MovieChat Forums > Radius (2017) Discussion > not sure what to make of it

not sure what to make of it

posted 7 years ago by maximmm (3335)
7 replies | jump to latest

It's kind of slow - the acting is all right, the premise is kind of interesting, though I wish there was more tension/suspense.

The twist at the end is interesting.

At the end of the day.... I really don't know what score to give this film - I'm thinking 6/10? The acting is all right, but the directing (or is it writing?) keeps this from being great. I would have wanted to see more tension or suspense build up throughout the film. Then it would have been a movie worth recommending, as you wouldn't feel like fastforwarding through numerous sections of the film. As things stand now, the premise, OK acting and the twist are the only things it has going for it.

The slow pace and lack of tension keep this film from being good/great.

[–] Kurt (189) 7 years ago

It was too much like a tv movie. The sci fi element was just a MacGuffin it lead nowhere at all. It wasn't needed in the movie. I think it would've been better without it.

It's like two different stories -

Two people who have to stay close, else one of them kills everything within a given radius, after they have been hit by some extraterrestrial whatever. That's ALL there is to that story, there's nothing else.

Two people with amnesia traveled together in a car before an accident occurred, which gave them this amnesia. Slowly they recover their memory in glimpses and eventually realise that one of them is a serial killer intent on killing the other. He approached her on a bridge where she was about to commit suicide, but it turns out he killed her twin sister as well and that he stalked herself, waiting for this moment of opportunity. After the accident the person has changed and is shocked at how he was in the past.

The latter story is much more interesting than the first, which is gimmicky. Perhaps the sci fi story would have been good if they focused more on that part, but as it is it went nowhere. Pity, I thought the beginning was interesting, but really the "other story" took over at some point. Not completely bad, I don't mind the slowness, but it's like the movie really didn't have much of a point, and it became a sixth sense "twist" type of movie.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

This is very much the sort of story that Stephen King writes best.

Ordinary people -- some good, some evil -- are touched by an extraordinary event or power. He tends not to focus too much on explanations or examinations of the sci-fi or supernatural elements but, instead, on how they affect the people involved.

Honestly, I thought maybe this was based on such a book or short story by him. I thought it was pitch perfect.

[–] Kurt (189) 6 years ago

I only agree about this for the first half of the movie, what I think is a bit of a cop out is the sudden change of focus, like a new story out of the blue, just so it could have its sixth sense moment.

[–] bobofromcoco (11) 6 years ago

This is exactly what bothered me about it. Absolutely nothing in the initial story evolved beyond the premise, and could have easily been left out. I give it a 4/10.

[–] therefdotcom (964) 7 years ago

i could not disagree more. gave it a 10/10, one of my new top films ever. maybe slow pace isn't really your piece of cake? lack of tension? no offense, but what are you talking about?

[–] Goliard (1420) 4 years ago

LOL. . .I have to agree. It's pretty typical of people on these types of sites to "review" as though their expectations justify a poor grade.

It's pretty simple: creators don't owe you the story You expected. They're telling *their* story, and you may not be interested in it, but that doesn't mean the work is bad. I don't like documentaries, but I don't downvote them because they're not suspenseful enough.

Lack of tension is an irrelevant observation. Aside from the fact that that's subjective, the (arbitrary) amount of "tension" you were looking for is probably not what the filmmakers were trying to achieve. How much tension is there in Animal House? Driving Miss Daisy? Tropic Thunder?

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

I actually welcomed the slow pacing.
I felt like this movie was a realistic portrayal (despite the timely, narrative flourishes) of what would happen if something like this occurred. What would the people involved do? Where would that go? What would they risk? What wouldn't they risk? What could they plan for?

Definitely low budget, and it clearly was inspired by a single, basic premise (so perhaps this would have been more fitting for a 22 minute twilight zone episode), but it held my interest.

To be fair, I actually thought most of the movie was pretty tense myself, so I think I was more invested in the film than you lol. Like I was wide-eyed in anticipation constantly throughout the movie for fear of what was going to happen next.