Flatliners (2017) Review

"It's a great day to die."

-Jamie

In this remake, a group of five medical students experiment with the afterlife.  In turn, they each stop their heart for a couple of minutes before being brought back.  The experience expands their minds, but awakens something else...something dangerous.

What Works:

This remake has a very similar story to the original film.  Not much has changed.  The story as a whole is perfectly acceptable.  It's nothing new or different, but it's interesting enough.

The score is very good, especially during the sequences where the students go under.  It feels very ethereal and adds a lot to these sequences.

I was pretty shocked that Ellen Page's character was killed off about halfway through the movie.  I thought she was going to be the main character and none of the group died in the original film.  It threw me for a loop and added a sense of danger to the film.  If Page could be killed off, no one is safe.

What Sucks:

The flipside to the shocking death is that the movie doesn't really have a main protagonist.  It's pretty equally focused on all of the characters.  If they had picked one of the characters to be the main character and gave us a reason to care about them, it would have made for a stronger narrative.

There aren't a ton of scares in the movie, but they're all pretty generic.  A couple of jump scares, a couple of attempts to be creepy.  None of them are very effective.

The biggest problem with this movie is it's too similar to the original.  Why remake the movie if you're going to be this faithful?  Apart from Ellen Page's death, it's pretty much the same movie.  Just watch the original.

Verdict:

The remake of Flatliners is competent enough and I wouldn't say it's a bad movie.  The score is great and they have one very surprising death, but the lack of a main protagonist and the similarities to the original prevent me from recommending this movie.  It's fine, but unmemorable and you should just watch the original.

 5/10: Meh