Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (14 January 2013)

This movie is slick, intense, and well acted. It has an interesting concept, and the basis for a classic future-noir. Instead it has two disjointed story elements, messily pasted together to stretch the movie to the two-hour mark. The initial concept of time travel, and its implications of meeting your future self, are entirely thrown away to stage a series of well crafted, action set pieces, complete with a blaring electronic soundtrack, and lots of shooting. The pace never lets up, the movie is an adrenaline rush from start to finish.
But it is also a wasted opportunity. Aside from the distracting CGI involved in morphing our lead actors' faces together, the movie looks great, a combination of film noir and western designs spruce up the speculative future. The production design, including costumes recalls Blade Runner.
The story is a messy pasting of confusing plot elements all thrown in to make you forget how ultimately pointless this exercise was. And when it degenerates into an action chase filled with throbbing music flashing guns, all is lost.
Half an hour too long, unfocused, and in the end nothing more than an action movie that dreams of being Inception. A wasted disappointment.