This is a hard review to write - I don't want to oversell this film or sell it short. I caught it while idly flicking round British TV one afternoon. I had better things to do but minute by minute it managed to keep me away from them and I didn't regret it.
At first I thought 'Cheap afternoon TV movie'. A few minutes later I added the rider, 'with solid production values and an above-average level of effort and energy.' A while later again: 'And an astonishing amount of care and ingenuity over detail. Did you see what just happened in the mirror? And did they hire a troupe of boisterous improv actors as extras? I need to find out who wrote and directed this.' Then: 'The special effects are too good for a TV film, especially the excellent time-line display gizmo. It must be a bigger-budget studio number. Why haven't I heard of it? Probably one of those things that came out in the wrong week or something and slipped under everyone's radar.' And soon: 'There is so damn much in this film in the way of backstory and world-building and little loving doodles in the margins, too much for a normal film. It must be an extraordinarily faithful adaptation of a book - not just a book, but the first in a whole series of books. They must be big in America. So well-loved that the fans would lynch people if they left anything out, so they've put it all in and are making quite a good job of explaining it to the rest of us.' And eventually: 'Who cares what it is or where it comes from? I'm still watching and it's getting even better.' By the end I was not only completely gripped and invested but so moved I had to stifle a little manly tear at one point.
Bear in mind: it IS low budget, albeit usually very well disguised. And you've seen most of the things in it before, but they're done with slightly new spins and so much verve in execution they come to seem fresh.
The first half of the film is - not exactly slow, but stays mysterious for an unusually long time. This can be a bonus if you enjoy making guesses. If you're impatient or are used to being spoonfed, forget it. (I think a lot of the people who've given absurdly negative reviews must fall into this category. Although I suspect those who've been over-critical of the acting of malicious trollery - the acting was either perfectly good or quite perfect.)
The best thing in the film, and the best example of the care and inventiveness that's gone into it, is the main gimmick (there are several). One of the characters in effect has a sort of superpower. This is very well handled. We are gradually shown rather than told and I was deep into the film before I fully grasped it. All the implications of it were thoroughly worked out - including the ingenious ways that enemies could counteract it. Most importantly, it was handled in such a way that, rather than becoming the equivalent of a Get Out Of Jail Free card, it actually had the effect of doubling or tripling the tension.
All in all I enjoyed it a lot. I would like there to be a sequel (for one thing I would love to see what happens when one '95er' fights another) or, perhaps better, a TV series. Most of all I would like the director and his collaborators to be given a bigger budget to play with. Congratulations to all involved on some remarkable work.
