Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
Five medical students, hoping to understand the mystery of what lies beyond life, embark on a dangerous experiment. When their hearts are stopped for a short period of time, they have a near-death experience…
This 2017 remake of the 1990 film offers little that the original didn't already explore. The premise of medical students inducing near-death experiences to glimpse the afterlife is recycled almost wholesale, with guilty-conscience haunting sequences that feel formulaic rather than fresh. The acting is competent but unremarkable given the talent involved — Ellen Page and Diego Luna do adequate work but are let down by thin characterization. Visually the film has some slick, polished cinematography with atmospheric lighting that elevates it slightly above average technically. The novelty score tanks because this is definitionally derivative — a remake that adds almost nothing conceptually or tonally to its source material. The ending is unsatisfying and abrupt, resolving the moral and supernatural threads in a pat, unconvincing way.