Movie Review: Promonition

NOTE: This has movie spoilers in it. You have been warned.

This movie was an interesting take on the old topic of time travel and can you change history if you know what is going to happen.

Starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon starts off in a very confusing manner but the viewer quickly catches onto what is going on, faster than Linda Hanson, Bullock's character.

The essence of the movie is that while everyone else is living in a straight time line as normal, Linda is living her days out of order. The movie revolves around a 1 week period of time Sunday through Saturday. With the exception of 30 seconds at the very beginning and very end of the movie.

The movie begins on Thursday and is the day after her husband is killed in an auto accident. Her kids sad and her mom comes and helps her through things.

She then jumps to Monday when her husband is alive, everyone is happy and she thinks it was just a bad dream.

The next morning she wakes up and it is Saturday. Everyone is in black for the funeral and we discover that her daughter has scars all over her face. Linda has no idea how this happens. There is a senseless scene at the funeral when some idiots drop the coffin and the husbands head comes out. She also confronts "the mistress" at the funeral who claims to have talked to her before, she had never met her before.
Satuday ends with her being hauled away to be committed because of what she did to her daughter.

She next wakes up and it is Tuesday. She is still a bit confused but starting to figure things out. She goes to his work and meets "the mistress" for the first time. She makes him promise her to wake her before he goes to work Wednesday. The day he is supposed to die. Also this day her daughter runs through the glass door and cuts her face all up. They go to the Emergency room.

Next it jumps to Friday. She goes and confronts the mistress and finds out they had planned on fooling around but had not actually done it yet. They were supposed to meet Wednesday. So I'm thinking ok, he was on his way to meet her when he was killed. If you can convince him to not do this, he lives. She meets with a priest and he tells her there is always hope. (Can't remember this may have happened Sunday.)

She then jumps to Sunday, when she gets the husband to play with the daughters. She then eventually seduces him and they make love.

She wakes up on Wednesday and her husband is already gone, even though he had promised her to wake her. She hops in her car, drives by the school to make sure the girls are there and then goes after him. But instead of preventing the accident, she actually ends up causing it and he is killed.

Movie ends with her pregnant and moving out of the house.
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This movie started off with some real great ideas but the writer made just some huge goofs that I have a really hard time coming to grips with. If you write a movie like this, it has got to be tight. No errors, no mistakes. This movie had plenty.

We should assume first of all that basically nothing she does actually changes anything. Everything happens because of the way she performs on each day, and for everyone else it all lines up.

There were probably more, but here were the mistakes I caught:
1. She wakes up Thursday morning and knows that her husband was on a business trip. But this should have been Sunday morning. She should have been confused out of her mind wondering what the hell happened to the first 4 days of her week that she had no recollection of.

2. There are no scars on her daughters face at all Thursday, even though she went through the glass door on Tuesday. But they were there Saturday, even though Linda had not lived that day yet.

3. If she was not there to cause the accident Wednesday, there is no way there was an accident that day. She had him stop, at the mp marker location and turn around right into an oncoming truck. If she had not been there he is easily a mile further down before he passes the truck and there would have been no death for her to stop.

4. The cop came Thursday to tell her he was dead even though the accident was early in the morning. While his body would have been difficult to id, the car and license plate would have been fairly easy. And they would have at least called her Wednesday to let her know her car was in an accident.

5. Since she was at the accident Wednesday, and was a witness to the accident, how come she wasn't on the police report? Did she quickly leave the scene? Be in shock and forget the whole thing? I have a hard time believing this.

6. Had the accident occurred without her around on Wednesday, she didn't talk to him at all, even though there was a major accident on the road leading to town from their house? But the phone call and her calling him was on the machine Thursday. So it tends to lend itself that she was there.

7. So after she sees the accident, avoids giving a statement to the police, she goes and picks up her daughters from school and doesn't bother to tell them anything???
Because Thursday morning they know nothing of the accident.

8. Her daughter ran though the door on Tuesday and they decide to commit her on Saturday?? And they started doubting what really happened to the daughter, even though there was absolutely no proof or suggestion that anything different happened??

These were just a few of the problems I saw off the top of my head, I'm sure there were more. The worst yet was the alternate ending which had someone in the shower at the end, but didn't show who it was. This was several months after the funeral as she is now very pregnant. Did she forget he was alive, because her face looked like she had no idea who could be in the shower? It never showed who was in there, but you are left with the impression it was the husband. Totally bad idea.

Prefer the other ending.

But at the final accident scene, all she has to do is say, he lets drive slowly to the next mile marker. Instead on a blind hill, she tells him to turn around??? This made no sense at all. NONE!!

I hate it when a great movie idea is ruined. This was a great concept movie that flopped because the writer is an idiot. Everyone in the movie is convinced she is going through this weird loop, so she can change what happens. Oh, but lets make it unpredictable and make her be the one who causes it. You walk away pissed off at the writer and director, because the husband had decided not to have the affair. That he was ready to start working on their marriage to make it work. Then bam.

Personally, I prefer it when the good guys win in my movies. This was a huge letdown. I could have been alright with all the 'mistakes' had they just had a good ending. But not this crap.

Thumbs down for me on this one.

Until next time...