Undescribable Perfection

Simply A Masterpiece

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Trainees in the FBI's psychological profiling program must put their training into practice when they discover a killer in their midst. If you count out the fact that the practical effects or puppets are horrible with a doll that looks nothing like Val Kilmer or even the over the top death of Christian Slater the film actually has a lot of suspense and good horror elements that work sure it has flaws some of those that i just mentioned or even the killer getting shot multiple times or when you think that the real killer is actually that guy it turns out to be the other way around. But still a pretty good slasher film but in my opinion go check out D-Tox is basically the same movie and it's better than this one in my opinion but still i'll give it a 7.5/10

Director Renny Harlin is very much a paracinematic man, and his particular brand of style fits perfectly in the early 2000s aesthetic of excess. High concept thrillers such as Speed rely on an exponentially thrilling pace. Moving the plot along faster than the viewer brain can comprehend the inherent silliness of the core concept.Since Fincher's Se7en, thrillers have taken the macabre turn in the crime genre. Reaching the point of Wan's Saw set within one of those trials of torture. Mindhunters similarly attempts the same zenith, upping Se7en's police duo with a ragtag team of FBI agents, racing to solve an ongoing test of intelligence and insanity. Despite the blatant exposition and character development, none of these people seem smarter than Pitt's hardheaded detective.The agents muster a fun mix of "oh, they've come a long way since" and "oh... who?" Notable entertainers here are Johnny Lee Miller sporting his best Blanche DuBois, Christian Slater and Val Kilmer competing in their natural friendly-yet-suspicious-yet-bored acting styles, and LL Cool J acting as if he was John McClane in yet another preposterous scenario.Attempting to outdo predecessors with 'bigger is better', the story takes place on an isolated island complete with an entire city simulation for a training exercise. According to their teacher, representative of "the mind of a sociopath", presumably not meaning laughably inane and ridiculously convenient for the killer's grand scheme. The film, of course, never slows down to let you question how the entire plot hinges of this arbitrary setting.The script of Mindhunters is definitely where entertainment hinges on as Harlin desperately races ahead of logic and common sense. For such a complex and convoluted mystery build, there are a remarkable number of legitimate plant and pay-offs. Many of them are obvious enough to predict despite the suspension of disbelief being thoroughly tested. Much how Jigsaw relies on sheer chance amidst his philosophical soliloquies, a great number of set-pieces and foreshadowing relies on pure coincidence.The script is constantly testing whether these characters are supposed geniuses outmatched or merely idiots outwitted by another idiot. One particular if insignificant moment of clumsy writing is the repeated mantra of a situation only being secure "on the drive home", the heroes of course proving this right... when boarding a helicopter to safety. Could've easily been fixed for "on the way home" but it doesn't affect the story.In a world of post-modern, meta-narrative ironies, Harlin is successful in his sheer earnestness for pure, dumb, entertainment. For a film about investigative geniuses battling a criminal mastermind, it's best to leave your brain at the door.

Mindhunters is an And Then There Were None type story about FBI trainees trapped on an island where one of them is a serial killer killing the others off in a series of Rube Goldberg machines so ludicrous they make Final Destination look restrained. Mindhunters is not a film you rent for a good time. It's something you rent for a laugh. In that area, it delivers. Don't get me wrong: this is a pretty terrible film. But it is fun. I Love murder mysteries and that automatically makes this watchable, especially as And Then There Were None is one of my favourite books of all time. It's got a good premise and the odd exciting set-piece, as well as some interesting ideas but mainly it gets by on being fun. Eventually the fun wears off during the disappointing finale. The movie does not make a hint of sense, Renny Harlin's misjudged direction makes the film look extremely artificial and over-stylized and the acting is weak as well. At the end of the day, it's a B movie. Mindhunters is sometimes exciting and tense but sadly fails to ever be genuinely scary or make you truly care about its characters. LL Cool J again proves to be a likable presence however. The main fun of Mindhunters is watching the utterly preposterous murder sequences and wondering how such an idiotic script was ever greenlit. It's quite fun and hardly terrible, although an argument that it's particularly good would be hard to construct or justify.4/10

In a simulated experiment in a scene that is reminiscent of saw, would be agents prove their worth by trying to solve a murder; they all fail and get shipped to an island for further improvements. This island looks like something out of Hollywood and reminiscent of the old Nevada nuclear test sites featured in so many other movies; but there is a twist – they are to get into the mind of a serial killer here by being in a similar element – lost, isolated, afraid, and alone. Instead, they turn into a series of misfits that pass the time while they test the water and solve the island about them. Things go awry and each one is picked off one by one. Time and time again, they use stereotyping, profiling and getting inside of the killer's head as a means to defeat the culprit. The twists and turns are many and just who is the killer changes from one scene to the next as the would be agents try to save and assist each other.The movie is reminiscent of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and many of the personalities seem reminiscent as such; they act like teenagers and otherwise squabble amongst themselves. They either clearly know too much, feel utterly capable and confident in their roles, and still manage to get picked off one by one. In a turn like CSI, many of the story and plot makes sense, but is completely unbelievable from a realistic standpoint. The movie is good for Hollywood and is good for this reason – it creates for mindless entertainment and I recommend this movie for that reason.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/? p=5201).