This has got to be the most strange time travel movie I have ever seen, the plot is all over the place weird with time paradoxes and butterfly effect issues everywhere. The entire movie takes place in a single house it would seem and no one ever gets "outside" at all which is a bit unnerving and also all the windows are papered up. The language is extremely foul with the "f" word used more extensively than most any other word. I definitely would not recommend this for any kids or even young adults as it would just encourage this kind of trash talk from them. So discerning adults only. The main idea is very interesting and how it is worked out is rather innovative in a strange kind of way. Great movie to get stoned on for sure. I've known a few friends who were very much like these idiots in this movie. I won't say it's a waste of time, but it does take patience to get through the bad language and enjoy the movie.
7 Reviews
A decent movie, I would have rated it 6.5 if I had the chance.
cowthecows25 April 2024
I randomly picked this movie to watch and I don't usually do so because it's a gamble. You don't know whether you will be wasting your time (no pun intended) or is going to turn out to be good. This movie turned out to be decent. It's not totally predictable so it will be even more boring but it's not marvelous either. The reason for this probably is because of the:
1. Acting:
While the acting wasn't so bad the only bad thing about this turned out to be some scenes when the actors "over-acted" didn't give the feel of an organic, natural way that a sane person would do. This was the boring part as it was pretty predictable what they were going to do... Pick the job, smoke some crack, do some woo woo stuff and get back where it all started. Well, kind of.
2. The Topic.
Time Travel movies have been out since people figured out green screens and the digital cameras shot in a better resolution and I'm not gonna lie, it's getting a little boring. Not with the topic itself but the way it is treated, it is developed and how it ends. This movie however was unique in it's own way (or so I think due to the fact that I haven't seen too many time travel movies).
3. Probably had a budget limit: I'm not talking about the resolution and the actors but it felt like it came from a movie startup, even if it did they did a good job. It wasn't on the Hollywood Standards and that's okay but that's how it felt.
For me it wasn't a complete waste of time. I enjoyed it beyond time travel things and thing that it did best, it kept me entertained ngl. I give this movie a solid 6.5 out of 10. I'm sure they can do better.
2. The Topic.
Time Travel movies have been out since people figured out green screens and the digital cameras shot in a better resolution and I'm not gonna lie, it's getting a little boring. Not with the topic itself but the way it is treated, it is developed and how it ends. This movie however was unique in it's own way (or so I think due to the fact that I haven't seen too many time travel movies).
3. Probably had a budget limit: I'm not talking about the resolution and the actors but it felt like it came from a movie startup, even if it did they did a good job. It wasn't on the Hollywood Standards and that's okay but that's how it felt.
For me it wasn't a complete waste of time. I enjoyed it beyond time travel things and thing that it did best, it kept me entertained ngl. I give this movie a solid 6.5 out of 10. I'm sure they can do better.
"Synchronic" Fan Fiction
reddfivepublishing16 October 2023
I caught a screening of Time Addicts at Monster Fest this October. I saw a film which was lovingly crafted by people with a true passion for cinema, and a movie that was, for the most part, very technically proficient. The cinematography in particular was particularly solid, though the occasional shot did linger for too long a time. And the cast did a very strong job making their characters reasonably believable.
Unfortunately, I also saw a film which agitated me in a number of ways, and most of this came down to the screenplay.
Time Addicts is a film which tries to balance a real Aussie sense of humour with another attempt to be a serious thriller about drug addiction, paranoia and time travel. The film plays out very seriously but every line of dialogue is overly aggressive in its effort to be comedic banter and never feels like an organic line of dialogue, even with a cast that play it off very naturally.
In a respectable effort to keep the film contained to a single location, Time Addicts drags out its scenes for too long at a time and stretches its thin premise for a long time and often with a very slow pace. As such, the momentum never really feels like it kicks off. It often feels like writer-director Sam Odlum saw the 2019 time travel movie "Synchronic", another movie about a drug that makes people travel through time, and thought to himself "I would tell that story differently". He has some decent ambitions and exhibits sense of visual style in doing so, but he fails to find the narrative momentum to make a compelling story out of it. Time Addicts is certainly not a predictable film as it goes in a number of directions one might not anticipate, but I found it was often directions that were too ridiculous for me to believe on any level, even in a story where I can suspend disbelief enough to accept a drug that creates time travel. Whilst Synchronic explored way more possibilities, and naturally had a higher budget to allow it to do so, Time Addicts constantly had me very aware that we were inside a single location in the present day, and not in the past or the future as the story would want you to believe. And with very few characters in the story, the empty backgrounds of the same reused house were constantly on display. I respect that this film wanted to make use of a single location, but I ultimately wasn't captivated enough by the story or the script to take my attention away from this.
Ultimately, the biggest problem lies with the protagonist, who is ironically and unironically the antagonist of the film at the same time. Charles Grounds portrays Johnny very believably, even too believably for a character whose dialogue is inorganic and desperate to be funny. He was so believable that he actually reminded me of two people I've met in life my life, let's call them "Luke" and "Trevor". Luke was a paranoid meth addict I knew and eventually began to despise for his constant mistreatment of my friend whom he kept in a toxic relationship. And like Trevor, Grounds' character Johnny drags his girlfriend into the entire ordeal of the movie through his selfish habits. Supposedly, I'm meant to have a fraction of concern for his well-being. But like his real life counterpart "Luke", why should I care about this guy? He's selfish and genuinely unlikable as a person. If anything, I should want him to suffer at the hands of the drug dealer threatening to sever his thumbs. And I do. If Charles got his thumbs cut off in the first ten minutes of the film, then I'd be a happier person. Instead I sat through a lot of long, slow sequences where he was the only one talking, or one of the visibly few characters in the universe of the film. But the real issue came from the fact that every line of dialogue he said felt like it was meant to be the punchline in an episode of "The Big Lez Show" without any sense of believability, or genuine laughter. The audience around me chuckled quite a lot and enjoyed the sense of humour, so there is certainly an audience for it (and it was a sold out theatre too, so it was an inspired and large audience) but I wasn't that audience. I honestly just wished he would shut his drug-induced mouth. That's the same thought I had about my friend "Trevor" the last time he took three tabs of Acid. I just wished he'd shut up, but to his credit there was at least a rhythm to what he was saying, something that Johnny was lacking. Johnny is a poorly written character with a great actor who makes him so believable that it's often unbearable, but to have him written to be so intentionally unlikable and have him constantly say dialogue so artificial and annoying that it's like a cheese grater to the ear, it was not a comfortable experience to have to sit through a feature length runtime trapped in a cinema with him.
Ultimately, I failed to see the film all the way through. About halfway through, poised between remaining in a cinema with a character I couldn't stand and a movie that barely moved, I made the decision to get up and leave. I tried my best to see it through, but I didn't want to spend any more time with an agitating drug addict that would neither capture my sympathy nor make me laugh at any point. I wanted to support the filmmaker because he showed a lot of merit as a director and a knack for keeping a budgetary production as one with solid technical flare, as well as for the fact that it's not fair to judge a film completely unless you've seen it all the way through. All that being said, without a protagonist I could bear to be around I just found myself wanting to get out of the cinema quickly, no matter how many times I said to myself "just give it a chance".
Time Bandits is definitely a step in the right direction for Sam Odlum and I look forward to seeing where he goes from here. With more attention to tonal balance, likeable characters and believable dialogue, I can see his full potential blossoming into something great. I hope his sophomore effort takes everything that worked about this film and grows in a number of ways I felt this one came up short.
Unfortunately, I also saw a film which agitated me in a number of ways, and most of this came down to the screenplay.
Time Addicts is a film which tries to balance a real Aussie sense of humour with another attempt to be a serious thriller about drug addiction, paranoia and time travel. The film plays out very seriously but every line of dialogue is overly aggressive in its effort to be comedic banter and never feels like an organic line of dialogue, even with a cast that play it off very naturally.
In a respectable effort to keep the film contained to a single location, Time Addicts drags out its scenes for too long at a time and stretches its thin premise for a long time and often with a very slow pace. As such, the momentum never really feels like it kicks off. It often feels like writer-director Sam Odlum saw the 2019 time travel movie "Synchronic", another movie about a drug that makes people travel through time, and thought to himself "I would tell that story differently". He has some decent ambitions and exhibits sense of visual style in doing so, but he fails to find the narrative momentum to make a compelling story out of it. Time Addicts is certainly not a predictable film as it goes in a number of directions one might not anticipate, but I found it was often directions that were too ridiculous for me to believe on any level, even in a story where I can suspend disbelief enough to accept a drug that creates time travel. Whilst Synchronic explored way more possibilities, and naturally had a higher budget to allow it to do so, Time Addicts constantly had me very aware that we were inside a single location in the present day, and not in the past or the future as the story would want you to believe. And with very few characters in the story, the empty backgrounds of the same reused house were constantly on display. I respect that this film wanted to make use of a single location, but I ultimately wasn't captivated enough by the story or the script to take my attention away from this.
Ultimately, the biggest problem lies with the protagonist, who is ironically and unironically the antagonist of the film at the same time. Charles Grounds portrays Johnny very believably, even too believably for a character whose dialogue is inorganic and desperate to be funny. He was so believable that he actually reminded me of two people I've met in life my life, let's call them "Luke" and "Trevor". Luke was a paranoid meth addict I knew and eventually began to despise for his constant mistreatment of my friend whom he kept in a toxic relationship. And like Trevor, Grounds' character Johnny drags his girlfriend into the entire ordeal of the movie through his selfish habits. Supposedly, I'm meant to have a fraction of concern for his well-being. But like his real life counterpart "Luke", why should I care about this guy? He's selfish and genuinely unlikable as a person. If anything, I should want him to suffer at the hands of the drug dealer threatening to sever his thumbs. And I do. If Charles got his thumbs cut off in the first ten minutes of the film, then I'd be a happier person. Instead I sat through a lot of long, slow sequences where he was the only one talking, or one of the visibly few characters in the universe of the film. But the real issue came from the fact that every line of dialogue he said felt like it was meant to be the punchline in an episode of "The Big Lez Show" without any sense of believability, or genuine laughter. The audience around me chuckled quite a lot and enjoyed the sense of humour, so there is certainly an audience for it (and it was a sold out theatre too, so it was an inspired and large audience) but I wasn't that audience. I honestly just wished he would shut his drug-induced mouth. That's the same thought I had about my friend "Trevor" the last time he took three tabs of Acid. I just wished he'd shut up, but to his credit there was at least a rhythm to what he was saying, something that Johnny was lacking. Johnny is a poorly written character with a great actor who makes him so believable that it's often unbearable, but to have him written to be so intentionally unlikable and have him constantly say dialogue so artificial and annoying that it's like a cheese grater to the ear, it was not a comfortable experience to have to sit through a feature length runtime trapped in a cinema with him.
Ultimately, I failed to see the film all the way through. About halfway through, poised between remaining in a cinema with a character I couldn't stand and a movie that barely moved, I made the decision to get up and leave. I tried my best to see it through, but I didn't want to spend any more time with an agitating drug addict that would neither capture my sympathy nor make me laugh at any point. I wanted to support the filmmaker because he showed a lot of merit as a director and a knack for keeping a budgetary production as one with solid technical flare, as well as for the fact that it's not fair to judge a film completely unless you've seen it all the way through. All that being said, without a protagonist I could bear to be around I just found myself wanting to get out of the cinema quickly, no matter how many times I said to myself "just give it a chance".
Time Bandits is definitely a step in the right direction for Sam Odlum and I look forward to seeing where he goes from here. With more attention to tonal balance, likeable characters and believable dialogue, I can see his full potential blossoming into something great. I hope his sophomore effort takes everything that worked about this film and grows in a number of ways I felt this one came up short.
Can I give a 0?
sherryfox-2632624 April 2024
This was horrible, bad acting and no plot! I could not believe that I wasted 2 hours of my life watching this movie. That is 2 hours I will never get back! I kept waiting for the movie to get better and it never happened. Why are there bad movies like this. There should have been a warning label on the movie to advise me that it is horrible! There needed to be so much added to go from horrible just to BAD! There should have been a warning label on the movie to advise me that it is horrible! There needed to be so much added to go from horrible just to BAD! There should have been a warning label on the movie to advise me that it is horrible! There needed to be so much added to go from horrible just to BAD!
EPIC GENRE BENDER SCI FI!!
chloe-1844111 December 2023
Wow, what a treat! This film is bold, brave and creative!!
Such a treat to watch something fresh and unique.
The film is brilliantly crafted on a low budget but has the looks and feel of a blockbuster! The writing was especially unique and the acting couldn't have been better. Kane and Johnny's characters were a standout for me! The set design and sound complimented all eras perfectly. The twist at the end was unexpected and pulled at the heart strings. A real circle of emotions from the opening scene. Absolutely loved it and can't wait to watch what's next for this epic entourage of crew! Well done!
Such a treat to watch something fresh and unique.
The film is brilliantly crafted on a low budget but has the looks and feel of a blockbuster! The writing was especially unique and the acting couldn't have been better. Kane and Johnny's characters were a standout for me! The set design and sound complimented all eras perfectly. The twist at the end was unexpected and pulled at the heart strings. A real circle of emotions from the opening scene. Absolutely loved it and can't wait to watch what's next for this epic entourage of crew! Well done!
One for the brassys
michaeldiab-5766323 October 2023
This is the perfect sci fi thriller for the ones who grew up around ice heads! It's the perfect comedy with a twist of sadness that made me whipe my tears everytime the boys were watching! I can relate to Johnny as I feel like I'm that funny dude in my friendship group and just wanna make people happy and like me. I love how there's so many twists and turns and I can't predict what happens next. Hope the boys from the government housing towers can get a chance to watch it coz it's truly the life of an inspiring brass monkey. I hope they'll be able to show it at norfies for all da homies! It's a Hektik film n that!
You never saw anything like this
katebrabant22 October 2023
Warning: Spoilers
From the first dystopian frames of a poisoned world to the synth speaking future, the menace of the cracked out present day and all the way back to the pen and quill days of old this film is unlike anything you've ever seen before in the best possible way.
The main plots time travel crime and horror is tense and pacey, keeping the adrenalin levels on consistent high, but what makes this film so special is the fast pace idiosyncratic main character performances. This film is nothing but best lines! So many unexpected moments had the audience laughing frequently - half the time in shock at the audacity of what was taking place on screen.
This film is destined to be a cult classic. Worth watching multiple times to catch all the nuance in the cleverly twisted tale that intersects across multiple generations and time periods as well as to purely for the best banter committed to tape, ever!
The main plots time travel crime and horror is tense and pacey, keeping the adrenalin levels on consistent high, but what makes this film so special is the fast pace idiosyncratic main character performances. This film is nothing but best lines! So many unexpected moments had the audience laughing frequently - half the time in shock at the audacity of what was taking place on screen.
This film is destined to be a cult classic. Worth watching multiple times to catch all the nuance in the cleverly twisted tale that intersects across multiple generations and time periods as well as to purely for the best banter committed to tape, ever!
See also
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