Predestination

A film that will make your head spin with its temporal paradoxes and atypical sequence of scenes. But I’m not sure how much of this was the intention of the people behind the film and how much was purely failed experimentation. But the beginning has everything, gripping immersion, the camera raids, the dark filters – an atmosphere like in Watchmen. The middle is better thanks to Sarah Snook, who steals all for herself. But the revealing ending is chaotic already. After it's over, it leaves some uncomfortable question marks here and there, and that's not good. (06/08/2016)

Excellently directed time travel movie with more twist than a corkscrew. The cast is fairly unknown, Sarah Snook was an ingenious idea. A picture that stays one step in front of you, even if you believe that it isn’t. If possible, don’t try to find anything out about this movie. Don’t even read the summary. What came first? The chicken or the egg? (01/11/2015)

It's driving me crazy. This whole film is a paradox, its plot was probably never written... And yet it was filmed... Or wasn't it? Wow... The first fifty minutes are a great spectacle and so much emotion is hard to see in science fiction (I remembered Gattaca), but the rest, which gradually leads to the long-awaited and very blatantly hinted at point, unfortunately has to layer one "shocking" paradox on top of another in order to cover it up. The result is a time-traveling science fiction stew that leaves you with a great desire to see it again and a great fear that it will be even worse the second time around. Three and a half. (09/28/2015)

Here even the word “paradox” falls short… In other time-travel films, time paradoxes are obstacles that the filmmakers try to overcome to no avail, and which fully manifest once the viewer begins to question the logic of the story, but in Predestination, the paradox is the alpha and the omega of the story. The creators carefully build it, almost trying to make it as paradoxical as possible. (11/25/2014)

The timing remains on a minimalist plane for an incredibly long time. It plays on dialogues, the power of the gaze, and Sarah Snook's fascinating performance. And given how Ethan Hawke revels in conversations, the rest of the running time logically begins to flag despite its unrelenting tension. Which doesn't matter as much as it might seem – of course, only if the viewer is able to engage in the game the screenplay presents. Many betrayals can be sensed from the opening scene, but the barrage of twists that Michael and Peter Spierig start throwing in towards the end truly takes your breath away. Perhaps the next viewing will reveal if this predestined violin case is really an all-encompassing appetizer that pleasantly unsettles with its blend of unconventional romance, uncompromising sci-fi, and unusual editing – or if it gets tangled up in the constantly escalating series of plot twists. (01/06/2015)