The «Flatliners» had better stay in their graves

Cinema Wednesdays - Hélène Lavoyer

«It's a beautiful day to die.»

At the instigation of medical student Courtney (Ellen Paige), four of her colleagues join her in a strange experiment: they induce cardiac arrest on their own, leaving the heart stopped for a few minutes... before the others take it upon themselves to bring the one who has let go back to life.

Après l’expérience, Courtney, Jamie (James Norton), Marlo (Nina Dobrev) et Sophia (Kiersey Clemons)  verront leurs capacités intellectuelles modifiées, différemment selon chacun. Seul Ray – interprété par Diego Luna –, méfiant, se garde de jouer avec la mort. A raison ? Peut-être, car des événements effrayants et surnaturels s’immisceront petit à petit dans la vie de ses amis, jusqu’au drame…

The new version of the film Flatliners - The forbidden experiment is a failure on a number of levels. First of all, and this is one of the major errors of the distribution, the feature film is forbidden to children under sixteen and appears under the category horror. Certainly, the soundtrack leads to apprehension and sometimes even anxiety. Nevertheless, not an ounce of imagination, novelty or unexpectedness manages to inhabit the one hundred and ten minutes spent in the cinema. Fans of horror films will undoubtedly find themselves disappointed.

With the exception of Ellen Paige's name, there's little to criticize in the acting. The scare scenes were executed with great professionalism, and those representing the festive side of each of the characters, rather natural.

One regret remains, however: the lack of originality in their characters. The gang is made up of commonplace characters for the cinema: a handsome «kid» and his female version, two «trophy girls» and a fathead. It's also clear from the aborted dialogue and scenes that the casting directors were looking less for quality of interpretation than for quality of reproduction.

In the multitude of themes tackled - such as the supernatural, science, grief, acceptance, youth and self-transcendence - the characters lose their depth, so much so that they evolve within heterogeneous and poorly connected frameworks.

Hollywood waited twenty-seven years before releasing a copy of Flatliners apparu en 1990. Les studios auraient-ils espéré que ces années permissent d’estomper leur manque d’imagination? Y a-t-il un message derrière ce « patchwork » désorganisé ? Dans tous les cas, nous en resterons à la première version, plus intéressante sur le plan technique et interprétatif.

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Photo credit: © Pop Inquierer