The Minority Report - "Primer" (2004)

“What I'm saying is, we drop the box down on it, okay, focus our own magnetic field to negate and knock out the inverse—what's going on inside the ceramic—and that should change the transition temperature to something we can work with.”
What happens when a mathematician/engineer decides to write a screenplay? You get this movie. Primer is what I am calling, as a warning (to those of you who like fully understanding movies and not having to cycle through things said 10 times before you only slightly understand them), an intellectual’s movie. I had to watch it twice before I fully understood the plotline. I still don’t fully comprehend the math and engineering, though. This movie is a shock to the dying heart of the sci-fi genre as more and more ideas get recycled. I can’t describe this movie as a simple sci-fi movie, nor can I call it a simple time travel movie. I wish to describe it, rather, as a journey into the full extent of human ignorance and innocence in the face of omnipotence. It is truly an intertwined story of self discovery as well as a psychological masterpiece.

The story begins with a voiceover that guides most of the movie along. Four different friends—Aaron (Shane Carruth), Abe (David Sullivan), Robert (Casey Gooden), and Phillip (Anand Upadhyaya)—all working different jobs, occasionally meet up in a garage to make a pet project that is supposed to counter the effects of gravity. One day, Aaron and Abe decide to go ahead themselves with the project and leave the others in the dark. This is when things get freaky. Abe one day discovers that when he leaves a watch inside the machine when it’s on, the watch will show a 1300-fold increase in time. Also, when Abe finds a protein coating the inside of the machine and realizes that the amount can only be produced over a number of years, not minutes, by certain fungi, he ascertains that the machine must be allowing the objects inside to travel through time. What ensues is the creation of a machine where they can enter and travel through time themselves, causing a chain of events that tests both of their resolves and holds many philosophical and personal implications.

Not recommended for movie nights, this movie should be one to watch when you are in an intellectual splurge. Get a couple of your smartest friends, watch it, and then have your brains fried for a couple of days. From its low budget, to its amazingly complex and technical dialogue, this movie is definitely tailor made for a small viewer audience. It has the honesty of an indie film, and yet the ability to stand up to most big-budget films. The way it is filmed is beautiful in a way that makes you want to contemplate every frame and enjoy every second, however fleeting it may be. This movie is like watching paint dry, but being able to turn back the clock, so if you want, the paint can be fresh again every time you go back.

By Kulguy