Predestination is a 2015 science fiction thriller about a time traveling cop the hunt for a dangerous criminal. Well-received by critics, it earned praise for its complex story and good performances. It is this week’s Hot Pick Flick.
Are you ready to get your thinking caps on? Ready to scratch your heads, mull things over, get the ol’ hamster wheel turning? Then this is the movie for you. The plot is so filled with twists and turns that you’ll get a little lost at times and the overall concept is actually insane, but it all makes sense in a time travel kind of way.
The overall idea here is that Ethan Hawke’s character, who is known as The Bartender, is a Temporal Agent who has to travel backwards and forwards in time to try and stop someone known only as The Fizzle Bomber from setting off a bomb that will kill thousands of people. He’s been chasing this person for a very long time (or a very short time because of the time traveling) but he hasn’t been able to stop The Fizzle Bomber yet.
The majority of the movie takes place in a bar where Hawke is undercover as The Bartender and strikes up a conversation with a man who goes by the name The Unmarried Mother (played by Sarah Snook). He says to The Bartender, “Bet you the rest of that bottle, I got the best story you ever heard.” Boy oh boy, is he ever right.
I must give credit where credit is due, and a big reason why I liked this movie so much is because of Sarah Snook’s performance. It’s no easy task to take on a roll of this magnitude; a role that has so many layers to it. She did it exceedingly well and was incredibly convincing. I think we will be seeing a whole lot from here in the next couple of years.
Another reason why I found this movie so successful was how well written it is. Predestination is an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 story “All You Zombies,” and the screenplay was written by Michael and Peter Spierig who also directed. I am usually very critical of time travel movies and, although I love everything science fiction, there are only a select few of the time travel genre that I actually find convincing enough to enjoy. For the most part, I just see the huge paradox and I can’t get over it, so regardless how good the movie is, I just can’t get on board. A good example of this would be Looper, which was a critical success but if you think about it too long, it’s filled with huge, gaping plot holes. As such, I really couldn’t find anything to complain about with this one. The clever nuances throughout the film that indicate the passage of time and the psych of the characters was handled really well.
Overall, this sci-fi thriller is a great addition to the genre for fans. It will leave you shocked and you’ll probably be thinking about it for days to come but you should definitely give it a watch this weekend.