WHERE IS THE ENDING??? - and other problems with this movie
This was a fun movie, it knew what it wanted to be, and it was mildly entertaining. Edge of Tomorrow was waaay better, because it had actual substance. There were many-many problems which could have been addressed with some effort in the scriptwriting deparment, such as
- The research facility was monitored 24/7, Mel Gibson was fully aware that Naomi Watts wanted to activate the spindle - and he just let her do it. You could argue that he wanted a test anyway, but he should have not let her use Ray as a subject, he should have thought about how it's a great risk and how this way he himself has no substantial control over the experiment itself. Proposed fix: Give some agency to Naomi Watts, will ya? Have her orchestrate a classy deception where he leads Mel Gibson to believe something else, but in the end she still implements Ray as a test subject.
- Also a neat piece of stupidity from the main villain to have Naomi Watts murdered. She is the only person on Earth who knows the ins and outs of how the spindle works. Without her there is no chance for the baddies to use it to their own advantage - or at all. Proposed fix: since this event creates a significant ticking clock for Ray, the whole script should be reworked, I cannot propose an easy fix here.
- The "absentee father" cliché is sooo tired and worn out in 2021, that it's unforgivable that they still went with this for this movie. Proposed fix: anything else, really.
- Expert swordsman in 40-50 days, I could buy it with a proposed fix: have the swordmaster lady have a signature move, a trick only she utilizes, and only she can teach. That way, there could be some fun moments where she grows suspicious of Ray as the loops are proceeding further along: "Who taught you that trick? That's something only I can do!" - or something to that effect. For bonus points, utilize that trick to ultimately defeat the sword chick. Oh, but this would have required some effort from the writers (rolls eyes). Moving on.
- The movie seriously dragged when Ray was spending time with his son, creating a pacing problem. Proposed fix: forget this fucking absentee father bullsh!t already!
- And the biggest of them all: WHERE IS THE FXXXING ENDING??? I mean at the end we have no conclusion. He steps into the machine, and we don't even get to know if he could stop the end of the world or not. You could argue that he himself made up for his absence in the life of his son, so he should be dead at the end. But to this I say, that's a wrong conclusion for two resasons. A) His son is eleven. That means there is plenty of time before he grows up that Ray wouldn't want to miss, especially after his realization that he wants to be with him. B) Ironically in the last loop he rushed to save Naomi, so he did not spend a second with him! The version of his son that stays alive did not get to know him at all... Jesus, what a mess this really is. In the end we get a lazy cop-out, where the writers can't even commit to any scenario. As I said you could argue that it's obvious Ray is meant to die at the end, but there is still two sub-scenarios of that event: one in which his sacrifice was in vain and the world is still ending sometime around 5-6 in the afternoon, and one in which Naomi and his son at least stay alive. But no, we didn't even know what happened, making the whole ordeal retroactively kinda pointless.
All in all - this could have been sooo much better with a bit more effort in writing. I give it an 5/10 - the visuals and the fights were OK, but the plot is all over the place, and combed together with lazy writing. Also - Naomi Watts is a way better actress than her performance indicates here - it looked like she was sleepwalking through all her scenes. I can't fault her tho, as her character had no agency (as discussed above) and I think she herself found the absentee father's wife role boring. So I can totally understand why her performance was not up to par in this, she deserves more quality material.