Continuum, 2013
Written and directed by Richie Mehta
Starring Gillian Anderson, Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber, Rufus Sewel, Susanna Fournier
SYNOPSIS:
After the disappearance of a young scientist on a business trip, his son and wife struggle to cope, only to make a bizarre discovery years later – one that may bring him home.
Time travel seems to be back in style at the moment with the release of Continuum (also known as I’ll Follow You Down) on DVD, which joins the likes of Predestination, Project Almanac, TV show The Flash, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and even The SpongeBob Movie 3D: Sponge Out of Water. But what Continuum does that the others don’t is that it treads a very simple line and never steps out of its comfort zone. While this may sound like a negative, it actually plays into the movie’s favour for the most part. It’s not particularly adventurous, but that means it’s not full of plot holes.
Haley Joel Osment seems to be trying to get his career back on track after scoring success as a child in The Sixth Sense and A.I: Artificial Intelligence but so far has only featured in this low-budget sci-fi and Kevin Smith’s Marmite movie Tusk. However shows that he can still carry some dramatic weight here as Erol, a young and brilliant man who has put his life back together after his father left he and his mother (Gillian Anderson) when he was a child. He is in a comfortable relationship with the girl across the street, his work is going well and it looks like he may even become a father. But when he catches wind that his father may have been travelled through time and been killed in the past, Erol works together with Sal (Victor Garber) to see if he can rebuild his father’s work and save him.
Continuum works on a simple principle – if you go back in time and change something, it will have an effect on the future. When reviewing found footage flick Project Almanac, it was noted that film faltered because it couldn’t quite work out which time travel ball pit it wanted to play in and that was its biggest issue. Because Continuum works on a such a simple premise, it never falls flat on what it sets out to do. It lays down its ground work clearly and never tries to do anything too clever with it. In many ways its reminiscent of PlayStation 2 game Shadow of Memories, and this almost feels like a live-action version. Not in terms of the story or characters, but in its tone, set-up and execution. Both are simple, both stick to their guns and both leave you with same simple satisfactory feeling when all is said and done.
However it also means that Continuum isn’t very exciting. It almost feels like the movie is too afraid to make mistakes and therefore goes for the simplest route possible to all of its solutions. Never reaching the heights of time travel greats, Continuum is a rather standard affair with some solid writing, good performances and an easy-to-follow story. There are some good character moments in there like Erol’s girlfriend asking him what the ramifications would be on their relationship if he goes back and changes the past, which are only exasperated when she ends up pregnant, but the movie bottles out of them quickly in order to get back to the science fiction time travel bits. There is some set-up, but never any pay off.
The film boasts a good cast outside of Osment, but there given rarely anything to do. Victor Garber is excellent as always as the wacky professor who helps Erol but poor old Gillian Anderson (hired to be a name only) is given very little to work with as a stressed and lost mother who can’t manage her own life. She does well of course (as she does the equally flat Robot Overlords), but there is nothing worthy of note.
Is Continuum a bad film? Not in the slightest. It is a well told piece of science fiction with a likeable protagonist, a good amount of sci-fi fun and an easy-to-digest time travel story. If the movie had been a bit more out-going with what it set out to do, then it probably would have fared better, but it certainly doesn’t fail at anything. You can watch it once and then forget about it pretty quickly afterwards. Writer and director Richie Mehta shows good skills in both departments, but will need to push his limits if he wants to make a name for himself. However, there are a lot worse time travel movies out there, and in the realms of low-budget efforts, this is probably one of the better ones.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONsp_bmDYXc
Originally published March 9, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
