Miserable Matinee

NO THANKS: This afternoon we had free passes to see a new IMAX move, "Voyage of Time." We were excited to go, and Christian even took off a little time from work to come see it (which meant he had to work late tonight). Unfortunately, attending was a poor choice. None of us liked the movie. Eight thumbs way down.

When Annabelle emailed me her review of the film. The subject line read: "Voyage of Time (AKA Oh dear god, why?)"

Here's what she had to say about the film. ... 

Voyage of Time is a “documentary” about the origin of Earth and life on Earth. It starts by showing us a random black screen with white text, addressing us as “My child” and telling the audience that the movie will “immerse” them in a world that includes them. It then shows a random little girl in a blue dress, staring at a flower while Brad Pitt (the narrator for this movie) calls her “my child” as well. The context is very confusing, but before you can think about it you’re launched into a collection of pictures of nebulas and stars. Somehow, with a few explosions and supernovas, we switch to a shot of early earth, floating in space. The sun is nowhere in sight, nor are the other planets, but Brad Pitt continues to explain that suddenly, in a thunderstorm coming out of thin air (quite literally, as the atmosphere hasn’t formed yet), it rains and earth is doused with water.

We see sweeping shots of rivers, craters, and steam. It’s not explained, but instead we get some flashy CGI showing blobs that are apparently bacteria. Then it somehow continues, in the span of less than 30 minutes, to go from the first land animals, to dinosaurs, to giraffes, humans, and then love accompanied by pictures of whales, with random cuts to our original blue-dress girl in-between. It almost seems like a mishmash of poorly written versions of theories, such as showing baboons and chimpanzees, and then cutting directly to early humans, implying that this evolution happened in a split second while our backs were turned.

It could definitely use improvement, and maybe if they hadn’t restricted themselves to a 45-minute run time and randomly pausing to make the dialogue dramatic, they could have told more of a story. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you really, desperately need a quick way to learn the history of earth and are willing to spend most of your time listening to “dramatic” reading and looking at random pictures of stars and a little girl in a blue dress.

CJ's scathing review. 

"This film has been rated G"-The MPAA rating of Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience, displayed at the end of the film.

G ... For Godawful.

A short while back, my mom got tickets for a free preview screening of this promising-looking documentary film. We could see it at the Pacific Science Center's breathtaking Boeing IMAX theater, being extremely large and high-quality. The film we went to see is known as Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience, which, according to the film's page at the PacSci website, a one-of-a-kind celebration of life and the grand history of the cosmos, transporting audiences into a vast yet up-close-and personal journey that spans the eons from the Big Bang to the dinosaur age to our present human world … and beyond.

At least, that's what we were promised.

Voyage of Time opens with a bizarre shot of Flash Gordon serial-style text scrolling down the screen, complete with Brad Pitt's disembodied voice addressing "My Child", who is the unfortunate viewer in this case. Brad Pitt then asks "My Child" to watch his movie, which we can already tell will be a beautiful journey.

Cut to Earth being created while unfitting opera singing plays in the background! After the Earth gets created, we get gratuitous shots of islands made of hardened lava, complete with some Ms. Butterworths lava dripping down the rocks. After Brad Pitt provides some forgettable dialogue, we see bacteria. Bacteria that is there to bore the audience. After Brad Pitt tells us about the bacteria, we jump a few eons into the future and get cuttlefish (this is probably the best part of the movie). After we see some creepy-cute cuttlefish staring at us with the magic of CGI, we see proto-mammals. Uninteresting proto-mammals. Here are some dinos! Not like there were any eons with interesting life between the cuttlefish and these guys, right? Right‽

Suddenly, Brad Pitt lectures us about the beauty of being alive and being able to breathe air. Like this isn't something you do every day. But then we see the meteor that kills the dinos. Bummer.

Then, life finds a way and giraffes appear! Can't forget the baboons, chimps, and a bit later, the primitive humans, right?

We get an extended sequence where the humans start hunting and exploring and all that crap that you can get better info about in other places.

The film ends with this irrelevant shot of a girl sitting down in a parking lot. Though she was introduced at the beginning of the movie, she feels very out of place with all the shots of the prehistoric life.

That's the recap of this dumpster of a documentary. As we hear in the movie, Mr. Pitt got hid diploma in narration from the WilliAM ShaTNEr SchOOl oF NarrAtiOn, where you learn how to stutter and speak oddly. The film provides some shoehorned attempts to make you emotional for the animals, like including an out-of-place sequence where Brad Pitt tells us about love among whales (yes, really. To see a better example of love among whales in cinema, see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) and other speculation presented as fact. If you ever feel the need to watch this, whether it be on the same screen that much better movies like The Avengers or Star Wars: The Force Awakens played on or on Hulu or Netflix, you're only watching for the cuttlefish.

Actually, I think they may have been too kind. I walked out of the theater muttering that was 45 minutes of my life I'd never get back and wondering why I struggled to stay awake during the movie. I should have at least gotten a nap out of the deal. 

Pretentious, and abound with theories presented as fact, I detested the movie. Sure, it was visually appealing in parts, but that didn't make up for the annoyances, by my measure. I sure am glad we didn't pay for the tickets. 

On the way out, we noticed this poster. Now *there's* a movie that we'll most certainly enjoy more.

CALLING CARDS: Annabelle continues to leave little art objects out and about during our travels. Here's a tiny narwhal she left on a window ledge. Hopefully it brought a smile to someone.