Repeat, movie (2021)
image © Body in the Box
The Repeat (2021) is a sci-fi mystery film. The movie was reviewed by Kadmon.
Product: Repeat, movie (2021)
Original title: Repeat
Series: -
Setting: alternate / fantasy Earth
Product type: Film, Genre: science fiction mystery, Features: science fiction, mystery, ghosts, time travel, Style: ?
Release: Premiere: 2021.10.21 (Sci-Fi-London), Release: 2021.11.15
Reviewer: Kadmon, Type: Male, 40s, Preferences: Immersive, logical story, consistent setting, prefers surprises to spoilers, prefers establishing elements before referencing them
Watched: very recent (2021.12), first time
Rating: Weak (2- out of 3 points), Enjoyment: Average (2 out of 3 points)
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This is my review of Repeat, a sci-fi mystery movie from 2021. It's about a scientist experimenting with a machine, with strange results. The Repeat film has an interesting concept hidden in a weak movie, so I only recommend it to dedicated fans of the genre.
If you'd like to be surprised by the Repeat film, I don't recommend you to watch the trailer beyond 0:35, because it starts to give away parts of the plot. It basically provides a summary of the film, almost up to the ending scene.
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Review (spoiler-free) - Repeat, movie (2021)
I didn’t know anything about the movie when I’ve found it. The tagline probably sounded interesting, I’m not even sure why I chose this one. I didn’t watch the trailer.
The Repeat movie is about a scientist experimenting with a machine, with strange results. The more he improves the machine, the stranger things get.
The concept and plot of the story is great. The screenplay and the actual execution of the movie is not. The pacing is consistently slow. There are no character arcs. I didn’t find logical problems with the plot, only with the dramatisation. There are no introductions to the characters. Some parts of the story are so unclear that I had to rewatch them, to be able to understand what was happening, so I could write a proper review. However, if I weren’t writing this, I wouldn’t have watched those again, so I would have only thought that this is a confusing movie.
The cinematography is okay, the movie is watchable.
We don’t really get to know characters, we don’t even get introduction to many. The actors are okay, although the supporting cast was not especially convincing.
The music (by Thomas George) is okay, it’s mostly ambient, but not memorable.
Repeat has an interesting sci-fi mystery plot, that I think dedicated fans of the genre might enjoy.
My experience
I wasn’t satisfied with Repeat (2021), but I liked the basic concept of it.
Rating: Weak (2- out of 3 points). Repeat was made with good intentions, but it’s not made well.
Enjoyment: Average (2 out of 3 points). Repeat has an interesting plot, that I liked, despite the shortcomings of the movie.
Rewatchability: Low. It's the surprise of the story that makes you feel interested, and once it’s over, I don’t think anyone would want to watch this again.
Chance of watching it again: No.
Chance of watching a sequel: I'd probably watch it.
Repeat, movie (2021)
image © Body in the Box
Will you enjoy this?
If you like mystery movies, you might like Repeat.
If you like scientific research stories (Primer), you might like Repeat.
If you can get through the first half hour of the movie still interested, it will be something similar for the rest of the movie.
If you enjoyed Primer, you might be interested in this story.
If you like twists, you might enjoy the Repeat movie.
If you prefer visuals over story, this movie is not for you.
Watching for plot points
If you are interested in sci-fi mysteries or time travel stories, I think it's worth watching the Repeat movie for the plot points.
Should you watch this on your own screen at home, or is it worth going to the cinema?
The visuals probably look better if you watch it on a TV screen. Or a tablet.
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Repeat, movie (2021)
image © Body in the Box
Review with spoilers - Repeat, movie (2021)
I liked the Repeat movie, although it’s far from perfect.
Cover
The cover of the movie is okay, it doesn't say much, but it doesn't spoil the movie.
The trailer
The trailer is basically a substitute for watching most of the movie.
If you prefer spoilers, it's a great trailer for the Repeat film. If you prefer to avoid spoilers, it will ruin the movie for you.
Promise of the first scene
A university teacher takes a girl to a – probably illegal – experiment. I assume the girl will play a bigger role, they probably get together, or something like that. I also assume that the experiment will go wrong, with disastrous effects, otherwise, there wouldn’t be a movie.
Execution: I was wrong about the girl, I’m still not sure why was she there. However, the disastrous experiment was spot on, so that parts was successfully foreshadowed by the creators.
Plot summary / Synopsis
A university professor (Tom England as Ryan Moore) takes one of his student girls to an experiment. They try to use a machine to send a message to the brain of the student, and read the answer from there. Something goes wrong. The student leaves. They find some strange signal.
18 months later: The professor makes an experiment with an audience. He talks about communicating with a signal, and that dying is not the end. They manage to communicate with the deceased father of a volunteer. When they ask the ghost where he is, he seems to be so confused, that they shut the machine down.
Next day, a woman approaches the professor asking him to let her talk to his deceased husband. They are able to. When the woman tells her that she misses him, the ghosts seems to be confused, he doesn’t understand why would she miss him.
The professor’s wife (Charlotte Ritchie as Emily Moore) says that she’d prefer if the professor would find balance between his work and his family. We see that the professor puts missing posters out for a girl (Ellia-Jean Wood as Samantha Moore), his missing daughter. The professor’s wife gets asked out for a date by a colleague of hers (Steve). The professor tries to contact the missing girl through the machine, unsuccessfully. The professor and his wife go on a therapy. The professor steals some dangerous liquids from the university.
The professor holds another experimental session with an audience. He allows a volunteer woman to contact her deceased son.
Some time ago: We see a scene with the missing girl.
The professor visits the police, trying to get more information about his missing daughter.
A colleague visits the professor, and they contact the ghost of his father. The colleague makes a quick call to his mother, as he thought that his father was still alive, but he’s told that the father fell ill, and passed away. This seems to convince him that the machine works.
The professor visits his daughter’s school, trying to get more information about his missing daughter. He meets the teacher who was on duty that day, and he says that the daughter was picked up by a man, he thought was her father.
The mother tries to use the machine with her DNA, but she gets interrupted, so she leaves. The professor uses the DNA of the mother, and he is able to contact the missing daughter. Thinking this means that the daughter is dead, this gets him into a bad mood.
Some time ago: We see a time when the daughter was ill. It was like she had a fever, but her temperature was fine.
He talks with his colleague, who tells him that he knows that the professor stole his card and used it to steal the dangerous liquid. They bid farewell on unfriendly terms. While he is at the university, the professor steals a large container of that liquid. The professor shows symptoms of poisoning.
Some time ago: We see the professor’s daughter falling asleep at the school, uttering the sentences she used when the professor was using the machine to talk to the girl. We also see that she is talking to a man in a hoodie (later revealed to be her father).
The professor wants to tell his wife that he was able to talk to their daughter, but the wife changes subject, she doesn’t want to hear about that.
The professor makes improvements to the software, and he is able to see his daughter on the screen.
The professor visits the classmate of his daughter, to get more information about her last day. She tells him that she saw him with a man in a hoodie.
The professor makes improvements to the hardware, and he is able to transport his daughter to the machine. She asks for her mother. They wait for her.
The mother has gone on a date with her colleague. It turns out that the daughter was his, as he had a relationship with the mother.
The father and daughter fell asleep waiting, and when the father wakes up, the girl is dead. The father decides to get into the over-powered machine, and he gets transported to his shed, at the day his daughter went missing. He hears her muttering the sentences she said when she was contacted. The daughter leaves for school. The professor is seriously ill, probably due to the poisoning and the time jump, and falls unconscious. He wakes up by the time his daughter is leaving school, so he takes her from school, wearing a hoodie. On the way home, she suddenly disappears.
The wife got back home to find their dead daughter. The wife uses the machine to transport the professor back. He tells her that he realised that he was speaking to sleeping people, in the past. He also thinks that while speaking to his daughter, some of the poison must have been seeping through the connection, that’s what killed her. All those people who he was speaking to in the past suddenly died, and it’s probably because of him killing them with the machine, that’s why it seemed to be working on dead people.
The professor decides to contact himself through the machine (so he won’t get poisoned), right in the beginning, so he won’t make his mistakes. The message he tries to send makes the strange signal that started the whole thing.
The setting
Repeat is set on a contemporary alternate Earth, or a fantasy Earth.
In this world, it’s possible to contact the dreams of people in the past, or to travel in time.
Repeat, movie (2021)
image © Body in the Box
The machine
The machine is able to connect to a signal in the past. It’s not entirely clear how does it choose how long in the past it goes, but the professor seems to be able to target specific points in time. The signal is stronger when a person is sleeping.
The machine needs DNA from a person to filter the messages intended for them. At first, it had to be touched, later a DNA sample was taken. To connect to dead people, sometimes the DNA of the deceased is required.
First, there’s a limited time for the contact (3 minutes?). Later, the machine is able to transport a person.
First they had to type what they wanted to tell to the ghost on the other side, but then it worked with a microphone.
A dangerous liquid powers the machine. It poisons people who use the machine, and also those who get contacted by the machine.
What really happened?
Steve and Emily had a relationship, that resulted in the birth of Samantha.
By the time Emily got pregnant, she was in relationship with Ryan. The whole thing might have happened while she was married to Ryan. Ryan thought that Samantha is his daughter.
Samantha started to get visions, sent by his father from the future. She also got poisoned by the connection.
Samantha was also visited by his father, Steve, wearing a grey hoodie.
Future Ryan got into the past, and tried to take Samantha home from school, but she disappeared, as she was transported into the future. Future Ryan was also transported to the future by Future Emily.
Ryan and Emily tried to find their missing daughter.
Ryan got a strange signal (sent by Future Ryan) during one of his experiments, making him start to work on the machine. Ryan might even got the message sent by Future Ryan, it’s not clear.
Ryan even tried to contact Samantha with his machine, that he thought was talking to dead people, but it didn’t work with his DNA. However, it worked with Emily’s DNA, and Ryan started to send visions to Past Samantha.
Ryan was able to transport Past Samantha to the present, but she soon died due to the poisoning.
Ryan transported himself into the past. Emily transported Ryan back into the present.
Ryan sent a message to his past self, creating the strange signal that made him start the work on the machine.
The message of the story
I'm not sure there's one. “Don’t mess up your work”, maybe? Or “If you mess up your work, maybe some time travel will help you out”?
The structure of the story
The scenes of the Repeat film are mostly played in sequence, following the same storyline. There are some scenes that take place in the past, showing the last days of the missing daughter.
There is no single viewpoint character.
It has the usual arc of the dramatic structure - introduction, action, resolution.
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Things I liked
- I liked the whole plot, with the dream-speaking, time travel, love triangle.
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How does it compare to the other works of the creators?
This is the first film I've seen from the writer / director (Richard Miller), the concept writer (Laura Stringer), or the other director (Grant Archer), but now I’m interested in their works.
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Repeat, movie (2021)
image © Body in the Box
Analysis of the story - Repeat, movie (2021)
I mostly liked the story, I didn't find major problems that would have prevented me from enjoying Repeat.
Problematic elements
Lack of introductions: One of the main problem of the movie is that it tends to skip introductions, even for the main characters. That causes problems, as we don’t know how to relate to these characters, are they important to the story, and to our main protagonist.
The professor: Even the main protagonist, the professor is just shown in a regular situation, and the creators didn’t even try to introduce the fact that he has a wife and a daughter, that’s pretty important in regard of the plot.
The wife: When the wife appears, I assumed that the woman with the professor is his wife. Then, when she was asked for a date, I assumed she’s his sister. Then, at the therapy session, I felt that she is the wife. Later, it turns out that she is actually his wife. It should have been made clearer a lot earlier. For example, right at the beginning.
The missing girl: Who is she? Is she the sister or other relative of the professor? Is she his daughter? It’s not made clear until he talks to one of his colleagues.
The father: He gets one scene in the beginning, as a stereotypical “annoying guy at the workplace”, so there was no need to actually focus on him. The wife didn’t seem to take him seriously, and it didn’t look like they have any kind of connections. When he was shown the next time, as “the guy in the hoodie”, I didn’t recognise him, because the scene had no connection to anything. When he shows up again, on the date with the wife, I did remember him, because it had connected to the time he asked her for the date.
The student girl: As we later find it out, she doesn’t have any further role in the movie. It would have been probably better to leave her out, or let the professor use the machine on her own daughter, so we’d have an introduction to her.
Too many system starts: Every single time the professor switches on the machine, we have to watch the whole sequence. It would be okay for the first time, or even the second, but after a while this gets tiresome. Cut the sequence into a more digestible 1-2 seconds, and show only the differences from the previous booting up.
The colleague's dad: When he was using the phone, I didn’t get it that he was calling his mom, and it was his dad, who died. I feel the dialogue was unclear.
The guy in the hoodie: As it was mostly there to mislead the audience, it would have been better if we weren’t shown the actual hoodie guy in the flashback. Or if it’s more pronounced that the girl is talking to her actual father, because this was the second time he was shown, and he was not important enough for the first time to memorise his face.
Unanswered questions
- What will happen after the movie ends? Will the professor get in prison for stealing poison for poisoning her daughter? Or will they try to hide the body?
- Did the Ryan in the past get the message Future Ryan sent him? What did he say to him?
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Possibilities of improvement
- Cut it to become a single viewpoint movie, based on the professor. He’s in almost every scene, and when he is not, are not really necessary to the story anyway.
- Trim some scenes. There are many important information that needs to be conveyed, but there must be some way to make the movie shorter.
- Edit the booting up sequences to show only the new elements.
How it could have been better?
Make the whole thing with a better studio, and better supporting actors.
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Behind the scenes
Thoughts about the reviews of others
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Repeat, movie (2021)
image © Body in the Box
Uses for the film - Repeat, movie (2021)
Plot
- Scientists experiment with machine, that would read human minds.
- Scientists experiment with machine, that would contact the ghosts of deceased people.
- Scientists experiment with machine, that would transport people from the past, or into the past.
- A scientist sends a message to his past self, so he won’t repeat his mistakes.
Scenes
- When he works in the shed on the machine, those are good scenes to show how a scientist works on a machine in a shed.
- When he teleports himself to the past, it’s a good scene to show as security camera footage of someone teleporting, time travelling or disintegrating himself.
Designs
Scenario ideas - Role-playing game scenario ideas
- One of the friends of the characters is a man with strange abilities (wizard, scientist), who has a relative gone missing. He tries to do everything to get the relative back. As the characters are investigating, it starts to look like it’s more than a regular missing person case, there are strange phenomena around the event. In the end it turns out that the man caused the disappearance with his tamperings of getting the person back.
- When a character is about to do something important, he is sent a message / approached by someone claiming to be his future self to tell him to stop whatever he planned to do, as it will create disastrous consequences. Is it really his future self? Or a clever plan of an antagonist?
- A character researches / finds a way to do something extraordinary (telepathy, healing, see into the past or future of a person). However, the people who the character used this extraordinary thing on, start to get ill, then even die, if the character doesn’t intervene. Is it worth having this power, if this is the side effect?
Scenario ideas - Wargame scenario ideas
Phantom army: When the phantom army is set up, put a phantom marker on each unit. As long as they don’t do anything that changes something in the playing area (attacking, activating an objective, opening a door), the phantom marker stays on. If the enemy attacks them, remove casualties normally. If the phantom army player decides to do something that changes the situation, then the phantom marker is removed, and the unit starts to play as a regular unit, with the casualties already inflicted on it. However, the phantom army player may remove any unit with the phantom marker, and put them back to the starting area, adding even those models that were casualties. The enemy just thought that they had seen the phantom soldiers there, but in actuality, they were just shooting at shadows. The phantom army might do these phantom switches for an unlimited time, or there could be a limit to it – for example, they could do this once for every leader in the army, or based on the level of the leader, one leader may do this multiple times. The phantom army is helped by a very good disguise, a premonition ability, or past changing ability.
Clairvoyant army: The clairvoyant player already knows the outcomes of every single roll. The player rolls the dice 20 times, and write the results down in order. Put a marker under the first number. If the player has to roll, the result is the marked number, and move the marker to the next number. If the last number comes up, put the marker back to the first one. It’s probably wise to hide the numbers from the enemy player, and only show the actual number for the current roll. When creating their force, the player can spend points on rerolls. When creating the pool, the player can roll a number of dice again with these rerolls.
Probability changing army: The probability changing player knows what kind of outcomes they can choose. The player rolls 20 dice, and this will create a pool. Whenever a roll is required, the player pulls a dice from the pool, and the number on the dice is the result of the roll. After the player uses all of those dice, another pool is rolled. When creating their force, the player can spend points on rerolls. When creating the pool, the player can roll a number of dice again with these rerolls.
Miniatures - 1/50-1/60 (28-32mm scale)
Civilians: Human-sized (S3) modern (advanced) human female / male civilian.
Scientists: Human-sized modern human civilians, with odd hair and beard.
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Similar stories - Repeat, movie (2021)
Movies
12 Monkeys (1995): A man is sent into the past to repair past actions. It turns out he was sent there to repeat those actions. 12 Monkeys is more interesting than Repeat.
From Beyond (1986): A group of scientists are experimenting with a machine (dimension portal). Things go disastrously wrong.
Primer (2004): A group of scientists are experimenting with a machine (time machine). Things go disastrously wrong. Primer is probably better than Repeat.
The Sound of Thunder (2005): A group of scientists are experimenting with a machine (time machine). Things go disastrously wrong. It’s more action oriented and light-hearted than Repeat.
Los Cronocrímenes / Time Crimes (2007): A scientist is experimenting with a machine (time machine). Things go disastrously wrong.
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Frequently asked questions - Repeat, movie (2021)
Is the Repeat film based on a book or comics?
No, Repeat is not based on either books or comics.
Is the Repeat film a remake or reboot?
No, the Repeat film is neither a remake nor a reboot.
Is there a post credit scene in Repeat? Does Repeat have end credit scenes?
No, there's no post credit scene in Repeat.
Where can I see Repeat? Where can I watch Repeat online? Is Repeat available on Netflix? Is Repeat on Amazon?
As of 2021.12.31, Repeat is available on Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, Microsoft Movies, Vudu, YouTube.
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Resources - Repeat, movie (2021)
Official
Repeat: Official website.
Information
IMDB: Repeat (2021): Database article.
Letterboxd: Repeat 2021: Database article.
Rotten Tomatoes: Repeat 2021: Database article.
Creation
: Concept art article.¤
Reviews with no spoilers - Repeat film (2021)
: Review video about the Repeat film with no spoilers.¤
Reviews with spoilers - Repeat film (2021)
: Review article of the Repeat movie, with spoilers. Includes a very detailed plot summary.¤
Analysis - Repeat movie (2021)
: Analysis video, explaining the finale of Repeat.¤
https://www.on-magazine.co.uk/arts/film-reviews/repeat-2021/
https://www.voicesfromthebalcony.com/2021/11/17/repeat-2021-review/
https://www.jioforme.com/review-repeat-i-found-this-very-interesting/922831/
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Buying the product - Repeat, movie (2021)
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Have you seen the Repeat film? How do you like the movie? Would you recommend it to others? Do you know reviews or resources you'd like to add? What further thoughts do you have about it? Tell your opinion in the comments!
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