Film Review: Flatliners

"Okay, Now's The Point When You Say It's All A Joke..."

Remake. Reimagining. Reboot. Whatever. Of all the many psychological horror one-off's in the world, Joel Schumacher's 1990 cult flick, Flatliners, is indeed a movie devoid of all reasoning for such a continuation, and whilst the original had interesting ideas and a youthful, enthusiastic cast including the likes of Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon, the jury still remains out on why exactly a sequel is needed at all. With The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev helming the similarly titled sequel this week, which from trailers alone, comes across as the bare-bones, cheap money cash-in many would expect it to be, at least there is some reason to be slightly excited, particularly with Oplev helming the likes of Mr. Robot and the somewhat mediocre, if stylish Colin Farrell starring, Dead Man Down since his success with the first of the Swedish-based Millennium series. Whilst it's almost lazy to tarnish Oplev's latest with all the obvious cliched quips, it is startling how much Flatliners is completely dead on arrival, with the latest Hollywood sequel lacking both pulse and heart as it only manages to succeed in making the original look like a forgotten cinematic classic. 

Using the narrative of the first film to almost pinpoint exactness albeit for minor, lacklustre tweaks, Flatlines suffers fundamentally from the age old issue with sequels with it being a film which doesn't attempt to build on the successes of its' predecessor but simply decides to rehash the exact same ideas, and whilst there is an idea at the heart of Schumacher's original movie which could be made into a thrilling exercise of science fiction, screenwriter Ben Ripley resorts to creating a sequel which attempts to be more Final Destination-esque in tone than the Black Mirror style of story the underlying narrative brings to mind. Whilst Ellen Page tries her best in the leading role, her untimely conclusion creates a vacuum of dullness in the film's second half, one which utilises tiresome jump scares aplenty and hopeless horror to carry the story to its' overstayed conclusion, and without a sense of threat and the element of mystery to hold the audience's attention until the very end, Oplev's movie is unfortunately a remake than simply cannot be revived no matter how much adrenaline charged substances can be shoved into its' veins. 

Overall Score: 3/10