The Cyclotron (Le Cyclotron)

Class dismissed.

(2016) Thriller (108 Media) Mark Antony Krupa, Lucille Fluet, Paul Ahmarani, Olivier Barrette, Manuel Sinor, Benoit Mauffette. Directed by Olivier Asselin

 

Although it may be hard to believe now, the Allies came within a hairs’ breadth of losing the Second World War. The Nazis were well on their way to developing their own atomic weapon; the Allies were able to defeat them before they could complete their work but what if we hadn’t?

A train hurtles into the night, headed for Switzerland from Germany. Emil Scherer (Krupa), a top German physicist is aboard it. He is AWOL from his work at the German version of the Manhattan Project and a fellow scientist named Helmut König (Ahmarani) has been dispatched to fetch him, find out whether he has taken any atomic secrets with him and whether he intends to defect.

Also on his trail is Simone Ziegler (Fluet), a French-German scientist who once worked alongside Scherer and was also romantically involved with him. She works now with the resistance and has been sent to find Scherer and if necessary, eliminate him. Since she finds him first, she talks to him and discovers that he has already discovered a way to make a bomb – one that fits in a wristwatch. Worse still, he has already constructed one and is wearing it. He hopes to hand it over to the Allies but with the German sniffing at their heels and the train still far from the Swiss border, getting out alive may not be an option. It will take an act of desperation which will lead to the war’s outcome balancing on the tip of the tail of a cat belonging to a fellow named Schrödinger.

Sometimes I have a problem with Hollywood films with bloated budgets that are too dazzling; this is the reverse. This is a movie that I wish could be remade with a much more ambitious budget. This is as well-written a script as you’re likely to see onscreen this year. Asselin, who co-wrote the script with Fluet, gives the main characters plenty of depth and keeps the tension high throughout. The game of cat and mouse between spies and Nazis is delicately played unlike the usual sledgehammers we get when less skillful hands try to do a movie in the film noir style.

There is plenty of atmosphere in the film and plenty of different styles to enrich it including some German Expressionism which I found delightful. It really helps establish the era as well as the mood. Fluet and Asselin don’t clutter up the film too much with technical jargon, although there are some explorations of quantum mechanics as well as Schrödinger’s Cat which is a theory which, to put in an extremely simplistic manner, posits that a cat is put in a box without air holes and left there for a certain period of time. There’s no way of knowing whether the cat is alive or dead until one opens the box; until that is done the cat is both alive and dead within the box. It’s fairly heady stuff but it makes more sense when you see it used within the film and I have to admit, I’ve never seen it used as well cinematically.

The black and white also helps the tone of the film, but that may not necessarily be why the filmmakers used it – there are several scenes that are shot in color in what seems like random bursts although that’s probably not the case. No, I suspect black and white was used to hide the fact that since the bulk of the action takes place aboard a train and they didn’t have access to one, they inserted shots of digital trains hurtling down a variety of train tracks. The CGI is absolutely shoddy and unacceptable; every time you see the train onscreen you’re taken out of the spell of the film that the director and cast has worked so hard to build. The score is also somewhat overbearing and sounds like it was cobbled together from a bunch of better noir films.

There is some real promise here. The actors do solid jobs and Fluet and Krupa even manage to generate some romantic heat between their characters. The movie fails more on the technical end rather than on the creative one. I would like to see this remade with actual trains rather than digital ones and a little bit more of an effects budget, particularly for the movie’s end. In any case while the execution was a victim of its ambition and lack of cash, this is nonetheless worth checking out if you’re willing to overlook the flaws here.

REASONS TO GO: Asselin does a marvelous job of keeping the tension high. Schrödinger’s Cat may be used to better advantage here than by any other movie in history.
REASONS TO STAY: The computer graphics are amateurish and distracting. The score is overwrought and distracting.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a scene with some gore early on, some sensuality and a few disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie debuted at the 2016 Whistler Film Festival in British Columbia where it won Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/31/17: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Night Train
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Elian

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Coherence

On the outside looking in.

(2014) Science Fiction (Oscilloscope Laboratories) Emily Foxler, Nicholas Brendon, Maury Sterling, Elizabeth Gracen, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher, Hugo Armstrong, Lorene Scafaria. Directed by James Ward Byrkit

Some movies are better the less you know about them beforehand and this is one of them. If you’re planning to see this anytime soon, read no further. If you have seen it and want a different opinion to bounce off of, read on.

On the night a comet is due to pass close by the Earth, Lee (Scafaria) and Mike (Brendon) are throwing a dinner party. Attending are married couple Hugh (Armstrong) and Beth (Gracen), dating couple Em (Foxler) and Kevin (Sterling) and newly dating Amir (Manugian) and Laurie (Maher) who is Kevin’s slutty ex.

The comet’s proximity messes up cell service and actually causes some of the phones to crack their screens spontaneously – why? Someone with a better grasp of physics might explain this one because I can’t. Anyway, soon the power is disrupted and the partiers begin to grow concerned. There is only one house in the neighborhood with lights on and Hugh and Amir volunteer to venture forth and see if  they can use the land line to contact Hugh’s brother, a scientist who specializes in…um, comet phenomena.

Anyway that’s when things begin to get weird. I don’t want to go into it too much because frankly I don’t think I have the brain capacity to explain this properly without  A), messing up the synopsis and B), having my brain explode. Suffice to say that we’re talking some theoretical quantum physics here that the writers seem to have a better grasp of than I ever could.

So what’s to love? Plenty. This is a smart concept, utilizing Schrodinger’s Cat and quantum physics in ways I’ve never seen done in a movie before that didn’t have “Property of Cal Tech” stamped on the disc cover. The writers do manage to explain things fairly clearly so even those of us who didn’t take quantum mechanics back in the day should be able to follow along pretty easily. Clearly the writers have at least a familiarity with the science and that’s kind of refreshing in an era when “dumb (and dumber) is better.”

The acting is pretty sharp with Buffy, the Vampire Slayer‘s Brendon showing some pretty nice chops in a most un-Xander-like role. Foxler, the female lead, reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Olsen and has the potential to become a big star somewhere down the line.

This isn’t a big budget production by any stretch of the imagination. Nearly all the action takes place in a single room and when they do go outside to view the comet it looks realistic enough. This is an example of how you can make a good science fiction film without a big Hollywood budget.

What’s not to love? Well, these are some of the most shallow characters you’re ever going to run into in a film. A friend of mine claims that grounds the film but if I wouldn’t want to spend a moment with any of these characters if they were real, why would I want to spend an hour and a half of my time watching a movie about them? They represent all the things the rest of the country hates about L.A. with wanna-be actors and ballerinas mixing with herbal Earth mamas and talking about Feng Shui and juice cleanses. It’s enough to make you crave an enema after the movie’s over.

I also wasn’t fond of the jump cutting and blackouts that make the film feel choppy. I get that the director is trying to make the viewer feel that something is out of kilter, but it gets old after only a few times it happens and he does it throughout the movie. There’s nothing wrong with trying to do things differently but this was something he should have utilized a little more sparingly. Trust your actor and your story to set the mood.

I wasn’t a big fan of the ending either but to go into it in any length would be to give away too much. Let’s just say that Em doesn’t seem the type to do what she does and I don’t think having a comet pass hundreds of miles away from the Earth is liable to make people behave the way they do here. Nor do I think it would cause an event of this dimension and scope. If you’re going to use physics, at least have the decency to use real world physics consistently. Neil deGrasse Tyson would have a field day with this.

 

It’s definitely fascinating and hopefully if you’ve read this far you’ve already checked it out. I would recommend it to anyone seeking smart science fiction with the caveat that the characters might just drive you to ask for a Joss Whedon rewrite.

REASONS TO GO: Fascinating and smart concept. Taut and paranoia-infused.
REASONS TO STAY: Often confusing. Characters so shallow you want to scream.
FAMILY VALUES:  There’s a smattering of foul language and a scene of violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Elizabeth Gracen won the 1982 Miss America title. Lorene Scafaria directed the apocalyptic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/3/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 84% positive reviews. Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Plus One
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Weather Girl