There's a good concept. People trapped in an always changing labyrinth of grass. Visually it's great, the moving grass and close up look awesome. Patrick Wilson is very good (specially when crazy) And in general I like stuff about time loops and paradoxes.
So on average it's pretty entertaining with good ideas.
However there are some issues with the story and timeline, and I was pretty disappointed they were not really taken into account at the end. Having gone to read the novel's summary afterwards, I can tell that pretty much everything that annoyed me was not in the original story and they were added in the movie in a way that don't quite fit. Mainly, the fact that the field moves people in time as well as space is not in the original story.
First, some characters appear and disappear without reason, sometimes in their main timeline version, sometimes in their future selves version. Specially Tobin. I mean he's just standing there with them. They move around, no one paying attention whether the kid is following or not (wtf!). So you don't see him, assume he either did not come, or just followed and was not shown. And then future Tobin pops up instead out of nowhere.
The fact that Travis shows up 2 months later and ends up in the same loop, plus that he is the one that gets Tobin's family in the loop, going full circle, is a great idea. But then it make sit weird that most of the time people are not moved in time, only space, and spend lot of time looking for each other while being in the same time.
Future Tobin is weird. He touched the rock, but we don't know when, and he seems less affected than his father.
When Travis finally touches the rock, he is affected, however he still prioritizes saving his girlfriend over, you know, killing her like Ross did. And now how fucked up is this that he uses the kid to save his girlfriend, instead of the kid's family.
Not sure about the concept of "holes" to escape. It kinda implies that they are switching around in places by moving around. But the fields moves things even if they are not moving around, like when they jump twice on the same spot but are in different places.
Not sure how the paradox works. It's implied that they are getting killed over and over and that things happen several times in a loop. However when Becky does the phone call to her past self, it doesn't make much sense, she hasn't see any looping. The dead body of Becky's first version is shown, so it exists at some point in time, but we can suppose Travis' arrival changes that, creating an alternative. Then shouldn't there be a lot more versions of them, both alive and dead ? There should also be consequences on the final exit of Tobin's.
And... shouldn't there be more people ? Like all the people to ever interact with the field should always be crossing each other in time and space ? Unless the field -- well I keep saying the field but I guess it's actually the rock -- manages to keep separate loops for the people that know each other ?
They should not have left the field. The fact that they can get out and be in a building on the other side of the road makes no sense.
Minor detail, but I would have liked to know when Tobin's family fit in the timeline (the outside world's timeline). We know Travis came after Cal and Becky, but there's no indication of when the family arrived. Importantly if they actually arrived after Cal and Becky, they would be two Tobins in the outside world at the end of the movie, extending the field's paradox to the outside.
Review by FLYVIP 2BlockedParent2023-02-21T13:40:32Z
There's a good concept. People trapped in an always changing labyrinth of grass.
Visually it's great, the moving grass and close up look awesome.
Patrick Wilson is very good (specially when crazy)
And in general I like stuff about time loops and paradoxes.
So on average it's pretty entertaining with good ideas.
However there are some issues with the story and timeline, and I was pretty disappointed they were not really taken into account at the end. Having gone to read the novel's summary afterwards, I can tell that pretty much everything that annoyed me was not in the original story and they were added in the movie in a way that don't quite fit. Mainly, the fact that the field moves people in time as well as space is not in the original story.
First, some characters appear and disappear without reason, sometimes in their main timeline version, sometimes in their future selves version. Specially Tobin. I mean he's just standing there with them. They move around, no one paying attention whether the kid is following or not (wtf!). So you don't see him, assume he either did not come, or just followed and was not shown. And then future Tobin pops up instead out of nowhere.
The fact that Travis shows up 2 months later and ends up in the same loop, plus that he is the one that gets Tobin's family in the loop, going full circle, is a great idea. But then it make sit weird that most of the time people are not moved in time, only space, and spend lot of time looking for each other while being in the same time.
Future Tobin is weird. He touched the rock, but we don't know when, and he seems less affected than his father.
When Travis finally touches the rock, he is affected, however he still prioritizes saving his girlfriend over, you know, killing her like Ross did. And now how fucked up is this that he uses the kid to save his girlfriend, instead of the kid's family.
Not sure about the concept of "holes" to escape. It kinda implies that they are switching around in places by moving around. But the fields moves things even if they are not moving around, like when they jump twice on the same spot but are in different places.
Not sure how the paradox works. It's implied that they are getting killed over and over and that things happen several times in a loop. However when Becky does the phone call to her past self, it doesn't make much sense, she hasn't see any looping. The dead body of Becky's first version is shown, so it exists at some point in time, but we can suppose Travis' arrival changes that, creating an alternative. Then shouldn't there be a lot more versions of them, both alive and dead ? There should also be consequences on the final exit of Tobin's.
And... shouldn't there be more people ? Like all the people to ever interact with the field should always be crossing each other in time and space ? Unless the field -- well I keep saying the field but I guess it's actually the rock -- manages to keep separate loops for the people that know each other ?
They should not have left the field. The fact that they can get out and be in a building on the other side of the road makes no sense.
Minor detail, but I would have liked to know when Tobin's family fit in the timeline (the outside world's timeline). We know Travis came after Cal and Becky, but there's no indication of when the family arrived. Importantly if they actually arrived after Cal and Becky, they would be two Tobins in the outside world at the end of the movie, extending the field's paradox to the outside.