2017 / 109m - USA
Mystery, Thriller
2.5*/5.0*
Flatliners poster

Watches

October 19, 2020

2.5*/5.0*

A mediocre and somewhat disappointing remake. I'm quite fond of Schumacher's original, a film with lots of visual flair and a couple of memorable scenes. Director Oplev does his best to recreate that mysterious atmosphere, but falls shorts and gets stuck in the cheesier bits of the story.

A talented medicine student is obsessed by the afterlife. So much in fact that she drums up some of her fellow students and plans an illegal experiment. She induces death on herself and tells the others to revive her after a set amount of time. Meanwhile, a scanner is monitoring everything that's going on inside her brain, in the hope of mapping out what happens after a person dies.

The Flatliners remake has trouble finding the right tone. It constantly alternates between drama, mystery and thriller, but fails to find a solid middle ground. Some scenes are nice, but they're often directly followed by scenes that don't land and come off a little cheap. Performances are decent but noting special, so is the pacing. Not bad, but I prefer the original by a large margin.