Displacement (2016) Reviews

• Poor casting, poor characters fail to convince in this time-bender of a movie

  robbotnik20002018-01-25

  I was unable to achieve belief in the characters or to care about the characters in this attempt at melding recent news in the physics world to a science fiction time slipping plot. There seemed to be an attempt to quote some items of physics theory and then go rapidly to gobbledygook, which is not a crime in sci-fi plots but in this case does not achieve liftoff. The main character was to young and glib to be taken seriously as a deep thinking physicist.

• Well crafted Science Fiction movie.

  corvettedave2017-05-26

  Great story line with well written characters. Cinematography is spot on. I wish there were a sequel. Loved seeing Bruce Davidson in his gritty roll. The whole idea of time jumping has appealed to me since I first saw SlaughterHouse 5. This film compares favorably in how the time jump is portrayed.

• Bending the Rules of Time Has its risks.

  cuerpaso2017-05-19

  Santa Monica's Laemmle Monica hosted this intriguing tale that involved a captivating concept that left you wondering about the infinite possibilities of life. The creative cinematography aligned well with the theme and what a pleasure to see Bruce Davidson shining on the big screen. Awaiting the DVD to delve into this film again. Exciting to see this idea come to reality.

• The weirdness factor is off the scale

  nogodnomasters2017-07-05

  Has some quantum physical plot-theme spoilers. Not real heavy physical plot spoilers. The film opens up with Cassie Sinclair (Courtney Hope) waking up in an ice bath,no memory on how she got there and a note to herself. We soon discover she is in a time entanglement or loop and needs to find the "negation point" to stop the merry-go-round. Cassie attempts to figure out what has happened, she trusts no one, especially the folks who have her duct taped to a chair. The film does the "see how clever we are" scenes of repeating themselves adding another viewpoint/element that we have seen so many times in other features. While the film is classified as science fiction, it is more of a drama/mystery with a science fiction background. The special effects were extremely inexpensive and unimpressive. It first starts explaining time travel with "particle pairs" and "quantum physics." Then at 32 minutes into the film it was Einstein's gravitational loop....and quantum physics. Later it was the "Philadelphia Experiment" which was radar ....and quantum physics. There was no distinct answer and I am not sure how these all interact and wonder why they didn't toss out "string theory" while they were at it.We never got to see the actual machine that causes time travel, it was operated remotely in a hotel room on a laptop and magically effected the person who pushed the button. Films that have good science tend to have lousy characters. Films that have great characters, tend to have lousy science. This one was more about character and why Cassie wanted to create time travel which I found to be a little underwhelming...save the earth? Stop a war? An assassination? Nope...to take her dying mom to see the ocean on last time. The film had a made-for-TV style soundtrack and I felt like I was watching a film on Lifetime and not SyFy which for some people is a good thing. Guide: 1 F-word. No sex or nudity. Winner of several best Science fiction awards.

• Charmless Sci-Fi B-flick nonsense

  jmzalapa2018-04-07

  Ho boy.... Where to start with this dumpster fire of a film. Look, I like me some Sci-fi, especially about time paradoxes. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and overlook science movie mumbo jumbo; I'm willing to forgive bad acting; I'm willing to ignore continuity errors; I'm capable of overlooking bad, soap opera lighting; I will even go as far to turn a blind ear to the cheeseball score that sounds like it was borrowed from the Princess Bride, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and every craptacular, early 90s Stephen King film. But for the love of all that his holy, I cannot ignore all of them at once!!! This movie is an "I hate Daddy" whinefest masquerading as an intelligent time paradox movie, which it tries to steal from the better examples of the latter and comes up horribly short. The scientific research probably consisted of a Wikipedia search on time travel, mixed in with big words in the wrong place and nonsensical equations written down in an attempt to seem smart. The acting has all the subtlety and range of a highschool melodrama (seriously, the only casting requirement was "can you cry a bunch and call out 'Brian' a bunch" for the lead) and the supporting characters are 2D cut outs of movie tropes. Come to think of it, the protagonist is a 2D stock character of the angsty teen girl with some ability that makes her special. Lazy editing features a cafe scene that switches from day to night and back again and the rest of the interior scenes are shot with so much top light that it's just silly (the camera work is decent, though). I secretly hoped that at some point in the movie, Mike Nelson or Joe would appear at the bottom of the screen and, with the help of his robot friends, vastly improve the viewing experience. Sadly, there's nothing under that Christmas tree for me. I gave three stars because the camera work pulls off some nice shots... It's about the only redeeming quality to this boneheaded, lazy, unoriginal and overall dumb film.