Flatliners

Flatliners

Starring Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev

The Story:
Nine years after a tragic accident that killed her sister, Courtney (Ellen Page) is a medical student at a prestigious hospital who is investigating what happens after we die.  She enlists the help of fellow students Jamie (James Norton), Ray (Diego Luna), Marlo (Nina Dobrev) and Sophia (Kiersey Clemons) to kill her, measure her brainwaves, and bring her back.  When she returns, she tells of a great afterlife, and begins exhibiting talents she used to have but had long forgot.

This leads to the others (except Ray) to also die and come back to life in order to achieve the same goals.  However, Courtney - and soon the others - begin having vivid dreams and visions of past sins, and begin to fear that delving into the unknown could cause permanent death.

The Synopsis:
Back in 1990, Joel Schumacher directed the original "Flatliners" which featured Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin.  In 2017, director Niels Arden Oplev (who directed the amazing foreign version of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo") decided to bring the film back to life with a remake, even though there was a note attached to its toe saying, "do not resuscitate."  He should've heeded the advice of the note, because, as it's said in the classic "Pet Sematary" - sometimes dead is better.

Ellen Page's Courtney is tormented by the death of her sister years earlier, and wishes to re-connect with her in the afterlife (or, possibly, just prove there is an afterlife - we're never really sure what her intentions were), so she has her fellow medical students kill her and bring her back to life.  She shares her experience and begins to do things she had once forgotten (like playing the piano, which she hasn't done in twelve years).  Jealous of her newfound (or, I guess, newly re-discovered) abilities, her friends want to do it too.  As Marlo said during the film, "this could be a new drug, we could market it for parties."  In a sense, this is an addiction - they can't get enough of it.  Yet, as it is with every addiction, there is a price to pay.  Courtney begins seeing her dead sister.  Jamie hears a baby crying.  Marlo is haunted by a mistake she made in the past.  Ray experiences nothing because he's the only one with a brain who didn't participate.  Sophia experiences...uh...a few things, I guess?  She seems to have gotten the lighter side of the punishment, probably because she's played by Kiersey Clemons (never heard of her?  Neither have I), while the other characters are played by bigger-named actors. 

Speaking of actors, Ellen Page really disappointed me here.  She's an independent film media darling, Oscar-nominated actress, and star of some of the most amazing films in recent memory ("Juno," "Hard Candy," "The East," and "The Tracey Fragments" come to mind).  Here, she's just a typical horror stock character who has very little to work with, and even she seemed bored with the product.

In any event, it's obvious that by dying and coming back, they've cheated death and death is out to get what's his...wait, nevermind, that's "Final Destination."  I guess that here, when you die and come back, your past sins also resurface in tangible ways to threaten your existence and usher you into the afterlife for good.  Or it could all be in their imagination.  Or a combination of both.  The plot is all over the place, and when you think it's reached its zenith, it travels in another direction, right into a brick wall.  In any event, no one cares. 

No one cares because there's not a character to care about.  This is why I hate going to hospitals, because I see doctors as snobby, rich, know-it-alls who don't really care about helping others but in cashing their huge paychecks.  Courtney shows extreme hubris.  Jamie is a playboy Casanova who experiments with drugs (everything I would look for in a doctor...he said sarcastically).  Marlo wants to be perfect and if she screws up she goes to great lengths to cover it up.  Sophia and Ray are the most grounded, with Sophia constantly worried that she's not good enough and Ray being the ultimate voice of reason.  Still, there's no reason I should care about any of their outcomes, because they brought everything that happened upon themselves. 

Basically, the look they had after they died - with their blank, soulless eyes, is the same expression I had throughout the movie.


The Summary:
Mixing unlikable characters, a tired plot with shoddy direction and obvious lame scares, and a story so convoluted and all over the place you don't care which direction it heads, it's no wonder this movie was dead on arrival once it hit theaters.

The Score: D-