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| In search of a hermaphrodite & humanity. |
Dir. Michael and Peter Spierig
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor
Review By Greg Klymkiw
This is the kind of annoying science fiction time travel picture that gets film critics all hard and/or wet due to its "clever" gender-bending calisthenics amidst time-bending aerobatics which yield "deep humanity" twixt the thrills.
Alas, there's nothing especially exciting about this adaptation of a Robert A. Heinlein tome. Since I've not read the original, this movie may well, for all I know, be relatively faithful to it, but if so, then I can't imagine the original's much good.
The Spierig Twins, who've never displayed anything especially unique as filmmakers, save from being identical, have generated a dull as dishwater tale of a "Temporal Agent" (Ethan Hawke) who's on the trail of a criminal through the intricacies of time travel.
He's yet to nail the bugger and both his existence and that of the known universe is dependent upon it. His target appears to be a hermaphrodite (Sarah Snook) who birthed a babe as a woman and pulls off terrorist activities as a man. The terrorist activities haven't happened yet, though they have, actually, but they won't, really, if Hawke manages to do his job properly.
Much of the movie is comprised of endlessly talky scenes in a pub wherein Hawke works as a bartender (undercover, 'natch) and chats up the young fella who was once a woman and moonlights as a "true confessions" style columnist called "The Unmarried Mother".
Ugh.
With great indie time travel films around like Time Lapse and decent mainstream items like Looper, the existence of Predestination seems dubious at best. Someone will like it, though.
Precious, pretentious critics, no doubt.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: * One-Star
Predestination has its Toronto Premiere at Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2014.
