Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Review Tuesday: PREDESTINATION [2014] / ALL YOU ZOMBIES by ROBERT HEINLEIN [1960]

A friend told me about this movie. It wasn't yet available in the USA, but I saw that it was based on a short story by one of my favorite sci-fi writers, Robert Heinlein. So, double review...

...sorta.




PREDESTINATION
A time traveler saves the future by going into the past.
PREDESTINATION is a movie that is almost perfectly put on the screen from the source material. You always hope that good stories would remain intact when directors put them on the silver screen. What would seem like an off choice, ALL YOU ZOMBIES which is short story consisting of a mere dozen pages or so, didn't seem like it could be enough material for a feature length film. But the story is just SO COMPELLING in those few pages that someone did it. 

The short story tells very little about the work of the time traveler.  He makes some mention about a few details, but it's mostly about our main character that I will only refer to as "The Bartender" (played expertly by Ethan Hawke) in this review and his interactions with "The Unwed Mother" (Sarah Snook). 

The short story was fun in the way it's a circle in time travel paradox. The movie takes it even further by turning it into a figure eight! If Heinlein was around, I'm sure he would've been pleased how they built upon his original clever idea. 

Both versions are fun and well worth your time.

Read the story, ALL YOU ZOMBIES by Robert Heinlein, HERE
IMDB


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