Review of Primer (2004) by Troner12 — 28 Jul 2013
Primer is one of the most overrated Science Fiction films ever made and possibly one of the most overrated indie films. What has impressed crittics and sf fans is the Chinese Puzzlebox plot, which takes advantage of time travel parodoxes and closed causal loops (something in the future causes something to happen in the past).
The idea is fine, but the execution is a shambles. Shane Carruth shows very limmited understanding about things like dialogue, characterization, or even how to keep a shot in focus. No one in this movie can give us more than a wooden performance and the characters are never really engaging or interesting.
The music (composed by Carruth) is a kind of generic indipendent film music (minimal piano treble...that's brilliant!) that makes the mediocre compositions of John Carpenter seem like John Williams in comparison.
I had no problem with the techno-jargon. But that does not a great science fiction film make. It's just a lame attempt at versimilitude to convince the audience that the hokey time machine could really work.
With uncompelling characters and meandering, pointless dialogue, this film fails to be engaging from a dramatic standpoint. People just like the film's idea. Fair enough. But that would have been better served by a 20 minute indie film than this tedious feature.
This review of Primer (2004) was written by Troner12 on 28 Jul 2013.
Primer has generally received positive reviews.
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