabilities - a piece of paper and a observatory photo. That's it for a civilization so advanced to just show up.

A lesser-known movie with unknown actors but the premise really put the hook in me. After watching the movie for five minutes, I was thinking...wow...where is this going? I won't get into the plot except to say that after watching and thinking about the film, I began to appreciate the little bits of logic interwoven into the narrative. There are things left unexplained including the implications of the ending, but the screenwriter leaves that up to you. I haven't told you much about the plot to let you experience it as I did: no prior information. If like well-written sci-fi, give PrisonerX a watch. Obviously, I enjoyed it.

The best way to describe this movie would be if you took an average episode of The Outer Limits TV series (1995–2002) or the remade Twilight Zone TV series (1985–1989, 2002-2003), and extended it to a 2- hour format.

Sometimes time-travel movies are overly convoluted as a way to come off as original or smart, but Prisoner X handles it in a very straightforward manner.

The actors are unknown, but the majority do a good job. The story is creative, and the budget is high enough to provide believable sets and decent props without looking like something you'd see on MST3K.

Some of the scenes felt rushed, so better editing plus cutting out unnecessary side stories would have allowed other scenes to be extended.

You'll be disappointed if you expect a Michael Bay pew-pew fest or a Hollywood action/thriller film. It's definitely a notch or 2 above a typical SyFy channel original movie though.

Overall, Prisoner X is a good way to kill a few hours of boredom.