Review of Premonition (2007) by Eugenia R — 05 Aug 2009

A good idea for a movie: Follow someone having dreams about future events, several days before they happen, to see if the person can figure out what's happening, why is it happening, and what she can do about it. The only problem with this movie was: no one told the audience what day it was and whether the events were real or a dream. A very difficult movie to watch, even a second time.

Sandra Bullock's character discovers that her husband is about to be killed in a tragic accident, several days before it would occur. She also learns that her husband was having an ongoing affair. The movie could have investigated the very serious issue of Sandra deciding whether or not to allow her husband's death to occur and, if so, would she hold herself accountable for his death by not preventing it?

(Seriously, would you allow your spouce to die if you knew they were cheating and could foresee the death coming, or would you take the high road and prevent the death from happening?).

Instead, we're given a rather wishy-washy climax that lacked the courage of facing the bigger issue altogether.

It's often not a good sign when the heroine (Bullock) diagrams the events using magic marker and poster paper for herself, and the audience, to understand.

The scenes involving Bullock's effort to obtain the answer to why this was happening, by visiting a priest, seemed out-of-character. At no other time in the movie is the priest mentioned as someone Bullock would visit. The response provided did not help.

The movie ends in tragedy, and without any explanation for why it happened, and why it happened to Bullock?

Rent this movie, if you want, but have a notepad ready, or magic marker and poster paper.