Sandra Bullock has had one of the best Hollywood careers, earning praise for starring in 1994’sSpeedand 1995’sWhile You Were Sleepingand moving to comedy with the hit 2000 movieMiss Congeniality. While Bullock is known for romantic comedies likeTwo Weeks Notice(2002) andThe Proposal(2009), she’s also got a knack for serious films, likeThe Blind Side(2009) andOur Brand Is Crisis(2015). But while horror fans enjoyed the 2018 Netflix thrillerBird Box,Sandra Bullock starred in a thriller back in 2007 that just isn’t very good.
Premonitiontells the story of Linda Hanson, a wife and mother who learns that her husband has passed away. But as she searches for answers to the strange things that are happening, audiences can’t quite buy the entire thing. This Sandra Bullock thriller is laughably bad and doesn’t make any sense.
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The main problem withPremonitionis the movie’s timeline and the way that it plays around with time. One day, Linda’s husband Jim (Julian McMahon) has died and she is left grieving and taking care of their daughters Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness) and Megan (Shyann McClure). The next day, Jim is still here. The movie goes back and forth as Linda tries desperately to figure out why sometimes Jim is alive and sometimes he has died, and she even tries to work through the timeline on a giant piece of paper.
WhileSandra Bullock is great in many films, her character seems more lost and confused than she needs to be here, and the script doesn’t give her much to work with.Premonitionhas an 8% rating on the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes so it wasn’t beloved by critics, and it doesn’t have a lot for audiences to like, either.
The movie tries to give some meaning behind its title, as Linda talks to a priest who says that people have had “premonitions” and they have been able to tell when someone is going to die or something terrible is going to happen. But since the movie switches back and forth between Jim being alive and dead, Linda’s visions about the future don’t feel as powerful and important as they could.
Before too long, audiences are tired of this timeline, so it doesn’t feel fresh or exciting. Linda is so confused about what day it is and what’s happening to her, and audiences aren’t sure either, but not in a way that feels compelling and like it’s impossible to stop watching. The movie doesn’t have real answers here, just a statement that Linda can definitely see the future because this has happened to other people before. It’s hard not to wish for more.
The film’s twist is that Jim was going to have an affair with Claire (Amber Valetta) and Linda and Jim had some trouble in their relationship. While aplot twist can be done right, this one is pretty bad. Since this has been done so many times before, it loses its impact, and it would be a lot more interesting if there had been something else that Jim was hiding and that Linda needed to uncover to really understand what was going on. Linda realizes that when she and Jim have a phone call, a truck hits his car, and that’s how he dies. However, Jim’s death scene is intense and over-the-top and not in a good way. Instead of being a moment when audiences can really feel the pain of what Linda and her daughter will have to experience, there’s lightning, a black crow, and Jim actually being lit on fire.
Premonitionalso fails in trying to make Linda look “crazy,” an example of ahorror movie tropethat doesn’t always work. In this case, people think that Linda has been hurting her daughter since Bridgette has scars on her face. This is an unfortunate storyline and doesn’t do much except make everyone seem needlessly cruel as Linda has lost her husband and her child’s father and people are accusing her of something so terrible. It seems odd that people would jump to the conclusion that Linda hurt her child and that she is the one who killed Jim when it’s clear that she’s suffering. The movie should find another villain because it’s not very believable that everyone would blame Linda.
Sandra Bullock has been in amazing Netflix movies, but her 2007 thrillerPremonitionisn’t very good. The movie feels flat, dull, and it’s lacking character development, a thrilling premise, and the right kind of twists and turns that the genre requires. While Bullock is talented, fans should stick to her other movies as this one doesn’t seem all that unique.
