Odd Thomas (2013)
Directed by Stephen Sommers
In a California desert town, a short-order cook with clairvoyant abilities encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark, threatening forces.
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3 films that influenced Odd Thomas
What critics say influenced Odd Thomas
Odd Thomas’ self-aware expositional humor and translucent, shimmering CGI mayhem bring to mind Peter Jackson’s first shot at the major leagues, The Frighteners .
The borrowed plot, reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners, promises a mash up of pulp detective story and supernatural chiller, but in the clumsy hands of Sommers the result is an affected, self-consciously kooky film – curiously monotone from start to finish.
Most of the time, the movie carries the same kind of low wattage charm that Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners" brought almost twenty years ago.
It's like a really lazy rip off of Peter Jackson 's " The Frighteners " if it was made 18 years too late.
The premise of “Odd Thomas” recalls the one King used in “The Dead Zone,” though here it’s told in the lighthearted style of “Men in Black” or “R.I.P.D.” The title character, played by Anton Yelchin, is a young guy employed as a short-order cook in a modestly-sized desert town called Pico Mundo.
The aforementioned villain “Fungus” Bob acts a lot like he’s the brother of Vincent D’Onofrio‘s Edgar-suit-wearing bug creature from Men in Black, but the rest stay steeped in reality—or at least the off-kilter reality—necessary to buy this being our world.
It tries to nestle itself into that Men in Black-ish zone, where otherworldly entities are viewed somewhat humorously, even when threatening the fate of the universe.
Yelchin brings some charisma to his role, and the script by director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) features some amusing rapid-fire comedic banter.
This one, based on his 2001 novel—the first in a series that’s now reached a seventh installment—about a psychic young man who uses his gifts to avenge wrongs and prevent crimes, was apparently designed by writer-director Stephen Sommers as the start of a potential franchise, but legal problems delayed its release and have probably doomed its chances to recoup what must have been a substantial budget, though not one of the size of earlier Sommers projects like “The Mummy,” “Van Helsing” or “G.I.
The likability of star Anton Yelchin (“Star Trek,” “Like Crazy”) cannot save this chatty action-comedy directed by Stephen Sommers, a guy who once ham-handedly reanimated Universal’s monster legacy with “The Mummy” and “Van Helsing.”
Even without this hiccup, however, I’m not sure writer/director Stephen Sommers‘ latest foray with action-packed fantasy (The Mummy, Van Helsing, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) would have earned more than a select city limited run anyway.
But writer-director Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy”), adapting Dean Koontz’s novel, emphasizes lame CGI while showing no interest in the story’s wrinkles.
The writer-director is Stephen Sommers (The Mummy), who is better at staging action scenes with the kind of panache you rarely get from a limited budget than he is as a writer, saddling Mr. Yelchin with annoying off-screen narration like “Stormy is always joking abut running off to Las Vegas and getting married, but I tell her Vegas is packed with dead people and bad guys and I’d just end up fighting evil 24/7.”