by Eden
Haunter too often feels like a collection of ideas — a time loop movie, a reverse haunted house movie, a meditation on generational curses and lingering evil — Brian King’s script never quite brings it all together. There are some neat touches and Breslin’s Lisa, in her Siouxsie and the Banshees T-shirt, is a heroine to root for, but it never feels like it can fully stick to one concept and see it through.
Unlike the previous few movies, Happy Death Day is definitely “Like Groundhog Day but only with murder!” Tree’s arc from vapid, bitchy sorority girl to someone who is willing to be open and generous is obvious from the get-go but it’s effective. She even becomes someone who will give the cute boy with cool movie posters in his room a chance.
Is it still a time loop movie if there’s not actually a time loop? Or at least not the ones we typically think of when we think of time loop movies? What if the clearest time loop relates to another movie? And is that movie a time loop movie if you never actually see the loop in it?
Director Mamoru Oshii wrote an original story without much consultation or input from Rumiko Takahashi, the manga’s original creator. Based partially on the Japanese folk tale, Urashima TarÅ, it definitely feels pretty representative of Oshii’s work, tackling philosophical issues in a surreal way.
This version of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time by director Mamoru Hosoda and writer Satoko Okudera is part reimagining, part sequel to the 1967 novel, written Yasutaka Tsutsui. It is one in a long line of adaptations of this novel — there have been live-action movies, multiple TV versions and even a stage play. I once had ambitions to track down and watch every version but that proved impossible. But I like the idea that all the versions of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time are almost a time loop themselves.