Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev
Written by: Ben Ripley, Peter Filardi
Starring: Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev
IMDb Link
I didn't actually know that Flatliners was a remake of a 1990 movie of the same name until yesterday, so before going to see this movie I watched the original to consider and compare the two. For the record, Flatliners (1990) is a mediocre movie that I recommend if you like the 90s idea of edgy and, like me, are a sucker for anything with Kiefer Sutherland. It's the sort of movie that should be remade if you're going to remake a movie in my opinion; something that was flawed but based on an interesting idea, and old enough and obscure enough for it to not be immediately within the collective consciousness of society. With the context of the original fresh in my mind, the new Flatliners is a strange experience, because it manages to do some things better than its namesake, but a not insignificant amount of it doesn't have any real effect.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
The film has a handful of medical students stop each others' hearts momentarily in order to experience the afterlife. This gives them readings of the brain after death, somehow makes those that go under much smarter, and adds the unwanted side effect of drudging up guilt to cause them to have visions of what haunts them. It's high-concept but without a lot of time spent on details to bog it down, trying instead to focus on the characters and their reactions to the 'flatlining' experience, remaining at least somewhat compelling by way of the insanity of its premise alone. The requirement to have each character go through the experience one at a time makes for a slow and repetitive first half, but one thing that this film has over its predecessor is a slightly cleaner set of characters, which allows for the movie to conveniently fit everybody's stories together without having to detour in to sequences that are necessary for the plot but don't fit the rest of the movie. That said, Flatliners (2017) still manages to step in to unnecessary territory with the character of Sofia (Kiersey Clemons). A background with an overbearing mother gives her motivation to flatline in order to get its cognitive super powers and free herself from the stress of medical school, but after she gets it, the completion of her arc is only related tangentially. It's as if they needed to work outwards from the middle, and came to different conclusion about how the beginning and end should go. It isn't bad, but it's the main arc that doesn't quite fit with the rest; and while the whole thing is a good enough idea on its own to be the focus of its own movie, a sort of "Limitless"-lite, juggling it alongside the other three subplots leaves it underdeveloped. With that in mind, the implementation of the brain boost as part of the effects of flatlining is haphazard; the characters are suddenly smarter and generally better at what they do, but this doesn't ultimately mean anything past a few scenes that let the characters be smug.
Beyond the plot, the style isn't anything noteworthy until the movie grows some fangs and starts working the horror/thriller angle. This is one aspect that I must directly compare to the 1990 version. The original went for an edgy, creepy, thriller vibe; it didn't spend a lot of time trying to create fear, and often got straight to messing with its characters. It was much more direct, and was always at least so committed to its style that the sheer insanity of what it was doing was enough for it to be satisfying. The image of Kiefer Sutherland getting beaten and bloodied by a nine year old child is just crazy enough to stick with me. What's more, the film spends less time flatlining before reaching its crazy moments; while both versions of the film hint it early on, it pays of far quicker and in generally more satisfying ways in the original, in part I think due to the fact that it gave some of its characters genuinely negative traits. However, while it takes an unnecessary time to reach its fever pitch, Flatliners (2017) does so with great impact. The stakes are raised, the film finds a few genuinely spine-tingling moments, and the second half ends up greatly making up for the first. What's more, the film finds an efficient way to push the plot forward while also addressing the first film's issue of unnecessary characters in its finale. The film really is a step up in some regards during its second half.
Unfortunately, not in all regards. There was one moment in Flatliners that took me completely out of the movie experience for a moment, and it was a case of truly bad editing; not that movie theatres use them much anymore, but it was almost as if there was a reel missing from the movie. The character Jamie (James Norton) has a harrowing experience with his guilt demon, one that reaches its peak when he's thrown from his boat in to the water and has to swim to the docks, only to have his hand stabbed by his own knife as he attempts to climb up. Just as the tension of the scene has reached its peak, for seemingly no reason, the film hard cuts to some time later, to the group as a whole, but does so without first addressing that Jamie is in fact with them. We never get to see the resolution of Jamie's horror, and are hastily thrown to a different place and time where Jamie also is. It's such a one-off, but such a jarring moment of editing that I felt the need to bring it to attention.
There's other stuff that can be spoken about here, such as the fact that this version all but drops the religious and existential discussion of the 1990 version, but this gives the basics for what I liked and didn't like in the movie.
The Verdict: Flatliners is a mildly boring take on an interesting concept that meanders through its first half but manages to add a little impact to its story before film's end. Its style is a little lackluster and toothless at first, but when the movie finally finds its fangs it's at least worth a modicum of interest and respect. Short answer, see the original.
Rating: 4/10
Published September 28th, 2017
*Edit: I dropped my rating a whole point. This isn't particularly rare for me; I write my reviews for films I see in the cinema as soon as I can, so that my reaction is fresh and genuine, and sometimes aspects of the films I watch get better or worse in retrospect, and sometimes those aspects are worse enough upon reconsidering that they sway my score. That said, in this particular case the drop is mostly due to two things: the 1990 version and the dialogue. The dialogue is especially horrendous the more I recall it; the characters talk like the concept of death and "flatlining" are two different things. However, when compared to the 90s version this film is not just weak, it's disappointing, which is difficult when the original isn't even particularly good to begin with. This most recent version gets away with streamlining the main arcs a little, but its lack of style, especially in its early scenes, when compared to the hilariously over the top edge of the original, really hampers the film. The new version didn't need to copy that style, just create its own that was worthwhile, and it failed to do that for about the film.
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