Tag: Darkplace

Timestalker (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Girl meets boy, girl gets decapitated, girl meets boy again in a future life. Repeat.

I’m a massive fan of Alice Lowe, from her television work in Darkplace or Horrible Histories, to her forays into films. She’s weird. I mean that in a good way. She’s one of those actors who could turn up in almost any comedy or horror and it would make sense, how she didn’t make an appearance in Paddington or Wonka is astounding to me. It’s not just a performer, she’s gained a reputation as a pretty darn good writer/director too; giving the world Sightseers and Prevenge. The latter, she made whilst pregnant, and is highly recommended. My plan for this review as to gush over how much I adore her and everything she does, this is the first film of hers I’ve reviewed on this site, and it’s about damn time(stalker) I showed her the love she deserved.

With that in mind, it’s a shame that Timestalker isn’t quite as good as you feel it could be. I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m not even saying it’s not good, but it’s not brilliant. It doesn’t feel as essential as some of her other work. It’s got a really unique premise, and some great visual styles, but there are times when it feels like that’s all it has. Timestalker does have the bad fortune to be released in 2024. It would be impossible to compare this to anything else any other year. You could legitimately say you’ve never seen anything like this. In 2024? It brings to mind Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast (as reviewed here). They take different approaches to it though, whereas The Beast gives you existential dread and nihilistic thoughts, Timestalker gives you laughs and playfulness. It’s certainly more consistent than The Beast, better than the worst parts, but nowhere near as good as the best parts.

My biggest gripe is that Timestalker is that it feels like it is not making the most of the premise. It needs more links between the times, with repeated themes and visuals in different contexts. There are some visuals that keep cropping up (the pink heart for one) but they feel too forced and instead of suggesting a connected universe, this makes it feel more like that object has magical powers. The music, especially, is a component that definitely could have had a lot more fun with connective moments.

This is very negative I know. In truth, I did like Timestalker. It’s darkly funny with many moments where you catch yourself laughing at things you know you really shouldn’t. There are some terrific colours throughout, so it’s never an ugly watch. Aneurin Barnard is a revelation (which I realise now is a borderline offensive thing to say considering how many things he’s been in), he has innate star power, which helps you buy into the idea that she would fall in obsession with him. You see him on screen and you just know “That’s a star”. He backs this up with a good performance too, his performance in the 80’s timeline is a particular delight. The 80’s section was probably my favourite part, and not just because Lowe fits that decade visually. It’s also the part with the best story development, characterisation, and music. Her unspoken romance with Meg is also incredibly sweet.

In summary, it’s weird and wonderful, but not quite great. Alice Lowe is still one of the most unique creators around, and it will take something truly terrible for her to lose stock.

Zack Snyders Justice League (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM-Bja2Gy04

Quick Synopsis: Costumed people punch CGI, in HD

I was debating whether to include this in the reviews for this year or not. I mean, would I count rereleases etc as new films? I wouldn’t so should I for this? Then I looked at the differences in length and realised this might be something completely new. Could it actually be good?

Spoilers, it’s not. It’s not good. There is one word I will use to describe this though: Dull. Now I know this was originally supposed to be released years ago, but it HAS been released in 2021, original intentions be damned. It’s following up a film from 2016, so that’s 5 years and we’re supposed to remember. I know we are sick of seeing Batman’s parents die again, or going through Spider-man’s backstory, but this has gone too far the other way. It would not have killed them to add a few minutes of recap at the start. This is in a weird position because of the “meant for 2017, released now”. Especially since things have happened since that film that we are aware of (even if we weren’t supposed to be when the film was made). Since then, we have seen the Whedon version of Justice League, two Wonder Woman films, and an Aquaman one. This film doesn’t take that into consideration so a lot of the time it aims for dramatic reveals that you already know. Again, this would have been fine if it was released back then, but this has been released now, when we know certain things so we don’t need to see what we see a lot of the time.

And we do see a lot. Too much, it’s almost four hours and it doesn’t exactly use that time well. I don’t mind long films if they justify their length. But this doesn’t, it feels unnaturally stretched out for a lot of the time. There’s a line from the British sitcom Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace that seems to sum up Snyder’s attitude to the film:

That’s how watching this film feels. Like everything is in slow motion. It’s not an exciting rollercoaster, it’s walking through treacle. It moves so slowly that even when stuff happens, because it takes so long to happen it feels like nothing has. I’m assuming stuff did happen in this film, but I can’t remember any of it.

That’s the big issue with this film, it’s just not exciting. As meh as the original Justice League was, it was never as dull as this. This is an actual slog to get through. At no point was I actively engaged. Actually, there was no point where I felt anything at all. Usually, with these, the first step is to compare it to a Marvel movie. With this, you feel it would be more apt to compare it to a Transformers one.

There’s some choices here which are just weird. Like the aspect ratio. He released it in a 4:3 format. Basically this means you have to make do with the black bars on the side of your screen. Snyder did this because he likes the way that format looks on an IMAX screen. One small issue with that: this isn’t released there, it’s strictly home viewing. This means he intentionally released it in a format best suited for a medium for which nobody will be watching it on(weirdly, it looks good on an iPad but that feels weird watching films on there). It’s a bit like a musician releasing a song and saying “oh, don’t worry this is meant to be sung live alongside a group of people” and then never ever playing it live. All these decisions just make it feel dated, like it was “discovered” from back then, rather than specially remastered and with new scenes filmed specifically for a 2021 release.

Not to say it’s all bad, there are some good performances and somewhere in this is a great movie if you cut out a lot of fluff. It feels HUGE in terms of scope and it gets a lot done. Plus some of the action scenes are great to watch.

In summary, I would find it really hard to justify spending 4 hours of your time watching this. Especially since it spends so much time setting up sequels that will now not be made. An interesting curiosity for sure, and I would like to see more films given this treatment (I would actually like to see the original version of Fant4stic just to see whether the studio did ruin it as much as the director claimed), but this is not a good advertisement for doing so.