Paradox (III) (2016) User Reviews

interestingly terrible but terribly interesting

[google-742-846698 · 5/10 · 23 May 2016]

All things considered, this is more than watchable. It has a simple idea, a simple set and it executes it without too much hassle.

I didn't really get on board with any sense of drama and/or nervous tension, and I was unable to commit myself to the characters. Finding a lot of the acting a touch wooden with predictable scripting, although this may have been an intentional 'cheesy humour', I couldn't quite tell ! There was one character who didn't have many lines but was playing a 'thug/heavy' role, and in response to some techno babble asked for it to be dumbed down ... I did laugh out loud!

However, I am glad I watched to the end as there was an unexpected twist!

A 6 on the Richter scale of time travel

[guyzradio · 6/10 · 4 April 2018]

This flick is clearly not for everyone. If you need a fix of mindless entertainment, keep looking. If you want to try meeting the challenge of following multiple time loops that fold over on themselves, you'll be right at home.

Best viewing might result if you separate the movie into categories of Acting and Premise. Yes, the acting is uninspired, and the half dozen or so characters are largely under developed. They display a liberal helping of the nerd quality that goes with a small team (somehow) building a time travel machine unnoticed. But, their judgment ratchets back to plain ordinary or worse as they deal with mounting problems.

IMO, the premise and writing are where this story shines. There have been a lot of sci-fi tales that toy with time travel and multiple (or alternate) time lines. The easiest to understand and follow is the classic reboot, where events don't quite match a previous story, but story progression is relatively linear. Even when there is some interaction or movement of characters between parallel time lines, it's still relatively easy to keep up.

"Paradox" is the other flavor of time travel. In this case, the timeline includes not one, but multiple loops between the present and one hour into the future. Characters try coming to grips with concepts such as destiny, and whether they can alter the fates that seem to await all of them. At the heart is the question whether one can go into the past to change an event responsible for a current undesirable situation, and, of course, what happens if you meet yourself (or can you?). There is even an honorable mention of "Schrödinger's cat." The fact that a writer kept this all sorted out is worth the watch.

So to repeat: if you don't want to think, move along. If you want a challenge, press "Play."

Undemanding Time Travel Silliness.

[aforandromeda · 6/10 · 10 May 2016]

Deep in the heart of the city, a group of brilliant young scientists, led by the mysterious Mr. Landau, are on the brink of completing a machine that will let them travel one hour forward in time. When the first to time travel comes back with dire warnings of the rest of the group's impending demise, who can they trust? More to the point, will they survive, or is their fate already sealed?

Paradox has all the usual ingredients of modern, low budget sci-fi thrillers, from the convoluted story packed with twists and turns, to wonky sets, ropey CGI and hammy acting. The thing is, it actually seems to work for the most part.

The movie is pacey, energetic and unpretentious. Despite it's obviously low budget and limited crop of acting talent, the ensuing 90 minutes are rather enjoyable. Naturally, Zoe Bell is the cream of the acting crop here and she's always worth watching. Her physical talent is a touch underused during the film, but when she gets the opportunity, she uses it well. The rest of the largely unknown cast, despite having some truly naff dialogue to work with, are at least appealing despite some, shall we say, enthusiastic performances.

The direction and editing are pretty snappy and the movie motors along at a fair old click. It's silly, perils of time travel sci-fi hokum, so if you're expecting anything more, this movie is not one for you to watch. If however, you fancy some cheesy, undemanding fun with some campy acting thrown in with your thrills and spills, then there will be no contradictions in you giving Paradox a view.

would you like your C grade with Cheese?

[Rob-O-Cop · 3/10 · 21 April 2016]

I was tricked into giving this one some time by the first 2 reviews in the list. They lied. While the story synopsis implies there might be an interesting sci fi setup floating about, the first 10 mins of terrible acting, stale scenes and exposition make you not care about waiting to find out. The first scene was like an 80s kids drama of 'acting'. All fake urgency and 'drama'. The next scene with 2 cops in a car giving us the run down on the central group of scientists they were watching dragged on for what seemed like hours. I'm not sure it ever stopped. The 'scientists' were giving it their best 'teen 80s delinquent' impersonations which made me wonder if this movie was a tongue in cheek nod to those crappy movies of that period, (like we need more of them?), but that thought soon left my mind as I wished it to be over as soon as possible, but that wasn't going to happen till the full 90 minutes of excruciating was over. This is not worth your time. It's not clever, it's not funny, it's just boring, and badly done at that.

Just horrible

[dimimagno · 1/10 · 21 April 2016]

Bad to horrible acting. Very bad script.Idiotic dialogues.Loose story line. Absolute waste of time. Don't waste your precious time on this one.

Lately I keep thinking more and more by the day, what the hell is wrong with TV series and movies and why would people actually waste so much money on producing idiotic and empty movies/series. Paradox, a crappy movie with a fancy title, is no exception. They are trying to do something but they fail so hard it hurts.

The acting reminds me of my school plays, but with less talent. The fancy scenes that have nothing to do with the rest of the..."plot" are so rednecked and stupid they give me headaches. Please don't watch this bull. Save your time by doing something productive, read a book.

Here's a neat time-travel trick - save yourself an hour and a half, and don't watch this crap.

[feudalserfer · 2/10 · 12 August 2018]

This review doesn't have any spoilers because there's nothing to spoil. The worst part of this film is the sudden inconsistencies and almost randomly atrocious continuity, not just in the plot, but in the characters' behaviour. Terrible dialogue, terrible, terrible, storyline; totally, 100% unsympathetic characters, and truly, monumentally awful acting. Too bad for MST3K to parody. Here's a neat time-travel trick - save yourself an hour and a half, and don't watch this crap.

One of the worst films I've ever seen.

A good idea on a low budget - better than a near miss. I liked it

[breed3011 · 7/10 · 10 June 2016]

I've read the reviews on here and I tend to agree with all of them - Yes, I agree with the people who criticised it AND the people who loved it.

Is it low budget? Yes

Are the opening scenes and character exposition a little "amateur"? Yes

Is it poorly acted? For some of the lesser characters, perhaps.

Is it a very good idea for a time travel thriller? Yes

Has the time travel plot been meticulously planned? Yes, Kudos!

Is the overarching story line well executed? Yes

Are the lead actors and actresses engaging? Yes

Does it make you think, even after the movie has ended? Yes - and that's bang for buck!

Does it make sense? Yes

So that's it - a good idea for a film with a couple of interesting characters and relationships that,based around time travel, and a good time travel plot (which is a rare thing)

It didn't set the world on fire - low budget time travel films never do.

Zoe Bell probably was the best of the actors - I read on here she is also a stunt woman - which makes a lot of sense - She has a great physique and the director knew how to use her skills and assets - Reminded me a little of Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest!

The other actors were a little forgettable, sadly.

So over all - some poor performances and a slightly amateur exposition did not diminish from the stronger points of the movie, which were a good time travel synopsis that was well executed and a good performance from Zoe Bell.

Usual Suspects Wannabe

[Leigh1566 · 3/10 · 25 April 2016]

Not sure what I can say about this movie that doesn't offend anyone that had a role in making it. I'm not sure what film the first two reviewers were watching but it sure as hell wasn't the same one the rest of us were. I'd hazard a guess that they have some link to the film. I have dubiously given this film a 3 purely because I did sit through all of it; and it would be a little harsh to rate it as low as some of the films I've switched off after ten minutes. That being said, I do feel that I've wasted 90 odd minutes of my life.

Despite liking the premise of the movie, as I'm a big SyFy and time travel fan, the film had an awful script, an even worse dialogue and acting that can only be described as 'below amateur'. I know there are some films where the dialogue simply can not be acted out well, and some of the actors in this were trying really hard. But the lead role is diabolical. I really don't understand from the moment he said his opening line why the director didn't say "Out!!!". Even more dis-satisfactory than that was the really lame attempt to create a 'Usual Suspects' type mystery and ending; but it simply pays a huge disservice to the classic.

I could go on, but I'll just warn you all against watching this movie. Especially if you're a die hard SyFy fan. It will only disappoint.

Great fun!

[waitandhope · 7/10 · 24 July 2018]

I wish they'd mention somewhere this is based on 11 A.M. or Yeolhansi the Korean sci-fi film which in my opinion was far superior.

Over-all it's a fun film and I liked the changes they made to the storyline but again the original is fantastic!

Barely tolerable

[scuttlebuttexpressions · 4/10 · 20 May 2016]

I've seen worse. Let's start with the music. Very soap opera reminiscent and a tad too loud. The lighting seemed fine, but the sound was odd. During the scenes where the actors were speaking in a normal volume, it was good. During the scenes where the characters were in a panic (and the actors were way over the top), the sound was somehow...hollow. I can't explain it. It was almost as if they knew the sound quality wasn't great, so they bumped up the volume on the music.

The premise, of course, is always fun. You could spend hours pondering the time travel paradox through your mind to no avail. The screenplay itself wasn't bad. I can only assume that the direction given the actors was to be intentionally over the top. Less is more in film, they know that. These are experienced actors. Was Michael Hurst simply catering to the B film fans?

Then again, Michael Hurst is providing work to actors that need to keep working. He's also likely having fun shooting, making a little money and building his own resume. I love Scifi...quality Scifi. If you enjoyed Ex Machina, Europa Report, Predestination, Snowpiercer, Automata, et cetera, then you will not find this to be worth your time. It could have been quite good had they slowed down and allowed for quality acting to come through. It felt like they rushed through to save money and were quite satisfied with just another B movie. It's a shame.

Great B movie action fun

[ToddGreen · 10/10 · 19 May 2016]

Just caught this on netflix, frigging hilariously awesome, this movie is straight out of the 80s/90s, didn't know they still made these. Great popcorn sci-fy/action flick with a lot of cheesy dialogue, B-movie acting and an interesting storyline. I would say it's something like 'The Cube' meets 'The Usual Suspects', two of my favorite flicks. Also a very fun time travel aspect that brings a lot of twists and turns to the table. Some great over the top bloody violent deaths like the cube too. The 10 rating might be too high obviously but I just want to exaggerate that its a great B-movie flick. I can't believe people are giving this a negative review for being cheesy? Thats like giving Toy Story a bad review for being unrealistic. Anybody who says this movie stinks doesn't understand the B-movie genre. Watching it again soon with a couple brews this time, can't wait!

Good movie

[fluffchop · 7/10 · 26 April 2021]

If you stick with it it gets better the longer it runs. So it's easy to stick with it :) The time stuff don't worry about it, and who can ever work that out anyway. It's an interesting film obviously a lower budget but that doesn't stop a good story. And this has a good story. Well a very passable story. As I said in the tittle I think it's a good movie, not incredible but a lot better than many other movies of this budget. Worth a watch. It's actually a bit of a thriller really. A who done it who is the killer type of thing. In the end you find out everything and it's rewarding.

Awful movie

[sanc_hecatonchiresuk · 1/10 · 21 April 2016]

Slight Spoiler to start but nothing that gives away from the film. Not that its worth watching at all.

So the first 5 minutes you have two cops in a van doing recon and they sit there explaining who the 3 bad guys are. The main problem is the van is about 10 yards from the bad guys the cops are sitting in the front seats and yet the bad guys don't see them.

The van is blocking an entrance for god sake. I hate it when there are false reviews on movies.

I will not go on any further with the rest of the movie i have said enough!.

Profanity ≠ good writing

[Saltamonte · 5/10 · 25 May 2016]

You know, I'm an MST3K fan. I can enjoy a bad movie. I can enjoy campy acting and low-budget special effects. (Plus, I'm on a time-travel kick right now; the bit where an actor jumps to the future, sees a bunch of weird stuff, and jumps back, and you spend the next little while seeing it fall into place is fun. You don't even need SFX to enjoy that.) And I even get a particular kind of joy from watching amateur productions.

But, movie-wrights take note: profanity is not spackle that fixes holes in your writing or in the acting! It does not magically make your characters' lines sound more passionate, urgent or in any other way dramatic. "We're going to f***ing die" does not mean "we're going to die and I'm scared." You either write "we've spent our lives hiding from danger / so many people are counting on us to succeed / we finally have the chance to fall in love / whatever ... and suddenly our time has run out," or you say "we're going to die" with real terror in your voice. "We're going to f***ing die" means "we're going to die, so why shouldn't the viewers have a rotten day, too?" If an actor can't act like his character hates another character, lamely spitting out F-bombs every thirty seconds won't help. It just makes me think either the writer or the director hates me.

If it weren't for the R-rated language, I could invite my wife and maybe even my kids to laugh at this film with me. (It's not like the combined sixty seconds of gore is very realistic.) Instead, I'll have to delete it from my viewing history so the kids don't accidentally click on it anytime soon.

Awful move that could've been great 30 years ago

[seals_jay · 4/10 · 19 May 2016]

Everything that the negative reviews had to say is absolutely true: bad acting, OVER acting, hackneyed dialog, horrendous SF/X and too disjointed to be anything even remotely enjoyable. That said, if this had been made back in the 80's with better dialog and acting, it probably would be considered a cult classic by now. Unfortunately, however, it was made in this day and age and, therefore, places it at the bottom of the barrel.

There are a few continuity problems which jumped out at me, which could have been avoided with tighter writing/directing. For instance, the security guard handed over his gun to Bill just before Bill went through the time machine, but about 5 minutes later we see the security guard take out and holster a gun WHICH HE SHOULD NOT HAVE ANYMORE. This, of course, ends up putting TWO guns into play towards the end of the movie, which served as a sort of plot point in a key scene, but it STILL should NOT have been there.

I wanted to enjoy this movie. I really, really did. Alas, I could not. It wouldn't let me. It's like meeting someone who looks really sexy, but as soon as they open their mouth you find yourself wishing you could be anywhere but there. If I wasn't OCD about finishing a movie once I start it, even a bad one, I probably would've stopped about 20 minutes into this abortion of a sci-fi flick.

It could have been better. It SHOULD have been better. It was cinematic excrement.

How can this exist in 2016? Did this come out of a time machine from the 90's?

[gio_mack · 2/10 · 14 October 2017]

A few weeks ago after having browsed through Netflix sci-fi movies I seen a synopsis with potential and what looked like a picture of Colin Farrell starring in 'Paradox'.

Within the first minute or so of hitting play I realised it was a 'TV movie' type production and turned it off. Tonight I stuck it on in the background and after a few minutes I knew I had watch it through to be able to write an honest review.

The acting was almost like the first try at a play by a bunch of strangers who never knew each other and hadn't acted before. It had a feel of being filmed by a single camera. A top secret basement unknown by all top organisations is being used to house a cutting edge time travel machine. On the walls of this cutting edge facility are a few fluorescent tube lights attached vertically (with wires trailing around), some red beacons and a white board with sums on it. Next to a wall mounted first aid box are some 1970's oscillators on a shelf. There are a couple of machines with flashing lights, I think these might be the ones Ivan Drago's team had in Rocky IV. A desk hosts a flexible desk lamp, some pencils in a tub, a chunky black PC keyboard and a couple of monitors - one showing a pink wave animation and the other showing the view in front of it...

The time travel podium resembles a stand in a music shop with a few wires running up the metal columns. The head of this elite group of time travellers resembles Morpheus with an English accent, and the team are all wearing grey overalls (they may also work at a tyre garage during the day?) Once all of the city power is turned off to fire the music podium lights to life, Colin Farrell travels forward an hour only to find a body on the ground with the head replaced by a puddle of soup. The basement speakers then announce 1970's James Bond style that the self destruct countdown is about to commence (as a handy reminder the lighting turns into strobe lighting). The small corridor in this cutting edge facility basement has a couple of alphabet letters on the wall, an elevator (complete with voice to announce when it isn't working) and a few doors reminiscent of living room doors. I couldn't help but realise how my local gym corridor looks more modern than this.

The guys go into a room with another flexible desk lamp to discuss what to do about this situation, as a swat team enter the building up at ground level. Apparently the elevator is the only link between floors (none of the living room doors have a staircase behind them?...) For some reason one of the grey overalls team is confined to a basic wheelchair, he stays to watch the fuzzy footage brought back on a camcorder by Colin Farrell. At this point we see a sinister person dressing up in a gas mask and creep around like something from 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'. The elite forces up at ground level have called an electrician in by now who has "Heard you got a problem?". After opening a wall box and exclaiming "Shitkegs burnt wires?!" he reassures them that this will take a while.

Meanwhile back in the hospital basement the tyre fitters are opening some 1980's metal lockers, having managed to get past the 4 digit padlocks. Colin Farrell and his girlfriend sit on office desk chairs and type on the chunky PC keyboard, managing to summon up some 1980's style green digits that scroll up the screen (did Morpheus bring a disk from the Matrix?) In the background we see stickers on boxes such as 'Fragile', 'This Side Up', Electrical Material'. Colin gets upset when he finds out that his girlfriend is really a spy who lied to him, as I Know What Gas Mask You Wore Last Summer creeps around in the dark with his green night vision goggles.

Morpheus is going around in circles in another dark room with lots of twinkly lights, before being brought back to the room with a world map on the wall and tied to a pipe by Colin and spy girlfriend. Eventually Morpheus owns up that he is in fact American, pulls out his Matrix mini disc and reveals that Colin Farrell has nose bleed and a headache due to brain damage from travelling through time. Wheelchair guy does some pretend acting and whimpers that there's nothing they can do to change their fate, to which Spy Girlfriend exclaims... "F**k!"

To cut a long story short there ends up being 3 Colin Farrells, I Know What Gas Mask You Wore Last Summer starts talking like Jigsaw and fights with Spy Girlfriend, more self destruct strobes flash, the elite forces / swat team upstairs sit around in silence the entire time doing nothing, the elevator shaft gets engulfed by some cgi fire in the foreground, Spy Girlfriend and Jigsaw climb up the red elevator shaft surrounded by endless yellow cgi petals rising, the swat team realise they can pull the elevator doors open after all and pull the only remaining survivor out of this situation and shine their gun mounted flashlights in her face for no apparent reason. To end the picture we see Spy Girlfriend sitting in the back of the cop car looking like she's just seen the final cut.

Nice to see that there are some excellent reviews for this movie. Lets just hope they weren't written by people sitting in grey overalls.

Not a bad movie

[lwio1960 · 6/10 · 6 January 2019]

The acting was slightly ropey at the start but once the story got going it evened out a bit. The antagonistic behaviour between the scientists very badly over done and didn't add a lot to the story. Nice little time paradox story and worth a watch. If a little bit more money was available for special effects and some scenes reshot with more finesse it could have been quite good.

Not clever

[Schlichte · 5/10 · 24 June 2017]

Right from the start I knew this film wouldn't be great. Clues were the truckloads of unnecessary f-words, and the fact that the "scientists" were nothing of the sort. They were all supposed to be young and brilliant MIT students but they looked and behaved more like the thugs you'd expect to encounter in a back alley at 3 in the morning. Every one of them had a despicable personality, so I didn't particularly care what happened to them. I guessed who was behind the gas mask (why a gas mask? There was no gas) about five minutes in.

And the tropes would have been right at home in an I-Know-What-You- Did-Last-Summer-type movie. The killer looking as mechanical as possible, slashing away without mercy or logic. The girl character getting hot and lowering the top half of her coveralls so that we can all get a good look at her boobs in her white tank top, though the rest of the characters (all male), are perfectly comfortable keeping their tops on. The characters, despite their supposed brilliance, constantly splitting up and turning their backs to doorways, and never thinking, hey maybe the killer is a double of one of us from another time period, which was obvious to me from the get go.

And then, the female character confused me, because she looked over 40 years old, but I got the impression that the guy who was supposed to be her boyfriend was about 28. And her eyes had these giant bags underneath and she constantly looked like she was squinting, which I found irritating. That last bit is superficial, but it really annoyed me.

In short, the movie was more teenage-slasher than time-travel paradox.

Good film for the budget

[dave-70421 · 6/10 · 9 January 2017]

Clearly this is made on a relative small budget for straight to TV\DVD release, which maybe some should consider if scoring based on films with ten to a hundred times the budget with visuals to match.

So I try to review based more on acting and story. The first 15 minutes or so of acting in fairness did seen rather poor but certainly picked up during the film.

Sadly the time machine itself seemed very unrealistic and I was left feeling they could have put far more effort into that than they did with what seemed like nothing more than a bit of stage rigging that you often see in pop-up form in shopping centers etc when they have "celebrity" appearances etc. However I tried to not let that bother me to much and just try to enjoy what was clearly a budget film. Soundtrack was decent enough and certainly helped with the atmosphere for the film quite a lot so top marks on that.

The story itself was certainly above average for these budget films and no real pointless angles or daft endings even if a very slight twist in the end. Sure, if you over analyze the script and scenes you will find plot holes to complain about quite easily. But it's not supposed to be or claiming to be a factually or theoretically correct on the script front. If your willing to just sit and watch the film without over analyzing or judging it to much based on budget it's quite an enjoyable film to fill 90 minutes.

Worst Sci Fi in Ages

[meyoumeyou-22850 · 1/10 · 13 July 2016]

I love sci fi.

Anything with a puzzle or a twist turns my crank. Unfortunately, this disgustingly directed, embarrassingly acted film made me want to kill myself before the obvious actors in the film wanted to do so themselves. The lead actor in this film needs to retire tomorrow. The plot line of this film is great and whoever wrote the story needs some ups as well because even with this horrendous bunch of idiots I kept watching because the story was leading somewhere. It ultimately turned into a piece that could've been amazing with the right cast.

Great story, interesting lead up to a pretty great twist at the end. All of the main actors in this movie were embarrassingly bad though and I'm still mad about how bad they were. If they remake this film with a bunch of people that can act it could probably do well.

Please Hollywood never let any of these people act again.

Brave and entertaining

[steffenwidmaier · 8/10 · 28 May 2016]

Personally, I can't understand all the people who gave 1/10 points. It is obviously a B movie and it wasn't in the cinemas (at least not in Germany), so it has a small audience. I e.g. just watched it on Netflix. What I think is great, is the unconventional and brave story and plot. Few movies dare to have these, these days. Nothing the less, it is exactly what I ask of a movie. I want a movie to bend reality, to create a world of dreams and make me wonder about the big things in life (not intended to sound pathetic). And Paradox did this as far as it showed me things over which I don't think too often. Having all these things in mind, I think Paradox earned the 8 points.

I've seen worse

[darrenbirt · 7/10 · 23 November 2018]

Never going to be a classic, but definitely watchable. Some nice twists and turns and unexpected ending.

Probably the worst

[mikelewis-65451 · 1/10 · 9 May 2016]

After watching the full 90 (or so) minutes of this absolute turkey, I just had to register so that I could comment. It started out bad and grew worse with every passing minute - that's 90 minutes of my life I will never get back! Funny thing is that as I got deeper into it, I was compelled to keep watching just to see how bad it could get and in that respect, it didn't disappoint. (I have just been informed that I need more lines so here goes) The use of profanities (almost every other word was "F") was entirely unnecessary and did nothing to enhance the suspense or the plot and the denouement was entirely predictable. No proper explanation either for the oriental looking guy who donned a Vaderesque outfit but after that was never seen again although I may have fallen asleep at some point. So in summary, I reckon that this is probably the worst film I have ever seen, well apart from Mama Mia but I think that really goes without saying doesn't it?

so bad, it should be called a comedy

[paf3150-535-549509 · 1/10 · 7 May 2016]

When movies are this bad, I wonder how people get paid as "Writers" I think it's people getting really high, and thinking of stupid, and ridiculous dialog. That's where the comedy aspect comes from.I'm watching this in the background as I write this. If you're looking for sci-fi, don't watch this bag of words. "I drank the cool aid" "I love your Cherry cool aid" Regarding the acting, these poor actors didn't have a chance with the dialog, the sets, and the story line. The sets are reminiscent of a high school play. Effects are extremely low budget. I keep hearing lines in the back ground, Oh yea tee shirt on the girl is good.

Break your neck

[kosmasp · 3/10 · 25 January 2017]

It's just a shame, that a movie that could have actually been quite good breaks it's own neck. But I'll get to that in the next paragraph, which is where the spoilers will be too. So you've been warned twice about those, not that I think many will care with a B-movie like this. And that's something you always have to keep in mind. We're not talking De Niro performances or A-List script. Know what you watch, rate considering those facts.

Having said all that, the time travel concept is not an easy one to pull off. But the movie is pretty decent, all the things making sense to some degree (going back and forth in time). But there is also the viewer who can see through it. When we see our guy chasing after a bad guy who goes into the elevator, quite a few will know what's up. Which is being completely distorted and destroyed by an unbelievable ending. An ending that makes no sense and is just there to shock us ... why?