Synchronic (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Follow Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Distributor: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 102 minutes

Synchronic (Blu-ray) – Movie Review

Site Score
8.1
Good: Original, Exciting, Acting
Bad: You really have to get into it
User Score
9.0
(3 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 9.0/10 (3 votes cast)

When reading the short synopsis for Synchronic, we had a bit of a Tenet feeling, even with the somewhat non-action-based premise. When we started watching the film, however, we were not in for a copy-paste project with an altered flow of time being the movie’s main shtick, but a very interesting and artful project that entertained us quite a bit.

It’s hard to properly explain the plot of Synchronic. We get to follow around two different EMTs, namely Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan). We see them handle different emergency calls and some social engagements in a non-chronological order. We see a lot of dead people being discovered at different locations, all with a wrapper of a designer drug nearby. The drug is called Synchronic, and it soon becomes clear that it’s no ordinary drug. Soon after, we see Steve getting diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. At the same time, Dennis’s daughter goes missing, and she’s also being linked to the drug. When it becomes clear that the drug is able to bend time and space, Steve makes it his mission to experiment with the drug to get her back.

The flow of Synchronic will take some time to get used to. You’ll get presented with a whole lot of different scenes, clearly not in chronological order, making things quite complex as you go. As is explained quite early in the movie, as well as in the movie’s short description, the flow of time is altered by the ‘synchronic’ drug. This will first be a slight annoyance, as you don’t know what the movie is trying to tell you, or when things are actually going to become a bit more coherent. Soon though, you’ll find yourself enthralled by the events unfolding and are actually quite intrigued as to how every little detail comes to life.

Even though you’ll see a few different faces throughout the film, the main performances are handled by two different people. We have Jamie Dornan play an EMT that is happily married, albeit with the necessary struggles that come with it. He has never truly realized what he has in his life until his daughter goes missing. While there is not too much depth to his character, he puts down a convincing performance. The main cast member of this film is Anthony Mackie, who is now starring in his own Disney+ series as Falcon. In Synchronic he’ll be playing an EMT that has been diagnosed with a serious form of cancer. While he is unsure as to how he wants to live (the rest of) his life, he is determined to go out in a blaze of glory, by saving Dennis’s daughter. He puts down a very impressive hero performance in this film, albeit without actual superpowers or the military backing him up.

The Blu-ray version of Synchronic only comes with about ten minutes of extra content. We get to see how the creators handled the lack of using traditional storyboards, as well as how certain effects were handled in the movie. We also get a small funny alternative ending, that was added as a joke. While the latter may have only had a 30 seconds duration, we were quite amused having such a special feature on the physical version. We do believe that a lot more content could have been added, but we have seen a decline in special features on nearly every physical format since the start of the pandemic.

Conclusion

Synchronic may start off slow, when it gets going it is an impressive piece of cinema. It’s one of those movies you need to get past the threshold to truly appreciate the intricate details and the interesting storyline. While we mention Tenet in the intro, people who love such constructions will certainly appreciate Synchronic as well. We were quite impressed with this original story.

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Rating: 9.0/10 (3 votes cast)
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Rating: -1 (from 1 vote)
Synchronic (Blu-ray) - Movie Review, 9.0 out of 10 based on 3 ratings
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

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