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Posted By: Brian Schell September 8, 2025

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This movie is heavy on science fiction and big ideas with an ambitious story. Unfortunately it’s too long and stretched out. There is a payoff at the end, with everything pretty much explained. It took too much time to get there. It’s well put together, but we give it a rating in the middle at best.

Spoilery Synopsis

We are told about Japan invading China in 1931 all the way to the Russian border. We open on a Chinese family in the countryside as bombs start falling. The Japanese are invading, and they– we get a flash of people from the future, scientists, and they’re watching all this on their time-travel blue glow machine. Credits roll. 

Neil comes home to ex-wife Elena and son Wiley. Neil works with Garrison doing inspections of old properties. Today, they are checking out a big abandoned government site. This isn’t a factory or office building, they see that it’s an old research facility– as they turn the power back on. Something must have happened since the place looks like it was abandoned in a hurry. 

They walk through the place and come to something weird. All their electronics and the flashlight go dead. But rather than back away and turn the power back off, they persist. As Neil approaches the glowing blue thing, he hears voices and sees some strange things. Garrison says he’s been waiting for him to come out for 45 minutes; Neil and his watch have lost some time. 

Later, Neil takes Wiley out to ride his motorcycle and has an accident while hallucinating Chinese prisoners. Wiley’s eyes have been damaged, and he needs a transplant that they can’t afford. 

Neil tells Garrison about the accident, and Garrison explains that their insurance isn’t good. Later, he talks to Wiley and hallucinates the torture of Chinese people and children. He tries to talk to Elena about it, but she’s too busy hating him to listen. 

Andrew and Naomi come over for a visit; she’s been dealing with trouble at work. Garrison comes over, and it’s a party. Neil has another weird hallucination and beats up Garrison. Neil takes Andrew and Naomi to the weird factory where the visions began. Naomi looks into the “thing” and sees puppets and burning Chinese people. 

That night, at home, a strange man in a mask comes to see him; he knows what Neil’s been seeing. He talks to Garrison about the particle collider at the site, and Garrison takes everything the wrong way. Neil continues seeing and hearing things that aren’t there, and everyone starts thinking he’s losing his mind. Except… we see that Naomi is having visions as well. 

Naomi comes to talk to Neil about the particle collider. Andrew follows her, thinking she’s cheating on him. The two start researching Chinese war criminals and prison camps. She talks about generational trauma and racially profiled reincarnation. 

Elena questions Garrison about the past weekend with Neil. He is also having hallucinations now. Neil and Naomi go to see her father to research the name of a scientist whose ID card they found in the factory. He finds some records of a project INDRA, but it’s all classified. They get the name of one scientist who was dishonorably discharged and head to talk to him. 

Garrison meets with the buyers and sellers of the site, and he says it’s all good and safe to purchase. 

Neil goes to the scientist’s house, and he takes a metal pipe as a weapon (why?). He sneaks in the back window and finds a crazy wall, complete with string maze and a drawing of himself. Nanda, the scientist, comes home and Tases Neil before Naomi pepper sprays Nanda, but they all are quickly fine. INDRA stands for Intradimensional something or other and uses quantum entanglement to connect points in time and space. 

Nanda touches Neil, and he gets a full flashback of the scientific stuff at INDRA. Tobin, the chief scientist, turns the machine up to eleven, and sees the past. They overloaded the collider and made multiverse stuff happen because quantum things and human souls are being recycled throughout time backward and forward. Somehow, Tobin and Neil are the same person, even though Neil wasn’t even born yet back then. 

Garrison and Elena talk about her options. Neil and Naomi flashback to watch the Chinese family die. “We were there. A part of us was there.” All the characters we’ve seen are reincarnationally connected to the Chinese prison incidents. 

Neil gets his eyes tested to see about donating his corneas to Wiley if they are a match. The doctor says it’s illegal and immoral for a living person to donate. They find Garrison at Elena’s place; he’s gonna be the new “daddy” of the family. As they fight, we get more prisoner flashbacks. Naomi drives off with Elena and explains things. They go to see Nanda who tells us all that the time travel project used the Chinese prison as a target since none of those people survived; there was no harm in messing with those people because it wouldn’t change history. 

Neil steals some files and ruins Garrison’s business deal. He calls Garrison and tells him to meet at the site. Everyone else soon arrives outside as well. Nanda and Elena work the controls to end the project while everyone else stands in front of the blue glowing device and hallucinates as they dial the machine up to eleven again. 

History changes. In 1978, they didn’t do the experiment at full power. In 1931, the Chinese family escaped the prison. 

When things are settled, we see an old Chinese man in the present, the little boy from the camp all grown up; his family was the only one to escape that camp. Naomi is there to interview him, with her daughter who didn’t exist in the original timeline. Also, we see Wiley thriving with undamaged eyes. 

Brian’s Commentary

This is one of those films where Neil has done a bunch of horrible things and made his family suffer for years before the film starts, and we see nothing but his wife being hateful and mean to him, like he’s completely innocent, because we don’t see him doing anything wrong. He’s not a sympathetic character, but he’s portrayed like one. He just goes on and on with all the bad things he’s done in the past, and since we see none of it, we just don’t care. All the characters are essentially bad people. 

In the middle of all the family drama, there’s some time travel shenanigans that don’t make any sense for a very long time. I spent quite a bit of time browsing my phone during the movie and didn’t miss a thing. This could have been 45 minutes shorter with no loss of story at all. 

There might be a good sci-fi idea in here somewhere, but it’s just way too dull and stretched out to recommend. A lot of it doesn’t make much sense, and it can’t all be blamed on quantum gobbledegook.  

This was pretty awful. 

Kevin’s Commentary

When I take a bathroom break and tell Brian he doesn’t have to pause, that’s not a good sign. It’s an intriguing idea, and it’s not actually bad. There are many positives. It’s well-made and decently acted. It’s just too long and stretched out as they piece together the mystery of what’s happening and why. It does make a sort of sense in the end, but it’s kind of a grueling journey to get there.