FLATLINERS - **/*****

By Porothy Darker

There's a fun and/or interesting movie in here somewhere, but this definitely isn't it. The acting is terrible, the vibe is on par with 90s classics like "Final Destination," or "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and the plot seemingly exists only to set up jump-scares. I don't remember the original, so I can't compare the two, but I can't imagine it missing the mark as drastically as this one did.

The idea of medical students getting a rush from "playing god" with each other is a compelling one, and a movie I'd like to see. Flatliners isn't that. Instead, it's a series of boring cliches. After their initial session, each student starts to have scary visions and they, of course, think that they "awakened something evil." Turns out it's just their conscience (or is it?) getting the best of them for being shitty people. Their misdeeds are, of course, shown via flashbacks, the best of which features Ellen Page's character killing her little sister by texting and driving. It was as heavy-handed a message as I've seen in a non-serious movie in a very long time. Like everything else the movie attempted, it didn't work and there were audible chuckles in the theater.

The movie goes to great lengths to explain that each member of the flatlining club is an elite student - they're part of a House-style diagnostic team at their hospital, and there are flashbacks/mentions of all their work throughout their lives to end up in such an advantageous position. Despite all of this, only one of them is smart enough to A. not kill himself for fun, and B. revive the others when they need it. Seriously. The best medical students in this unnamed "top 10" medical school are incapable of following simple instructions to save a life when the chips are down - not exactly doctor material.

By the way, what happened to Ellen Page? Wasn't she supposed to be something more legitimate as recently as a couple of years ago? Flatliners is much more a vehicle for the third lead on some shitty CW show than it is for an Oscar nominee. I'm don't care enough to actually research it, but it's difficult to comprehend how far she's fallen since "Inception."

If you're into jump-scares and creepy kids, you'll enjoy most of the middle and end of the movie. If you find them annoying and formulaic, you'll be bored quickly. Some of that, I think, is due to the PG-13 rating - nothing they show is all that scary, or anything you haven't seen 100 times before. Flatliners is terrible - not the worst movie I've seen this year (still Detroit), but it will end up in the bottom 10, I'm sure. Two out of five stars.