The script and layout for the plot is supposed to be clever, but in its attempt to shoot for the moon it tripped and broke its face. The filmstock looks expensive and professional in its HD, but the ADR might be the worst I have ever heard. It all seems off and artificial, completely neutering any emotional impact. Sometimes it's impressive how crippling one definitive miss can be.
It wants to be Primer or even Predestination, but it is far too simplistic, completely lacking in character, lacking all intrigue and tonally disparate. It just simply doesn’t work, not as a horror film, not as a time travel drama, not as a love story, not as a scientific exploration, not as a family drama, and definitely not as a kids film (there is a chunk that is designed like a preteen film).
It is trying to hook into that Lovecraft film hope, but is relegated to the fate of its brethren. Almost every Lovecraft film winds up an L. This is another one to bite the dust. You can’t even say it is explicitly Lovecraftian except maybe thematically. There are references, to Miskatonic, to some names of those involved in the stories, and a general “larger extra dimensional beings waiting to be malevolent”, which is its main relation.
Honestly, it’s so boring and soooo long. All the time spent without truly diving into strong characterization, plotting, mind expansion or frights. It just slowly drags on until it finds a finality - a flunking from Miskatonic U.
