Primer

Hey there, I hope your ready for some thought provoking Science Fiction. No? You only like action packed, alien filled, laser firing Sci-fi? Well, after watching this movie I wouldn't blame you. It's a low budget, independent film by Shane Carruth released in 2004. It wasn't a box office hit, yet received rave reviews. So as you can imagine, it now has a cult following. But why does a movie that was filmed with unknown actors and low budget lighting and cameras receive such high acclaim, let's take a look. 

So the film follows two engineer's, Aaron and Abe, who are developing a device for reducing weight of objects for long distance travel. What instead follows is a device that from the moment it's turned on to when it's turned off, the object will time travel. After some testing, a larger "Box" is created for humans. They begin to use it for personal gain by manipulating the stock market, but later use it for more malevolent and self-centered gain. What follows is Abe attempting to prevent the use of the Box and Aaron always one step ahead. The rule of use is actually simple to follow:

1. The person activates the delay switch and leave to prevent a paradoxical encounter with the future time travelling self.
2. Prepare for entering the box and avoid encountering acquaintances that might later encounter your double.
3. Enter box for six hours and begin process of travelling back whatever length of time you have input.
4. Exit Box, you are now a double as you have traveled back a period of time during which you have not yet entered the time machine and therefore two of you exist simultaneously.
5. Use what you know to redo or control event. Your simultaneous double will no longer exist, his future is to enter the machine, thus creating a loop. See, simple.

You know, it may sound like most time travel movies, but the premise is very clever. In the case of most discoveries, they have been accidental from penicillin to telephone's. So the idea of time travel being a by-product of a device so minuscule, yet so powerful, it makes me wonder why nobody has pursued the idea yet. But another good idea of this film is it's philosophical debate, whether it's right to meddle in the natural order of the physical world, while at the same time science is the pursuit of knowledge against the established order of physics.

My major praise however extends to the ambition of writer Shane Carruth, by telling a classic science fiction story of time travel through a suitable medium of low budget film techniques for a low budget scientific invention, which lends the story to a more realistic tone. Nowhere is this more evident than in the dialog. Oh it's not quotable or even comprehensible for that matter, but the dialog consists mainly of complex technical statistics and jargon. I would say only engineers, graduates and scientists could understand the films dialog, which is probably where the cult audience came from. I should respect this film for it's portrayal of science in an accurate and realistic way, whilst contemplating scientific questions that have plagued man since it's discovery of Earth rotating the Sun. This something I really wanted to do if I became a screenwriter and/or director (here's hoping!).

However, while I admire the film's themes and ideas...it's pretty bad. You know when I said that only scientists could understand the dialog, I really mean it (I had to read the Wikipedia page after watching it twice and still not getting it) and this problem stems from Shane. As a graduate of Mathematics and former engineer, he would serve better as a scientific consultant for the script, for he clearly has no conception of the idea of Character, their development, flowing narrative or knowing when enough plot is enough.

Instead of a film that could be both scientifically accurate, philosophically sound and intriguing in it's character, we get a clunky, confused and sometimes lazy film. In the end, the film bored me, which I find even worse than being bad (as the bad ideas or decisions can be fun to laugh at). It really isn't ready for the more mainstream audience, the dialog is only suitable for college graduates, the plot is confusing and at times convoluted and the narrative and characters are so bland I get their names mixed up at the beginning of the film.

2 stars out of 10.