Premonition - Oh yeah, I'm psychic
I must be psychic because I had a premonition about this movie and it came true! The plot of the movie came to me while relaxing in my living room. I was in a nearly comatose state, my attention solidly on the boob tube when, out of no where, there was a message, from whom, I do not know. It came to me, but in snippets. I consulted with my psychic message adviser (ok, it is my husband) and asked him what he thought this blessed premonition meant. I will not tell you the answer because he, in his magnificence, was able to put the pictures together and figure out the parts that were missing. I will share with you an important insight given to me by my wealth of psychic experience; you don’t need to pay $10 bucks to see “Premonition” in the theaters to see most of the movie and all of the important parts and to figure out the twists. Just be open to psychic messages coming to you though your television, crammed between segments of your favorite show and save yourself the money! Then thank Sony Movies for approving a trailer that tells you the entire plot, if you have imagination enough to figure out the five minute twist they left out! Directed by Mennan Yapo and written by Billy Kelly, “Premonition” is full of problems, from beginning to end.
Linda (Sandra Bollock) wakes up the day after she is told her husband, Jim (Julian McMahon) is killed in a car crash to find him alive and in her bed sleeping. Every time she goes to sleep she ping pongs between days, forward from Monday and backwards from Saturday. When she jumps to the future, she has no memory of the days in between and as a consequence, she doesn’t how some serious events occurred. Each day she gets though in this Plinko situation gifts her new information about what happened the week her husband dies and how she might be able to prevent her husband’s death. To her loved ones and the people around her, her strange behavior makes them worry that she’s lost her mind.
“Premonition” has serious writing and plot problems. People, who know exactly how things happen, magically forget them later in the week, doctors who give out serious psychotropic medication at the drop of a hat, days that fall out of order in the sequence set out earlier in the movie to name a few. Premonation also has seemed to become a staple of thriller movies when they can’t explain something, The Catholic Church. Of course, lapsed Catholic Linda, returns to her church for answers; answers they have for her of course. Mr. Kelly, would it be possible to come up with an original idea, rather than falling back on the “Catholic Excuse?” The ending was unnessary
Visually speaking, the film could teach film students what not to do, effectively. The characters live in a beautiful home, full of character and appeal; it could be one of the most charming characters in the film. Instead, they show shots of the house from the top, the most unappealing angle. Surrounded by dead grass, grey streets, trees void of leaves and their silt green roof, the house’s beauty, warmth and charm is exiled to memories of the beginning of the movie. There are scenes in a beautiful church, again shot from above, killing the mood and character of the setting. They went a step further with the church scenes and shot them from below, rocking the two and fro, bouncing it subtly. I have not been as nauseated by a non-war film in a long time. Why even bother to hire someone to scout locations if you are going to kill their beauty and add nothing to your picture. There are a few computer generated effects in “Premonition” that live up to Yapo’s standards. Let’s just say that Hitchcock did a better job with his birds then Yapo.
A small saving grace, the acting didn’t completely suck. During the Saturday scenes Bullock performance is saddening and convincing. She is limited by the script; an unfortunate limitation in this case. Julian McMahon did leave a lot to be desired though. He seemed indifferent to his family, his life or his job. He was essentially void of affect through the entire movie.
By the end of “Premonition” I wished all the characters dead, except the children, just too cute for death. When the writing leaves something to be desired, the direction should have been done by someone dead thirty years, and the visuals make you want to vomit, you’ve got a must miss on your hands.
1/5
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LaRae Meadows
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