"FLATLINERS" Flatlined - Movie Review and Spoiler
Synopsis: In Flatliners, five medical students, obsessed by the mystery of what lies beyond the confines of life, embark on a daring and dangerous experiment: by stopping their hearts for short periods of time, each triggers a near-death experience – giving them a firsthand account of the afterlife. But as their experiments become increasingly dangerous, they are each haunted by the sins of their pasts, brought on by the paranormal consequences of trespassing onto the other side.
Review: In comparison to the Flatliners (1990), the remake, Flatliners (2017) is a complete snooze fest. Being that it was so boring was quite unfortunate because the concept of going on a journey into the last unknown has so much potential. The film started off with Courtney (Ellen Page) tragically losing her sister. Nine years later, she is a medical student, trying to convince her colleagues to help with a flatlining experiment. Later in the film, both events are connected, though significantly more depth was required.
The purpose of Courtney's experiment was to record and see the brain's activity after a person flatlines. Being that this was her idea, she asked her friends, Sophia (Kiersey Clemons) and Jamie (James Norton) to agree and help her explore the afterlife by inducing her death, then reviving her after 60 seconds. But all of their medical training goes out the window once she's a corpse, and must enlist last-minute help from Ray (Diego Luna) and Marlo (Nina Dobrev), shortly after.
Before realizing that experiencing death before your time leads to being hunted by your past, Courtney enjoys a couple of days of hyper-intelligence and enhanced abilities — which, of course, means that her achievement-driven peers want to kill themselves as soon as possible and do it for even longer. One by one, they do follow by spiked intelligence, uncontrollable partying and lots of PG-13 sex.
After all of the fun comes the payback (which might I add, was the only good part of the movie.) At this point of the film, the movie fully embraces its dark material. The help of jump scares and the choice of music adds to the already well-developed spooky atmosphere. During "payback" is when each student must face the regretful actions of their past and suffer from a series of hallucinations and supernatural visitations. Their sins ranged from negligent homicide and internet bullying. Although their crimes varied, their punishments were consistent.
As the movie continues, it becomes duller and duller. Once their mistakes begin to hunt them, they each realize that to stop the suffering, they must face up to their sins and try and remedy the past. At that point, it became apparent that director, Niels Arden Oplev had no direction for the second half of the film because it felt rushed, corny and too "happily ever after." Although the actors were great, the conclusion was weak, and the potential of the movie was untouched. All in all, a remake was simply unnecessary. Simply put, this is not a movie we would advise for you to go rush and see in theaters. You are better off watching it on FandangoNow or one day on a plane.
But, if you insist on seeing it after watching the misleading trailer, Flatliners is now playing in theaters everywhere.
Rotten Tomatoes Current Score: 0%
THAheadline Score (THAscore): 4/10