Time Lapse

A first feature for helmer Bradley King and co-scenarist BP Cooper (though the latter has produced several indies), Time Lapse works due to both their escalating pileup of well-thought-out complications and credible character psychologies nicely communicated by expert performances.

Director Bradley King and his co-writer, B.P. Cooper, manage to overcome their shoddy premise as the plot progresses assuredly and persuasively.

Time Lapse provokes thought, but mostly in spite of itself.

That Bradley King's debut Time Lapse half-succeeds is a small miracle.

Time Lapse is time travel thriller that flatlines, mainly because of the consistently flat performances.

How well do you really know your neighbors? When Callie and Finn's elderly neighbor passes away, they are left to clean out his apartment and what they find is more than a little disturbing. Next to some strange device is a wall with thousands of pictures of them! At first they think the man was just a pervert, until the next day when they realize the machine is a camera that is taking a picture of their apartment, 24 hours into the future. With the help of their friend, Jasper, the couple decides to use the technology to get rich, but it doesn't take long for the local criminal element to realize what's going on, and try to take a piece of it. Most writer/directors don't hit a homerun their first time out, but in this case, with the help of a young up and coming cast, that's exactly what Bradley King did. This film is very engaging and has you on the edge of your seat, combined with an utterly shocking ending, this is the kind of film that you will still be thinking about days later. It's amazing to me that something of this quality was never released in theaters, but it is just as good, if not better than any thing you'll see on the big screen. The one drawback is that it does take a little while to get moving, hence the bad reviews from people who can't give a film more than twenty minutes, but once it gets started, Time Lapse quickly grabs hold and never lets go. It is refreshingly original and has a young cast that is every bit as intense as the film itself.

Time Lapse is a budget camera film on a hackneyed theme. But Time Lapse is not a movie about time travel. First of all, it is primarily a very chamber film with 5 actors. The emphasis here is on dialogues and acting. And surprisingly, the actors coped with their task, but just shot but with taste. Secondly, there is an unusual approach to time travel. Rather, there is a story about a car that predicts the future. And this is also not badly inscribed in the plot. Given that the film was clearly shot for a small amount, the end result is not bad. But this is clearly not a movie for everyone. If you like camera movies - it's a good movie, if not, then most likely turn it off in 15 minutes.

An interesting premise that somewhat squanders the philosophical quandaries that could be potentially drawn from it, Time Lapse is still certainly an entertaining movie with a nontraditional plot arc, which is in of itself good enough for a recommendation. It's first third is fairly sloppy, with cringe worthy writing and acting and bewildering camera work that almost had me wanting to turn it off. Thankfully it's able to recover significantly once it's done setting everything up and things begin to turn sinister. The second 2/3's of the movie have many moments of well-orchestrated tension, and it's never plain what will lie around each corner, leading the viewer to experience a near constant mix of surprise and suspense, a rare feat for any movie. What it does well in suspense and plot it lacks in character development. The acting has a pretty wide range from terrible to good, but the characters themselves are flat and have motivations that essentially exist to serve the plot. No one feels real. As they begin to contemplate just how much control they have over their lives and feel like someones pulling their strings, so do we get the feeling they are only doing what they're doing because it makes for more interesting screen time. And interesting it is. Perhaps not as interesting as it could have been though. For instance, the film skirts along the surface of exploring the nature of causality, but never really dives in. The characters just make broad assumptions that they shouldn't "cross" time, a dubious assumption to be sure, and thus disappointingly attempt to fulfill a predicted future rather than challenge the status quo. Thus some real meat is left on the bone as it turns out the premise, like the characters, exist merely to serve the plot and push it forward. On the spectrum of time travel movies I'd put it somewhere above Triangle and well below Primer, probably around Looper or Coherence. It's an intriguing white-knuckled romp, but the frustrating characters and writing, uneven acting, and slothful first 1/3 keep it from greatness.

TV movie quality. Sci-fi time travel potential soon gives way to gambling then fear and intimidation, putting relationships under stress and leaving little for me to like. I saw it through only because I vaguely wondered what happened next, but it never really made me care.

An incels dream movie. The writing of this movie is so bad I wasted 2 hours of my life laughing with my wife just judging it. Budget is not the problem here, the concept is cool, but the writing and cast just don't work, royalty free music, actors that look like they come straight from shutterstock...cringe compilation.