Reviews

I've seen this movie three times and have had three totally different reactions to it.

The first time, I hated it. It seemed too random to make the weird stuff cool.

The second time I thought, that actually was pretty cool. The theme of advanced technology appearing magical to less technologically advanced lifeforms was done decently.

The third time I just kept thinking, I can't wait for Cameron Diaz to die. I don't know what it is about her shallow acting that always makes me want her dead, but that on top of the obviously fake southern accent she wears in this film just made me rage.

I wouldn't be writing this review if not for the ideas that form the core of what the story is built on. However, to avoid any potential spoilers above the fold, I'll try it to at least write a few lines about the movie itself before critiquing the idea so that that spoil will be below the bar. The Sci-Fi and mystery aspects of the movie are enjoyable enough. Not especially original, but executed in a way that there is still some level of suspense. Honestly there is probably nothing in this movie that is strictly original. While not directly derivative of any one source, every idea here has been done in a more enjoyable fashion somewhere else. I think that should be enough to get this point below the fold, so now I'll proceed to criticize the premise that the plot is built on.

The story follows a man tracking the actions of a woman who has traveled back to the past, indeed many points in the past, in order to prevent dangerous and hateful ideologies from taking hold in people who will ultimately commit horrible acts of terror and violence in the name of their own supposed superiority. How? By killing them and their ancestors. The idea is that their ideas can be erased and their hate will go along with it and that everything will end up, if not fine, then at least less bad than it would have been.

It shouldn't take a genius to recognize immediately that this is not only moronic but dangerous. If you think that killing people who disagree with you is not only going to make them more hateful and fearful of you and those like you, your power of thought are dangerously lacking. A black assassin killing white supremacists is only going to make them spew more hate and bile. In their eyes, you are proving their point. You are proving in their eyes that you are dangerous and must be stopped. You are an exact mirror of them.

The only way to fight bad ideas, including hateful ones, is to crush them with better ideas. If you can't convince people that you are right and the people who are wrong are in fact wrong, and can only achieve your goal by taking life, the only thing you are going to convince them is that you will kill to have your way. Even if your view is the right one, this can only end in tragedy and disaster. That is a simple fact, perhaps an unfortunate one based in the inherent imperfection of the human being, but like it or not, the only thing that destroys bad ideas is good ideas, and murdering the people that have bad ideas is not going to stop these bad ideas from spreading. Period.