Pulse / Pulsations (Unrated Widescreen Edition)

 

 

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Picture our wireless technologies made a connection to a world beyond our own. Imagine that world used that technology as a doorway into ours. Now, imagine the connection we made can't be shut down. When you turn on your cell phone or log on to your e-mail, they'll get in, you'll be infected and they'll be able to take from you what they don't have anymore -- life. Pulse is really not a bad movie it is a decent flick. Like most teen Horrors minus the blood and gore.

The plot and storyline for this movie is passable but so far fetched to the point that your eyes glaze over, your mind goes numb and you slump in your seat from sheer and slight boredom I feel the movie was comatose along making you wait for the good stuff just to abruptly take the spoon out of your mouth once you starting to get a taste for it. The movie plays in reverse in that it waits till the end to get your attention. There were many failed attempts at trying to be suspenseful, I thing the casting is at fault for that. Which is kind of strange because some of them are skilled actors. Kristen Bell as Mattie, along with Ian Somerhalder as Dexter acted sub par at best. Kristen Bell's character is introduced and seems like a lively, fun-loving girl. She quickly turns into an angry, angsty, and bitter character. Granted, the events that precede this sudden change would make anyone do an about-face, but it just didn't seem like she had any of that to begin with. In the beginning there seems to be a tight-knit group of four friends, two guys and two girls. The guys are barely given any screen time, it is only Mattie and Christina Milian as Izzy who matter but throughout this film you do have some empathy with some of the characters and it does succeed in scaring you for roughly 3/4 of its running time. Though when I say scared I don't mean terrified, rather, I mean your shocked and disturbed frequently and feel a dreaded suspense through large parts of its duration.

While fans of blood and gore probably won't go nuts for it, those who enjoy a good creep-fest will be thrilled and chilled. Although it frequently relied on musical build-ups and situations seemed a tad on the extreme side, the movie overall pulled through and came out as what I believe to be passable way to spend your 90 minutes.

I liked Pulse... It wasn't great but it was still decent and made for a brainless movie night with a friend. It's another movie about the dead meeting today's technology... It's been done before but Pulse pulls it off better than some other variations ie the really crappy "One Missed Call". I paid $5.99 for this title... I suggest you find it cheap like I did or rent it first.

The title notwithstanding, this film barely has a pulse of its own. What should have been an exciting thriller somehow comes across as one of the most boring apocalyptic films I've ever seen. The writers and directors were totally focused on the characters fighting to keep their wills to live from being sucked right out of their bodies - but what about my will to live? As a viewer, I was fighting to survive, as well. With electronic ghosts of ill-defined boredom closing in on me with each passing minute and a maze of loose ends to navigate along my way, I consider myself lucky to have come out the other side with my sanity intact.

So, what is this Pulse, anyway? Well, if you don't know, the movie surely isn't going to tell you - not until you're closing in on the end of it, anyway. By then, you won't even care. Sealing yourself in a small area with red tape keeps the pulse out, though, for what it's worth. Personally, I didn't have a problem with the pulse - not as long as it kept eliminating such uninteresting characters as you'll find littering this film. The most comatose of the bunch is Josh (Jonathan Tucker), the dumb hacker who manages to unleash this whole business on the world in the first place. Mattie (Kristen Bell) could use some serious training in the art of applying mascara, but you still wouldn't think the girl would be hard up enough to actually like this dweeb. Through the magic of cyberspace, Josh can't stop being annoying even in death, which leads Mattie and her gang of college buddies into this whole pulse business. Then, before you can say Bob's your uncle, the whole world is full of people either missing or walking around as empty shells of themselves (which actually sounds a lot like real life, come to think of it). So - you guessed it - it's up to Mattie and her new hacker friend to basically save the world.

But how do you stop the pulse, especially when no one in the movie has really bothered to explain just what the heck it is, anyway? Ah, there's the rub. The writers, I'm sad to say, decide to take the easy way out, so don't plan on a wham bam ending to come along and suddenly make you want to stand up and cheer. They don't even bother to address one of the seemingly important secondary plot points they kept bringing up all through the film. Why introduce something into a film on several occasions if you aren't going to follow up on it at all?

Pulse is a sad case of the "if you can't beat them, remake them syndrome" sweeping Hollywood in the last few years. In this case, even Wes Craven seems to recognize the fact that Asian horror is far superior to American horror. I haven't seen the Asian film that Pulse was based on, but it had to have a stronger story that this film did. Hollywood tends to grab an Asian film, disembowel it of all its juicy story goodness (substituting a hefty helping of CGI effects in its place), and expect it to be a success. Maybe someday they'll all figure out that this strategy just doesn't work. No matter how spiffy the CGI is, Pulse's special effects still cry "The Ring" in most viewers' ears. Let me completely doom this movie's prospects for you by comparing it to Fear Dot Com - remember how awful that movie was and how completely let down you felt after watching that trainwreck of a film? You're going to feel the same way about Pulse. Enough said.

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1.0 out of 5 stars don,t buy or ren it !! one of the worst movie i never seen !!
i bought it on dvd for 5.99$ and i realize that's was a waste of time and money !! its so ridiculous with bad special effect and stupid story !! i should give 0/5 stars

Published on Mar 21 2008 by Daniel Nault

4.0 out of 5 stars creepy and thrilling(3.5/5)
Pulse is a thriller along the lines of White Noise,which i starred Michael Keaton.i did enjoy White Noise,but i thought Pulse was a bit better at the thrilling aspect. Read more

Published on Aug 13 2007 by falcon

5.0 out of 5 stars Down Right Creepy
You won't see a lot of blood and gore in this film. Instead what we are treated to is a beautifully shot, atmoshperic creepfest. Read more

Published on Jan 21 2007 by Dennis R. Chenier

1.0 out of 5 stars Wanted to like this film...but i just couldn't...soooo bad!
From the moment i saw this preview at the theatre.. i was like "yeahhhhhhh, just my type of film...i gotta see this!" It kinda reminded me of "The Ring" with the same style. Read more

Published on Dec 20 2006 by S. Vecera

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