Review of Predestination (2014) by Dukejon — 22 Feb 2015

Really disappointed with this film, in fact I haven't felt so cheated since I saw "Prometheus". There were so many WTF moments and suspensions of disbelief that it all became ridiculous way before the "twist" at the end. First off, Sarah Snook has to be the least convincing "man" I have seen in a movie. Putting on a jacket and trousers and applying a bit of stubble then saying "Hey! I'm a guy!" just doesn't cut it, I'm afraid. Remember Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire? Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie? Both far more convincing as women than Sarah Snook is as a guy. The film started off in a really boring way with "John" telling his random life story to a bartender (as you would). Of course the bartender was able to sit and listen for what seemed like 45 minutes (obviously a very slow day at work). Then all of a sudden it's "Hey, you know what? As it happens I can travel through time, here's a gun to murder someone in the past! Come with me!". So then the story actually begins and we find that "John" is actually "Jane" in the future and instead of killing the person who broke "Janes" heart (as of course it someone lets you down in live it's acceptable to murder them) we find that John falls in love with himself as Jane (as you would). Of course you would do that, wouldn't you? All in the space on an hour as well. Of and John makes love to Jane (calling Dr Freud!) and they have a baby who is actually baby Jane who is taken to the past by Ethan Hawke (who, you guessed it, is John and Jane as well) for the circle to be complete. The smoking man who runs everything also pops up quite a lot as well, but mainly to explain the difficult bits for the audience. The whole thing about Jane/John having two sets of internal organs (and not knowing) and sitting up in bed, fresh faced, after the birth having been completely rewired was ridiculous. She kept saying she couldn't look at herself for a long time was also stupid, as people look at themselves dozens of times every day. You just can't avoid it.

What was a shame about this film was that there seemed to be a couple of much better films trying to get out. The whole "training Jane" sequence at Space Corps was intriguing and visually striking, reminding me of Gattaca. Out of interest, why did she go from being top of her class, incredibly physically tough, chosen for an elite government agency, top 1%, etc, to doing menial work such flipping burgers and becoming a live in nanny afterwards? Another part of the film that just didn't make any sense. I was intrigued by the fizzle bomber but this was never explored. Out of interest, how can someone who makes their own bombs in 1975 make something with enough explosive power to obliterate 10 city blocks and kill 10,000 people?

The idea of going back in time to prevent crimes before they happen and eliminate criminals has been done much better than this (Looper). Overall there was far too much suspension of disbelief and unplausible coincidences to make this film work for me. And please, if you have a character who is a guy have a guy actor play actually them.