You might be too younger to remember but back in the 80’s and 90’s there were some movies that didn’t make it to the academy award winner status but were so popular that became fan classics or must see by a generation that even now still watch them with nostalgia, but as time has passed and Hollywood keeps running out of ideas forcing the studios to bring back those options in a way to introduce them to the new generations buy seems like they are missing the fact of a generation gap that excites a few but not to all and so we get another misfire. This time the case is for the film “Flatliners” (2017), a thriller based on the original film from the 90’s where young stars like Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin made a jump in their career to celebrity status in a story about a group of medical interns that trying to explore the scientific explanation of what happens when you die. And even just that question could take a lot of different meanings and levels to talk about and explore the movie is made as a suspenseful thriller where all this young guys will die for a few minutes, hence of the title as that’s how they call these group, and then they will bring them back from death following the medical procedure for that. But as you might already expect things won’t go the way they planned and soon all of them will be trapped in a series of unexplained events related to their own past hunting them and trying to kill them.
This time around the movie follows exactly the same plot just this time we get more girls in the team, including the leader, played by actress Ellen Paige, as the one dealing with grieving and a loss that pushes her to try to find an explanation of what happens after death. And because of that she will convince others to join her specially after the first side effects of it are or seems like had awakened a side of their brain that was asleep keeping some old talents hidden and now they had shown up. So at this point there’s nothing new that we haven’t seen before. If you watched and follow the original you basically have seen everything and you know what is about to happen. A change would have been a more character development where we get to know more about this group of doctors and their lives other than just a past experience that will hunt them for the rest of the movie. Plus since we don’t get to know much about them is hard to relate and connect to them making more difficult to the audience to care about them and what will happen to them other than just been all very good looking kids with a very diverse background, an improvement from the new era of Hollywood leaving behind the reign of white people. But things start going down when this past experiences are just simple excuses to create a plot and try to scare the audience without noticing that modern audiences can’t be scared that easily as used to be decades ago. Other than Ellen Paige’s character hunted by her dead little sister, after she died in a car accident by her fault all the others just fall into ridiculousness. A guy hunted by the a girl he was dating and dumped when got pregnant, a girl that made a mistake and killed a patient back in medical school, and another girl hinted by her school mate that she exposed in social media.
All this plots sound more like a better fit for their own movie, and we’ve seen all of them but here they take a turn into a scary thing that hunts you and tries to kill you but at the end it’s your own brain that is messing with you because you have some unsolved issues that you need to face and fix before you die. This is the only silver lining of the movie and what makes it worth it if you already paid for the ticket. They can all die or face the situation and try to fix it or ask for forgiveness. And we all have been there or still we are. Trapped in a situation that might not longer exist but remains back in our mind. Hidden just to pop out when something resembles to it. We think that avoiding things and just moving on to the next step is the way to go but if we don’t give closure to some important facts they will stuck with you for a while or forever. It’s easier to turn our back into things or situations rather than face them and try to find a solution no matter the consequences because that’s the right thing to do. But facing them would mean facing our own fears and stand up for our decisions and mistakes but prefer to live with guilt of it rather than the satisfaction of doing the right thing no matter what. It’s just simple human nature. And that escence is what the movie tries to explore unfortunately unsuccessfully trying Tom set up a scenario where your past or mistakes can hunt you and even kill you . And that in a very radical way because if we take a deep look at it that’s might happen. There are many people out there that have done some terrible mistakes and living with the guilt of them so now their lives have made them miserable persons. Regretting it day by day and unable to make it right in the present.
So now the consequences of those acts become a snow ball that keeps increasing at every step because since you keep dragging the past with you the cycle will repeats and new and more mistakes will be done plus the energy will bring it back to you and you will be scared of that might happen again so will end on you avoiding things to stay away of the consequences and so on until you make it stop and the only way to do it is to face it. Face the consequences of your actions before they get worse or maybe they won't but you'll have to live with it, only you will know what really happened and maybe, if the situation is too bad for others and will affect others life, you'll be responsible of that and you might have moved on and keep living with the idea that everything will be ok, but the reality is you'll never know and your actions affect others and you could change lives for better or worse. How many times have you asked for forgiveness? Or would you forgive someone that really hurt you and changed your life at some point not in a good way? Would you accept full responsibility of your mistakes as part of a learning lesson and face the consequences or would you try to hide it and pretend it never happened? Or could you forgive yourself for some mistakes that we as humans, tend to make understanding that it's ok and learn from it and use it as a breeding point for your future?
Most of the time is easier to forgive others but when comes to the point of forgive ourselves we become our worst judge. We want to pretend we are perfect and we shall never do it wrong, but it's just impossible to think that might happen. In order to learn we need to fail. In order to find perfection or improve any skill we need to make mistakes. Some can be very simple and without repercussions but others my involve others and an action of us facing the consequences is needed, no matter if that might be hard or not for us. And even this movie will be totally forgettable as another try out from Hollywood to make more money with old ideas and proving their lack of originality, but if you haven't seen the original or in the mood to give it a chance or get something scary for the Halloween season, might be worth just for the fact of the real intention of the story, an interesting way to tell a story about your past hunting you, but definitely the first time came better, what went wrong then? maybe the casting? the direction? Or we should say the story is so flat and superficial, forgetting the real motive of the story and turning it into a cartoon or any other good things gone wrong specially when made just for the pure intention of making business and that is something that the studio and everybody involved in this project will have to deal with and hopefully when realize their actions, will be able to take full responsibility of their actions, meaning that will focus in new, more original, well develop projects that will be transformed into great movies, and that will definitely change all our lives, as an audience.
You might be too younger to remember but back in the 80’s and 90’s there were some movies that didn’t make it to the academy award winner status but were so popular that became fan classics or must see by a generation that even now still watch them with nostalgia, but as time has passed and Hollywood keeps running out of ideas forcing the studios to bring back those options in a way to introduce them to the new generations buy seems like they are missing the fact of a generation gap that excites a few but not to all and so we get another misfire. This time the case is for the film “Flatliners” (2017), a thriller based on the original film from the 90’s where young stars like Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin made a jump in their career to celebrity status in a story about a group of medical interns that trying to explore the scientific explanation of what happens when you die. And even just that question could take a lot of different meanings and levels to talk about and explore the movie is made as a suspenseful thriller where all this young guys will die for a few minutes, hence of the title as that’s how they call these group, and then they will bring them back from death following the medical procedure for that. But as you might already expect things won’t go the way they planned and soon all of them will be trapped in a series of unexplained events related to their own past hunting them and trying to kill them.
This time around the movie follows exactly the same plot just this time we get more girls in the team, including the leader, played by actress Ellen Paige, as the one dealing with grieving and a loss that pushes her to try to find an explanation of what happens after death. And because of that she will convince others to join her specially after the first side effects of it are or seems like had awakened a side of their brain that was asleep keeping some old talents hidden and now they had shown up. So at this point there’s nothing new that we haven’t seen before. If you watched and follow the original you basically have seen everything and you know what is about to happen. A change would have been a more character development where we get to know more about this group of doctors and their lives other than just a past experience that will hunt them for the rest of the movie. Plus since we don’t get to know much about them is hard to relate and connect to them making more difficult to the audience to care about them and what will happen to them other than just been all very good looking kids with a very diverse background, an improvement from the new era of Hollywood leaving behind the reign of white people. But things start going down when this past experiences are just simple excuses to create a plot and try to scare the audience without noticing that modern audiences can’t be scared that easily as used to be decades ago. Other than Ellen Paige’s character hunted by her dead little sister, after she died in a car accident by her fault all the others just fall into ridiculousness. A guy hunted by the a girl he was dating and dumped when got pregnant, a girl that made a mistake and killed a patient back in medical school, and another girl hinted by her school mate that she exposed in social media.
So now the consequences of those acts become a snow ball that keeps increasing at every step because since you keep dragging the past with you the cycle will repeats and new and more mistakes will be done plus the energy will bring it back to you and you will be scared of that might happen again so will end on you avoiding things to stay away of the consequences and so on until you make it stop and the only way to do it is to face it. Face the consequences of your actions before they get worse or maybe they won't but you'll have to live with it, only you will know what really happened and maybe, if the situation is too bad for others and will affect others life, you'll be responsible of that and you might have moved on and keep living with the idea that everything will be ok, but the reality is you'll never know and your actions affect others and you could change lives for better or worse. How many times have you asked for forgiveness? Or would you forgive someone that really hurt you and changed your life at some point not in a good way? Would you accept full responsibility of your mistakes as part of a learning lesson and face the consequences or would you try to hide it and pretend it never happened? Or could you forgive yourself for some mistakes that we as humans, tend to make understanding that it's ok and learn from it and use it as a breeding point for your future?
Most of the time is easier to forgive others but when comes to the point of forgive ourselves we become our worst judge. We want to pretend we are perfect and we shall never do it wrong, but it's just impossible to think that might happen. In order to learn we need to fail. In order to find perfection or improve any skill we need to make mistakes. Some can be very simple and without repercussions but others my involve others and an action of us facing the consequences is needed, no matter if that might be hard or not for us. And even this movie will be totally forgettable as another try out from Hollywood to make more money with old ideas and proving their lack of originality, but if you haven't seen the original or in the mood to give it a chance or get something scary for the Halloween season, might be worth just for the fact of the real intention of the story, an interesting way to tell a story about your past hunting you, but definitely the first time came better, what went wrong then? maybe the casting? the direction? Or we should say the story is so flat and superficial, forgetting the real motive of the story and turning it into a cartoon or any other good things gone wrong specially when made just for the pure intention of making business and that is something that the studio and everybody involved in this project will have to deal with and hopefully when realize their actions, will be able to take full responsibility of their actions, meaning that will focus in new, more original, well develop projects that will be transformed into great movies, and that will definitely change all our lives, as an audience.
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