Hypnotic

Hypnotic failed to "mesmerise" this viewer. A disjointed story, weak characterisations and mediocre action, are my not so enduring impressions, of this film. In short, this is forgettable cinematic fare, that's predominantly driven by exposition and little else. Using a big name actor, like Ben Affleck, for me at least, wont fix this films shortcomings. Not sure too, why characters in the latter part of the film are dressed like car rental agents (oh well...)? In summary, superficially watchable but instantly forgettable, action fare.

You know, for the first half hour of this, I thought it was just a remake of "The Mummy" (1999). "Danny" (Ben Affleck) and "Diana" (Alice Braga) are racing around trying to find his daughter who appears to have been kidnapped by "Dellrayne" (William Fichtner). The latter man is able to use his "Imhotep" mind-controlling powers to bend people to his will, and so can turn his friends and the mob into a baying crowd. Well what gradually unravels before us now is a rather lacklustre drama that explains that there are people amongst us known as "hypnotics". These beings, of varying strength, can manipulate those around them (with or without light-sabres) and it appears that his daughter could end up being their equivalent of a superhuman. Poor "Danny" has no idea whom he can trust or just quite what is going on, he just knows that he must ensure his child doesn't fall into their hands. This leads us, rather willingly for me by now, into the third phase of the story that really does kill any semblance of originality with our intrepid hero just one step ahead of a pursuing army of heavily armed holiday camp employees. The visual effects are adequate, but the rest of this is just derivate and the story tries to be too complicated for it's own good. It will do fine on the telly at Christmas but that's about it, I'm afraid.