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Synchronic Movie Review

Synchronic is a 2020 science fiction film directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead and starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan. It’s intriguing, but frustrating.

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“The past sucks, man“

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Two New Orleans paramedics’ lives are ripped apart after they encounter a series of horrific deaths linked to a designer drug with bizarre, otherworldly effects. This is such an interesting premise that the weak execution really bothered me. I haven’t yet seen other movies from these two directors, but apparently this is their weakest effort so far and they are known for original, trippy SF stories that really connect to the indie crowd.

And there are traces of that here too as the story is highly original and there are some very intriguing moments to be had, especially in the second half. I particularly loved the emphasis on the importance of respecting the present and realizing that the past was much worse to many people, especially minorities. That was an interesting departure from other time travel stories that romanticize the past. This one was level-headed and real in its assessment of the past.

Unfortunately, all of these great moments were wasted on such an uninspired first half that was overly mysterious, way too uneventful and just plain dull. The second half was more interesting, but way too eventful, so the result is this chaotic picture that felt dragging and rushed at the same time, which really frustrated me as a viewer. It’s arty, but also rather cheap in technical areas, and although it could be quite clever in some scenes, it could also be quite pretentious in other sections.

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The worst offender is the characterization. I do realize that both of these actors have their fans, but I personally am not one of them. James Dornan is too one-note for me and Anthony Mackie is quite boring himself. They were never great before and they aren’t in Synchronic either. Their characters are particularly dull and their dynamic wasn’t all that great. For a high-concept movie such as this, the story matters the most, but it’s messy in pacing, technically inferior and rather untidy throughout with only some interesting audio-visual and dialogue glimpses here and there.

Synchronic is a wildly original SF movie with a different spin on the regular time travel movie. The film truthfully posits that the present is the best period and all of the past periods were infinitely worse. I loved that about this movie, but everything else was very problematic. The execution was so troublesome throughout. The pacing is entirely off in both halves, the characterization is poor and although it is somewhat artistic, the movie also felt cheap technically speaking. This high-concept premise deserved much better execution.

My Rating – 3