Ethan Hawke swaps Boyhood for boredom in Predestination, the latest film to get lost in time travel.

Despite a promising premise and outlandish imagination, Predestination fails overall to be fresh or unpredictable. The earliest setups in a conga line of plot twists render them unsurprising, leaving limited gratification in the reveals.

Hawke provides the most believable performance, conveying the potential mental damage of time travel with a subtlety lost in the hubbub. Snook, though talented, is hindered by the unbelievable, unnecessary elements of her story.

A modest, almost clock-like score is trampled by heavy-handed SURPRISE cues, which only emphasise the utterly unsatisfying climax.

Forget four dimensions; Predestination struggles to break out of two. You don’t need time travel to know where this film is going, and some viewers will wish they could warn their past selves of this in advance.

RATING: 2/5

INFORMATION

CAST:  Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor

DIRECTORS: The Spierig Brothers

WRITERS: The Spierig Brothers

SYNOPSIS: The life of a time-travelling Temporal Agent. On his final assignment, he must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.