Needle Reviews in Time Stack: About Messy Man’s Time Traveling Romance

“Why a man?” It seems a provocative question, but it is an incredibly reasonable response to John Ridley’s sci-fi romance Needle in the time stackThis movie introduced time travel into a world, but quickly rejected it because it was a way to save lives in previous lives, create world peace, or stop the virus that ended humanity. (who cares other people,do you know? ) On the contrary, Ridley provides spiritual successors for stories like this Time traveler’s wife with About time, Where time travel is used to further express sentimental thoughts about soul mates, monogamy and fate.

Admittedly, this is an obvious change in rhythm, the doom and gloom usually associated with time travel, as in the Terminator series, Tomorrow’s War, or 12 monkeys. but Needle in the time stack Lacking the internal world building necessary to achieve its inspiring intentions, the result is that the film inadvertently proves that men obsessed with refusing to let women be alone will never be good.

Adapted from a short story by Robert Silverberg decades ago (reprinted recently in an anthology) Time Traveler’s Yearbook, Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer), Needle in the time stack Adapted and directed by Ridley, who won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Twelve years as a slaveThis is Ridley’s first foray into the field of science fiction after his main career in drama (Three Kings, Benhul, TV series anthologies American crime) And comedy (Martin, Fresh Prince Bel Air, Barbershop: Collection). Perhaps this is why this movie lacks many genre details that make the world look real.

It is impossible to decipher the working principle of any time travel Needle in the time stack. The rich can easily time travel, but they should not change the past because the time police will punish them.But this is completely A story that selfishly changed the past without repercussions at all! If this is a comment on how rich people operate according to different rules from others, the film does not make it clear-lack of responsibility is more like a plot point of decline. But even worse for this movie is Ridley’s confusing way of handling the effects of time travel.

In the near future, architect Nick (Hamilton with One night in miami Star Leslie Odom Jr.) and photographer Jenny (Bad times at El Royale Breakout star Cynthia Erivo (Cynthia Erivo) is happily married. “If I didn’t know you, would I still fall in love with you?” Nick wondered when he looked at Jenny at the dinner party. He obviously thinks he will. But Nick is also very worried about Jenny’s ex-husband, rich Tommy (Orlando Bloom), who has used time travel three times to try to change the past and get Jenny back.

Whenever “time shift” comes, Ridley imagines it as a wave of air whizzing through the crowd, and Nick will be swallowed by fear-and then when he learns that Jenny will secretly meet Tommy after the divorce At times, he will feel angry. He suspected that she was hiding more from him. At the same time, Tommy invited Nick’s predecessor, Alex (Freida Pinto) to help him change the trajectory of their lives. Once, these four people were friends, but now they are trying to reverse and unravel each other’s choices.

In some scenes, “time-shifting” or “stage” creates a wide range of changes for everyone in the moment, while in other scenes, the effect is only temporary or affects only one person. What caused these differences? Who controls this technology? How is it regulated? How can this near-future version of the United States easily access time travel, but there is no clear way to protect memory, unless you visit a mall store to have employees scan your printed photos and lock the data in the cloud in the vault? (Besides, in this hazy sci-fi future, shopping malls still exist? Really?)

These questions may sound critical, but they are noticeable because the inconsistencies of the movie severely complicate the romantic relationship that should be the center of the story. The four protagonists are obviously the main narrative focus of Ridley. He collides them with each other in different ways to explore the doubts, regrets, fantasy and desires that come with marriage.

But Janine and Alex are barely outlined, so much so that they lack a reasonable weight in this quadrilateral.so Needle in the time stack It just becomes a boring narrative of a small tug of war between two insecure men for the women in their lives.Science fiction movies can and should be filled with small-scale, private stories to balance the endless space opera epic and dystopian blockbusters of this genre, but Needle in the time stack It is an empty attempt to match personal emotional bets with high-concept science fantasy methods.

After introducing these characters, Ridley quickly divided them into different pairs, so the actors had to instill the emotional courage he so desperately wanted to achieve into his serious script. The results vary from scenario to scenario. The problem is that there is a gap between who the movie thinks these characters are and how their actions actually behave. As Nick, Odom does suffer and protect his wife, but he obviously does not respect Jenny’s agency and choice. This is not the gesture of love implied by the movie.

Photo: Kate Cameron/Lions Gate Pictures

Bloom plays Tommy on a smug register. Although he perfected the art of having a punchable face, he did not get rid of the vulnerability of injury. Needle in the time stack Requirements at the back of the film. (Alas, there is no timetable for Nick and Tommy to fall in love with each other due to all their unresolved tensions.) Both Pinto and Erivo are limited by the flattening of their roles, and due to the lack of focus on what the film is about them think. What does Alex miss about Nick? First of all, what made Jenny fall in love with Tommy? Where are the details of these women’s lives? No matter what vitality the usually glamorous Erivo and Pinto can provide, they are flattened by their positioning in this story, and they become the objects of trading back and forth between their men. Conversations like “Every time we fall in love, we just steal someone from someone else” make this daunting point of view especially obvious.

Needle in the time stack Repeated over and over again, no matter how the world around it works, some love is destined. (More than one character solemnly recites this line, “Love is drawn in the form of a circle.”) Of course, a common analogy of time travel stories is that nothing in the past can completely change the present.But Ridley is unwilling to fight this ideological position meaningfully, and he can’t seem to see that his protagonist is actually exhausted, making Needle in the time stack It’s hard to get lost.

Needle in the time stack It debuted on October 15th with limited theatrical distribution and digital and on-demand rentals, and released Blu-ray and DVD on October 19th.