Flatliners Review – Spoiler Free
Flatliners is a science fiction/horror film which comes directed by Niels Arden Oplev and stars Ellen Page, Nina Dobrev, Diego Luna, James Norton, Kiersey Clemons and Kiefer Sutherland.
Flatliners is about a group of medical students who decide to research what happens after someone dies. They start by stopping their hearts for a few minutes and then observing what happens to their brains with advanced medical equipment. But after travelling to the afterlife, they don’t come back quite the same. What might happen to them all?
I think as films go, this one certainly does have an interesting plot. I don’t see really any afterlife exploration films out there and the mixture of sci-fi and horror certainly is interesting. To tell the story the film’s director, Niels Arden Oplev does choose to have a dark tone for Flatliners and we see things get increasingly darker as the run time progresses.
While most of the first half of the film is very interesting, it is however the second half where I think it kind of falls away. There’s a lot of jump scares, which aren’t bad actually, but the horror section does drag on for maybe too long. Additionally while films tend to have a subtle message or meaning to their story, I felt that this one made it just way too clear to point where it was a little bothersome. When you have 4 characters all going under and all experiencing I guess the same plot, it’s a bit repetitive and the horror sections dont seem to help with it.
This film stars both Ellen Page and Nina Dobrev and if you’re a fan of either of these two, then it’s enough of a reason to go and see this. It’s been some time since I’ve seen Ellen Page in anything at all and I remember her most recently for her work with Beyond: Two Souls, but that was a videogame. In this Ellen Page does good work, but it was Nina Dobrev who I found to be more entertaining to watch. The rest of the cast unfortunately just aren’t too memorable at all and are easily forgotten, with Kiefer Sutherland only making small appearances.
There aren’t too many special effects in this film, but where there were some it was more than enough to get the job done. Flatliners is mostly a hospital based story about doctors in training and they solve medical cases. It’s I guess like if House (2004) was a science fiction show. The horror elements are good in terms of things like jump scares, although I wasn’t expecting a horror film at all going in so got surprised easily by it.
Overall this is a nice film to watch with a very interesting plot. But while it is great in the beginning it does become a little lost in the horror side of the second half where the story and tone gets stuck completely and becomes a little repetitive. While that side isn’t bad, the main message and theme was a little to obvious and for me it wasn’t that great. Nina Dobrev and Ellen Page were both a joy to watch and I would go see the film to watch either of them no matter what anyone tells me in a review, unfortunately the rest of the cast aren’t the best. This is one of those films that you watch once maybe at the cinema, renting it or on Netflix and it doesn’t really disappoint you at all and actually you might think it was pretty good. But for some reason, it’s kind of forgettable and in a few months you might forget you even watched it. If you’re interested in this, Flatliners certainly won’t disappoint you and it could be a good time this week at the cinema.
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