Hypnotic
- 2023
- Tous publics
- 1h 33m
A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program.A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program.A detective investigates a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program.
Ruben Javier Caballero
- Watkins
- (as Ruben Caballero)
Ionie Olivia Nieves
- Minnie Rourke (7 yo)
- (as Ionie Nieves)
Bonnie Discepolo
- Business Woman #1
- (as Bonnie Kathleen Ryan)
Featured reviews
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!
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!
So about 20 minutes into this movie I thought it was terrible. Affleck's acting is particularly bad, and there's plot holes big enough to drive a bus through, and it just kind of felt like a bad movie that I'd suffer through till the end, but then something happened.... the "reveal" around the hour mark. Suddenly all those plot "holes" weren't actually plot holes, and Affleck's "bad" acting wasn't actually bad at all. That's the point. It's SUPPOSED to watch like a terrible movie because that sets up the reveal. I hate to say it, but that nuance once u know the reveal is kinda brilliant. Affleck in particular is acting badly... ON PURPOSE! And you're supposed to notice those plot holes and be like "Wait, how is that possible?". Those are the clues to the reveal.
So yeah, is it the best movie ever? No. But anyone writing a bad review (in particular criticizing Affleck's acting) just doesn't understand that that was the assignment.
So yeah, is it the best movie ever? No. But anyone writing a bad review (in particular criticizing Affleck's acting) just doesn't understand that that was the assignment.
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.
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 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'm not really sure why everybody hates this so much. I read a few reviews that said there were huge plot holes, I didn't find that at all. There was only unanswered question for me and that is simply...were they born with it or are lots of people and it just an untapped brain function, that under the right circumstances can be honed? But everything from the opening scene after was answered! And it was answered very clearly. So either they didn't finish it or they weren't really watching, as they were watching. As far as the acting goes, I mean I've seen worse and I've seen better. But it was it wasn't such pitiful acting that I'd give a one star review for it. It really just centers around a several main characters and they all do a decent job. It's not an Emmy winner by any means but it's still a watchable movie. And if you are among the groups who believe the "government" tells us what they are doing, through channeling entertainment to program us, then I would say you'd like it even more. Because who's to say things like this aren't happening right now. Programming subjects for mass shootings comes to mind haha.
Did you know
- TriviaIn a 2023 interview with Collider, Robert Rodriguez explained the short production schedule and quick shooting style that resulted: "Originally, it was gonna be 55 days, which is pretty luxurious. It's not bad for me the way I shoot. That's a lot of time, that's good. That's about what we do on a Sin City (2005)-type movie. But because we had to shut down three times, every time we got shut down we'd have to find money in the budget somewhere, and then the easiest way to cut budget is to cut days. So I went from 55 days, then the second time it cut down to 40 days, then the second time we shut down to 34 days, but it wasn't like a 12 to 14-hour day. They were French hour, 10-hour days, which, when you change locations several times a day like we had to, that's more like a 6 to 8-hour day, so that's like a 24-day schedule. So I had to spin it in a good way. I thought, 'Ben Affleck's gonna hate this,' and I thought, 'Wait a minute, he's from the '90s too.' So I said, 'Hey, Ben, it's gonna be like the roaring '90s, man. Remember when we started, we were shooting from the hip, indie style?' And he went, 'Yeah, I didn't think anyone shot like that anymore. I stand around a lot on sets,' and said, 'Let's do it that way.' So he was into it and we had such a blast. I think it brought an energy to it that reminded me of, 'Oh, I got the Alfred Hitchcock experience.' He (Hitchcock) was so tired of the bloated budgets and the long schedules that he said, 'Man, this TV thing is the way to go. I'm gonna take my TV crew, we're gonna shoot Psychose (1960) in black and white and shoot it fast.' So this was kind of like our Psycho [laughs]. We had to just shoot it very quick, but I think that's why it feels so fast is because we had to shoot it fast and we didn't have time to shoot extra s**t that would have just slowed the edit down. So we kind of had to just go with the essentials and cut it, and get it down to the- it's like a 90-minute movie, right? It's like 94 minutes."
- GoofsAll entries contain spoilers
- Quotes
Diana Cruz: I love you.. don't ask me why.
- Crazy creditsFinal ending is shown in a mid-credit scene.
- How long is Hypnotic?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Hipnosis: Arma Invisible
- Filming locations
- Austin, Texas, USA(Downtown)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $70,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $4,500,169
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $2,401,686
- May 14, 2023
- Gross worldwide
- $16,281,937
- Runtime
- 1h 33m(93 min)
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1
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