MOVIE REVIEW: Primer
REVIEW SUMMARY: A time-travel film that leaves the viewer asking questions.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Two engineers accidentally create a time machine in their garage. Things start out all fun and games as they use information from the future to make money in the present, but soon turn sinister.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: I absolutely loved the first four fifths of the film, especially the process of the creation of the device.
CONS: I think it’s almost required to watch this movie on DVD (rather than theatre). The film never slows down and doesn’t spend much time explaining things. The last 1/5 of the movie is lost on me, even after two viewings.
BOTTOM LINE: Be prepared to be befuddled. I hope someone else watches this movie so that I can talk to them about it.
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I loved it as well. I caught in the theater last fall. I totally agree about being lost. That doesn’t normally happen to me in a movie but it goes so quick that there isn’t much time to think. And everything gets so run together, that it’s hard to keep things straight to talk about it afterwards. I’ll have to pick up the DVD to watch it a few more times, and I also belive Carruth’s commentary is supposed to give much insight. Here are some more notes that I jotted down when I first saw it in November:
“I was completely enthralled but I had troubles following. I almost think that was its purpose, dealing with time travel is sticky. Not sure on the entire details on how the device worked and I’m clueless as to how it actually ended. Perhaps the chaotic nature of the film reflects just how chaotic time travel gets.”
I watched the ending a couple more times and the film overall makes more sense (though not complete sense.)
I then watched Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure to decompress.
By the way, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a most triumphant video.
In case you’re wondering whatever happened to Alex Winter of Lost Boys and Bill & Ted (Bill S. Preston, Esq.) fame he’s been working behind the scenes. Most recently (2001) he wrote and directed the movie Fever with Teri Hatcher.
But I digress.
Here is a diagram of the various timelines created through the movie: http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html
I’m not sure it helps me much. I’m still looking for the point that marks “the beginning of the movie”.
I just watched this movie and wow. It was a helluva ride and while I finally got whats going on by reading the timeline – they did a great job of welding together a time travel theme that didn’t completely suck. I mean you have the whole Star Trek temporal event, but this came off as well done with alot of thought put into how things would meld together. Now if we could get more folks to watch films like this – maybe Hollywood wouldnt completely suck…