Type: Literal Title
Synopsis: Really? A girl leaps through time. It’s not that hard to figure out.
Pros: O.K., so I’m a sucker for time travel stories. This has been established. I loved the this movie. It was light-hearted, funny, and used time travel in a very realistic fashion. Basically, it was used for shinanigans. Pass a test. Dodge a hit. Sing kareoke ten times in a row. Everything the average person would do. Because, lets be real here. You might think you’d use time travel to kill Hitler or bet on the 2004 World Series, but you would actually just use it as a redo-button for your life. A lot of the humor comes from Makoto literally leaping though time and fixing various little high school problems. The main conflict, which thankfully isn’t some reality shattering consequence of abusing time travel, arises when Makoto discovers that her two male best friends like her (which I get the feeling happens to a lot of girls). This wasn’t overly melodramatic, at least at the start, and I would highly recommend this film to anyone.
Cons: The film doesn’t quite stick the landing. In about the last 40 minutes, you discover how Makoto was traveling through time, and the movie goes down the cliche love angle. This felt out of place with the rest of the story. The first act had been Makoto using time travel in funny ways. The second act was Makoto finding herself in a love triangle and trying her best to undo it, because screw whoever came up with the term “friend zone.” What bothered me about the third act is that the previous two had been alluding to the consequences of time travel. Not in an earth shattering way, but in a more personal “you open a door but close a window” sort of way. That’s why one of Makoto’s classmates was being bullied, because Makoto accidentally transferred her series of unfortunate events to him. But these consequences never pay off in a tone consistent to the more down to earth plot before hand. Maybe if the film had explored Makoto dating both boys, or giving up both, or something totally different. Don’t get me wrong, the ending doesn’t ruin the movie by any means, it just makes it “good” where it could have been “great.”
Watch it?: Very accessible.
MVP: Makoto
Keep rolling, rolling, rolling….
Best Moment: Makoto laughing arrogantly over her new mastery over time.