Triangle (2009)

The first time I see a poster for “Triangle,” I was skeptic. And then I saw the trailer. Normally, I’m all but against seeing trailer before movies. But, there’s one particular scene in the trailer that hook me right away. Also, the trailer clearly suggests that there’s a time-bending element thrown in on this film, and I’m almost always all in for that kind of film. So I decided to give this film a shot. It was fairly entertaining, even perhaps, at some extent, engaging but the end result was probably kinda ‘meh’ and the actings weren’t of any help at all.

So, a group of people, embarked on a yacht, swept by a storm, and stumbled upon a cruise ship. This cruise ship is obviously, is not what it seems. Jess (Melissa George), who was the center of this group begin seeing something that wasn’t meant to be seen and started to experience a sort of time loop. As events unfolding, she sees the events, the same events (and herself) from another perspective.

When it comes to horror film (is this movie could be classified as horror?), I hate cheap tricks often employed by it to accentuate the thrilling moments. I really hate it. And by I mean with cheap tricks were those whose sole purpose is to shock the audiences. This film, thankfully, had a minimal dose of it (if there’s even any). It’s like playing puzzle. The film gives you the pieces as time progresses, and it gives a fairly good job to keep the puzzle engaging even if the end result, after all the pieces had fallen into place, wasn’t exactly a masterpiece to behold.

The film is not without flaws. The most prominent of it were visuals as it had probably conceived with a restraining budget. But as the visuals wasn’t exactly the spotlight of the film it could be easily neglected. The amount of gore was also (thankfully) minimal and given your preference, it could be a good thing or the opposite. For me, though, as I had a small love toward excessive gore, it was a good thing. There was a scene, the very same scene that had hook me from the trailer, when Jess creeping toward a secluded corner of the cruise ship’s deck, only to find … well, birds, and other things. In the context of the story, the scene was strategically placed that as you, through Jess, made an approach to it, it had all the weight of realization about the event that had fell on Jess and her group. It was my favorite moment of the film.

Probably in the vein of the similar genre, save by one of the last few scenes from Melissa George, the actings were uniformly unremarkable. In fact, it was so unremarkable that I almost squirm. The only acting worth to get a notice is understandably, Melissa George who was given a full treatment. But like I had said, save for one of the last few scenes, her cleavage probably gets more attention than her acting.

My rating: **1/2 / **** – So it’s like playing puzzle. It engages enough for you to try fitting one piece to another. However, when the puzzle was finished, the end result was somewhat a letdown. It was okay, though.