Final Cut (2004)

An truly original concept. What if we could put implants in our mind that would record our life and they could be accessed on death like a computer. How would we be remembered and who would determine that?

Starring Robin Williams, Jim Caviezel, and Mira Sorvino this movie left me wanting more. The movie is fairly compact and is highly engaging, but the end leaves you with questions that I say were too many in number. I want to put some things together, but the questions for me were mostly things that didn’t make sense.

Robin Williams is a “cutter” who views people’s lives in footage. He specializes in those characters who have led less than honorable lives, he is able to make them look like saints, and to remove all of those dark secrets. But so many interesting ideas. Who should determine what people remember? Shouldn’t people remember you for what they want, and not what they are told? Who do the memories belong to? How would you live if you knew your whole life was being recorder?

Williams is haunted by an experience in his childhood that makes him the individual he is today. But the Why? that is there, why is he able to do this just because he believes he let a little boy die in his childhood? The connection isn’t really ever made. There are groups of “hippies” who protest the implants called “Zoe Chips” and have tattoed their faces with electrical implants to disrupt the recordings. But this group has turned into activists led by an ex-cutter (Caviezel). They are out to get footer from a high ranking official the pioneering technology firm after he dies. They stop at nothing to get it, even killing Williams after the original chip is destroyed because he is living proof the footage. He had a Zoe Chip installed and his memories now has the other man’s on tape. Caviezel believes Williams is a matyr of sorts, giving his life meaning in bringing down the technology.

The general consensus is that William’s life is being wasted, that it has no meaning. I didn’t make that connection, he just has a job to do, I don’t know why it is so different just because it isn’t the easiest. Williams dies and that is pretty much the end of the movie, and you want answers.

So, if you like Williams or Sci-Fi, this is agreat movie for you. Williams does a great job, and it is such an interesting concept. I just don’t think that it was translated as well as some may have hoped to the masses to understand.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Birth (2004)
• The Ring 2 (2005)
• Good Will Hunting (1997)
• Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
• United 93 (2006)

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