Ok, you've convinced me. Dammit. I really liked that movie too. Now when I watch it again I will think about everything you wrote here and groan.

You're right, the ending is kind of weird. The driving away part didn't bother me though. I think as she is a main witness and she sounds convincing with the things she says, it makes sense he would be nice to her and take her down to the station for questioning (as it appears that is what he is doing).

But that whole part on the boat and the bomb and underwater and all that was was pretty loosely tied together, I agree.

And as far as the rest of the story goes, with the note and what-not, you HAVE to suspend your disbelief and just go with it. Just about any time-travel movie you have to do that with. If you look back and pick it apart, you'll find holes all over the place. So I can't agree on that point.

Anyway, this movie had the most innovative (though implausible) car chase I've ever seen. LOVED that scene. That pretty much made the movie for me.

Ramble on...

Hey Drew, totally agree with the suspension of disbelief, as I said in the review that's not what knocked the film right down for me, that was solely due to the ending.

I just thought I'd mention the point while I was writing about the end, after all it's a pretty big hole.

I saw all the holes too as I was watching it, but I still enjoyed it. As Drewbacca said, you just have to suspend belief and just go with it, I realized that right away when they started talking about time travel or whatever.

On that tho, with what you said about the notes, the film at least tried, for a while anyway, to actually conform to actual scientific theory. Everything that happens in the film, with regard to the machine thing itself, is actually possible, theoretically anyway. They said that what the machine did was create a Einstein-Rosenberg bridge, more commonly called a Wormhole these days, and in the theorys themselves its pretty well stated that even if you could travel back in time, you shouldn't, ever. Even sending a single note back could change the entire world in the present. You send a note back, and it appears in the past or whatever, and suddenly particles of air itself is moved out of the way to make room for it to exist, so now you got particles that were not in the same place they originally were, and these particles push upon other particles and make them not be in the same place they originally were, and etc etc, basically saying even the tiniest tiniest little change in the past, changes absolutely EVERYTHING. And its absolutely impossible to predict and or compensate for the changes you create.

Anyway, rambling on, I actually very much enjoyed the film on this scientific level, for a while, and then as soon as they did send that first note back, it became all completely imagined just throwing the actual theorys out the window for the sake of a good story.

Speaking of the ending too, wrap your mind around this one. The end of the film creates a classic, and massive, Einstein Paradox. Even tho the day was saved and they all went home happy, Denzel's character still has to die. He still has to meet those people, go back in time, and die, because if he doesn't, then how could the event be changed if he doesn't still do it. Like, if you went back in time and killed your own grandmother, you'd cease to exist because she could never give birth to your mother, but, if you did this, then how could you go back and kill her if you didn't exist. Its a paradox, a completely impossible scenario anyway you look at it. It both can happen, and cannot happen, at the same time. Another one it creates too that I can immediately think of, is how could the ambulance have crashed into the cabin if he never goes back to do it. The future timeline is already established, we just don't know it yet, but if he never goes back in time, in the future, then the ambulance in the cabin doesn't exist in the past.

Anyway again, I enjoyed the film on this scientific level, in that the idea for it, at least at first, is based on real scientific theory, before it just throws the established theory out the window to run with good drama. If I was a high school physics teacher, I'd have a lesson on watching this film and writing a paper on all the holes in the theory it creates and all the many classic paradoxes it creates.

So anyway, conclusion to my scientific ramble being, its a good film, you just have to completely suspend belief for it, and don't even attempt to explain the film out rationally.

xpgeek says, don't even attempt to explain the film out rationally.

Spot on with that comment xpgeek. Because that was exactly what I felt as I was coming out of the cinema, still trying to get my bearings, which timeline are we now? If asked about it there is no way I can explain the film to anybody, man, I had a difficult time in there so let them go in and experience it themselves!

I jus did a whole rant which got deleted coz typekey logged me out .. grrr

So again but this time briefer ...

1st thing 1st, minor error .. you mean 4 days not 4 hours ;)

Pointers:
* passing the note, this was a huge risk, they didn't want to do this at all, they only did this coz Denzel was going a bit nuts & they didn't want him gong all 'man on fire' on them :)

* multiple passing of notes, they wouldn't do this due to a) the risk of having a huge outage of power etc as explained b) this was 'new' technology and this was the first investigation it was being used for, so I assume it wasn't fully ready 4 days ago?

*ending, with Denzel going in, things were going to get wierd anyway .. but the swimming with huge weight attached thing, minor blemish i'd say (possibly because I hadn't noticed)

*car taking ages to hit water, I think this was just the way it appeared, as in the whole ferry scene was quite slow moving for emphasis, not that much real-time passed, so its the pace that you may blame .. cramming 4 days into 2 hours & then giving 5 minutes over 10 minutes is a bit of a jolt I'll give you that

*non-suspect, as Drewbacca said her story checked out, but I can see how perhaps this could have been handled with a little more room for suspecting her

*not hanging-about, Denzel II didn't see this as a large enough crime scene now that Cazievel was dead & there were no major casualties, besides he now had this hot chick to pursue, in all fairness he did fall for her at first sight (both times).

-- Lmk your thoughts .. Do you forgive it yet?

Forgiven? Nope, no one's even come close to changing my mind.

xpgeek - as I said to Drew, the time thing was just something I noticed but it didn't spoil the enjoyment, it was the end that did that.

Also on the time paradox issue I don't really think there is one in this film. He's gone back in time and averted the disaster so in this timeline it's happened and he goes on living after the accident. The film ends after he's gone back in time and after the attack has been foiled, so he can go about his life without worrying about it. If the film had ended before he actually goes back in time then we would have the paradox.

Ram. Let's go through them.
* Yes, I did mean four days, my apologies.

* They only said it was a risk because they had never done it before and thought it wouldn't work or be possible. They were surprised when it worked. This was all said on screen at the time.

* Power outage - fair enough, but they were shown as brownouts, not blackouts, which recovered soon after. Easily coped with. Regardless of that if you wanted to send a note twelve days in the past. That would mean three uses of the machine, but all on different timelines, so it wouldn't be such a problem as each power drain is unique to that timeline.

* New technology and never used in an investigation sure, doesn't mean that it wasn't used before and set up somewhere else. They kept talking about the previous uses and tests so it would have been in use in the past...okay if the transporting of it took more than four days then they would have a problem.

* Swimming - wasn't just the swimming with the weight, but the cheesy avoidance of the massive rotating propeller.

* The issue wasn't with the car taking ages to hit the water, it was with the armed men on the boat not shooting at it.

* I don't see her story checked out. What story? She was in the vehicle with the bomb, it was her car, and the two people who could say otherwise were dead. Finding her swimming away with evidence linking her directly to the vehicle would be a bit dodgy to me. Even without that evidence all the armed guards saw her in the car and the police would at least have taken the precaution of keeping her as a suspect.

* Yeah I get the falling for bit, but she's possibly a suspect in a terrorist attack. It would be treated with a bit more importance than it was.

With all the other points I still think the ending destroys the rest of the film. Sure you can say fantasy, film, suspension of disbelief, all this, but when they make 98% of the film so damn strong and clever and then go poorly at the end, it sticks out like a sore thumb. If the whole film was like that then you could take it for what it is.

Oh, and Drew, the car chase was pretty cool and extremely well conceived - that was in the excellent 98% part of the film.

I had the pleasure of seeing this film with Richard so I heard him groan at the ending. I have to admit I was groaning along with him.

It's pretty much the same things that were bugging me. The ending did kind of spoil a good film. Pretty cheesy considering all that had gone before. But yes the way that she some how managed to avoid the massive propeller was something else. I believe worm bait might have been the phrase that I used.

Not to mention that she went from suspect to love interest in about 5 mins. I also thought it a little weird that he had been kind of stalking her (for the greater good) and fell for her. Yet she some how managed to fall for him in the space of a few hours. Half of which she thought he was up to no good.

I thought a better ending ending might have been her using the same technology to go back in time and making sure that Carlin didn't die.

Other than the ending though it was a good film. One of my favourite Denzel perfomances.

ah, paradoxes, paradoxes. actually i see only one real time paradox. there is only one dough carlin. he goes back and takes us with him, gets killed while saving the ferry, and than, miraculessly, another dough carlin appears. i thought we'd lost him to the past just a few hours before while saving the day?

for the rest the film is mildly entertaining.