I was fond of the original Flatliners quite a bit. Back then, I had never saw something like that;
I thought it was a fascinating science fiction horror film. I even re-watched it several times (partly because AXN, one of the cable channels I frequent back then, used to ran it over and over). I enjoyed its Twilight Zone-y vibes and
all-star cast (Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin,
and Oliver Platt).
This year’s reboot starring Ellen
Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, and Kiersy Clemons only scored 5%
in Rotten Tomatoes. Thus, I was prepared
to hate it. I didn’t even want to watch
it at first but still proceeded to because I thought Ellen Page, a talented
young actress, might make it somewhat interesting (plus I used to have a crush
on her when she was younger), and because it might make for some enjoyable hate-watching
session. I even thought I would give
this review a mocking title like “Flatliners
Flatlines” or “Flatliners Is DOA” or
something along those lines.
Oh, it’s a bad film, alright. It doesn’t add anything of significance to
the original 1990 film. It has some different plot elements, but it’s essentially the same film – five medical
students, wanting a glimpse/proof of the afterlife, proceed to stop their
hearts for a short period of time and get revived before completely dying, and
soon are haunted by their past sins.
Due
to the rehashed themes, ideas, and characterizations, it doesn’t have the sense
of novelty and thoughtfulness that the original has. And its application of horror-thriller clichés
doesn’t help improve its narrative either.
On top of this, compelling performances
were delivered by the original film’s cast, while laughably poor acting plagued
half of the reboot’s cast. The script
even has the audacity to kill off Ellen Page, the biggest – some may argue, the only – star in the main cast, halfway through the movie.
That said, it’s not as awful as
what it’s 5% Rotten Tomatoes score is suggesting. I’ve seen worse films this year. Flatliners
may be devoid of any real creativity and depth, but for what it is – a forgettable
but serviceable film – it’s not insufferably boring. It’s mildly entertaining and semi-thrilling.
On a side note, Kiefer Sutherland
has a supporting role in the reboot. But
his character, Dr. Barry Wolfson, is different from his character in the
original 1990 film, Nelson Wright. I would
have liked it if there had been a plot twist – a surprise connection between the two films – that Nelson Wright, sometime after the original film, had changed
his name to Barry Wolfson. Yeah, it’s
silly. But I do think it would have
injected a bit of excitement and appeal to the reboot.
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