Premonition -- 2006 -- PG-13

This one was actually really good, considering the problems it could have had (and honestly did have, in some parts). It focused a lot on the lead character and her relationships with those around her, as well it should.

The plot revolves around a woman who receives the unfortunate news that her husband was killed in a car accident the previous day and it took awhile to let her know because they had trouble identifying his remains from the crash. The trick here, though, is that she lives this one week out of order (apparently). She wakes up the next day and he's alive again and it's earlier in that week. So we get to see her shock over this development, and then the subsequent denial and grief the nxt day when he's dead again, but it is actually two days later than we started. Am I losing you?

In an effort to keep the audience guessing, the filmmakers make a grievous error...in regards to the eldest daughter's face. I won't say much about what happened, but if you to play the movie in order, you'd see it plain as day as to what the problem here is. Inconsistency. The film was apparently shot in the order it played in as opposed to being shot in chronological order as it should have been (or this is what it looks like to me). The characters and events (except for some key events) play out like they occurred in the same out of order sequence that the movie plays them. Some events even appear to go unchanged for days until we're supposed to see what goes on with them.

Our final issue to comment on is the manipulation of time. We're not going into paradox theory here, but just the "last day." Our lady wakes up on Wednesday, the day hubby is to die. She wants him to spend time with the kids. He spends ALL DAY and spends all night with her, and she wakes up for him to be gone on his fatal trip. If you dare to do the math (or as I understood it), Wednesday was two days long. Whoops.

So let's talk positives. The overall plot was well done, actually. It was extreme in some places, but it wasn't all that bad. The characters developed fairly well, and we got a solid sense of not only our heroine's character arc, but that of the relationship with her husband through his living and dead days. Her family and kids were a bit thin, but they weren't the focus, and the focus of husband and wife was well drawn enough to enjoy it and give the ending the poignancy it needed. I admit to being engaged in it during the third act, and I had my hopes for them, as I should in a well-drawn movie.

So it's the best of the four I've mentioned this evening/morning, and might actually be worth having a look at. Though I did have to laugh when the two guys who tried to lift the coffin dropped it, and the head bounced across the pavement. Talk about ruining a moment...