Flatliners shows messy plot

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When it comes to Flatliners, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, the notion that reboots are worse than their predecessor is an understatement.

The science fiction horror drama, which came out on September 29, currently holds a 5/10 on IMDB and a disheartening 4% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Adapted from the 1990 film starring Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland, Flatliners follows five pre-med students looking to discover what happens to the brain after death. Nina Dobrev, Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Kiersey Clemons and James Norton lead the motion picture through a startling series of medically induced deaths and resuscitations.

I walked into the theater with high expectations for the beautifully diverse and talented cast. However, as the movie progressed, I became disappointed and quite frankly confused as to where the plot was going.

At first, Oplev approaches the film with a dramedy lens, lacing in an upbeat humor into the stress and romance-filled lives of the students. As the film reaches its climax however, the genre becomes entirely ambiguous. The course of the movie begins to take a turn in the wrong direction, with jump scares around every corner and an unsettling motif of forgiving one’s sins.

Moreover, the film aimed to convey a message that was lost in translation. The movie came to a rushed resolution, disregarding much of the questions that rose from the many themes that came into play throughout the climax.

The film attempted to juggle too many genres and messages at once, which threw off the premise and made the resolution all too confusing.

Despite the lack of substance and an ambiguous genre, I should note that Flatliners did have a beautiful set of graphics– portraying the afterlife as a stunning framework of energy and stars.

The soundtrack, composed by Nathan Barr, additionally complemented each scene with heavy suspense and made me feel like I was experiencing the scenes firsthand.

Even more, the performances of all five actors was incredible. Even within an ambiguous plot, they did an amazing job laying their emotions out on the screen. It was basically a great cast stuck inside of a poor production.

However, the graphics, soundtrack and cast were not enough to make up for the messy plot and rushed resolution. Flatliners was a movie with immense potential that, despite having a great cast and elegant visuals, was poorly executed.

If you are looking to see a good movie, do not waste your time and money on Flatliners.