Review of Primer (2004) by Waleed A — 25 Jun 2017

Interesting premise, but poorly done. the story is taken in strange directions, and it seems to be overly convoluted for convoluted's sake. i'm the kind of movie fan that loves when a movie is complex and requires you to think, I love when they don't explain everything and there is a lot unseen that you need to deduce. but this movie just overdoes it. this is my second time watching it, and I feel the same way as the first time. it doesn't make sense. and I don't just mean one aspect, I mean all of it. I watched an illustrated explanation on youtube that did a great job of showing you what happened, and it follows a logical path as long as you allow some weird assumptions, but there is no way I would have ever been able to get that without watching this movie a bunch of times and studying it. that's a problem, and even with all that I don't think I would be able to figure it out.

Let's look at interstellar as an example. that movie is extremely complex and can be discussed and studied extensively. with regards to the overall story, not just what was shown in the movie, I would estimate that I grasped about 70% of everything the first time. it wasn't until about the 5th time that I reached about 95%. the difference is, even if you didn't fully grasp everything that happened inside and outside of the movie, it was still enjoyable on so many other levels. this movie is driven solely by the story which is nearly impossible to understand. and even if we somehow understand everything, the story still isn't very good. I know it's an indy film, but it has to be said that the acting was pretty bad (2 viewings).