Predestination (2014) - The Spierig Brothers

The Spierig Brother's Predestination is a smart, simple yet complex science fiction film full of imagination that keeps the viewer engaged from its intriguing beginning to its surprising finale.  Centered around the Predestination program, a enigmatic time-traveling law enforcement bureau, the story follows one Temporal Agent who is hot on the trail of a mass killer, a time-traveling terrorist known as the "Fizzle Bomber", a man who is responsible for the death of thousands in New York City.  Like all good science fiction, Predestination uses its high-concept science-fiction concepts to touch on very humanistic qualities, such as fate, gender, and identity.  While Hawke is solid as usual as the lead character, Sarah Snook, who plays John/Jane, a character who plays a central part to the story, gives a truly memorable performance.  Being a character who has seen herself/himself stripped of his/her identity, Predestination uses this character to comment on the profound importance of feeling comfortable in ones own skin, what gender can mean to identity, and the importance it has on our psyche, doing so in an emotionally poignant way I simply did not expect.  Aesthetically, Predestination features the clean, sterile look typical of sci-fi, creating a nice-looking film especially when considering the budget restrictions.  The film itself is an atmospheric mind-bender that almost challenges the viewer to try and make sense of its twilight-zone-esque series of events, doing so with a type of exuberance for its time-travel, sci-fi story which makes it hard not to appreciate.  In the end, Predestination is a messy but effective science-fiction story that gleefully uses the time-travel paradox to explore how fate, gender, and identity all intermingle.   

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