10/40
Haunted by her father’s disappearance 30 years ago, Stella, returns to her hometown to care for her ill mother. One night, her dad contacts her via an old radio. Stella must time-travel to bring him back by activating the Taklee Genesis.. This movie offers a lot of enjoyable moments if not taken too seriously. It is a sci-fi mystery based on a time travel story that combines elements of drama, comedy, horror and fantasy. At times it seemed like the director had a catalog of movie scenes from which a random item would be picked and included in the movie. Consequently, the audience gets to see a crazy assembly of aliens, dinosaurs, spaceships, zombies, kaiju and many more things that one would not expect. As a result, it feels like a more generic version of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One. As with many time travel movies, plot holes are difficult to avoid. This movie has a great number of them which are often downplayed in dialogues with expressions such as It is Alright, Don’t Worry or Everything will be Okay. While the cast seemed to try to perform to the best of their abilities, acting remains another weakness in this movie. The British parent in the beginning spoke like he was recording an English listening comprehension chapter for primary school. The mother did not even shed a proper tear when Velan disappeared. The funniest character of all was Mordin, the silent survivor who would save the day when everyone else despairs. Altogether, our rating for Taklee Genesis is a solid seven out of ten. We watched the original version with English subtitles in a movie theatre.