The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007)

Director: Dario Piana

Cast: Mike Vogel as Ian Stone, Jaime Murray as Medea, Christina Cole as Jenny Walker, Michael Feast as Gray, Charlie Anson as Josh Garfield, Michael Dixon as Brad Kopple, George Dillon as Referee, Marnix Van Den Broeke as Harvester 1, Andrew Buchan as Ryan, Bill Nash as Terrified Man, Anthony Warren as Carl, Jason Steadman as Pedestrian, Jason Durran as Man Waiting for Phone Booth, Jeff Peterson as Harvester 2, Tom Bodell as Elevator Passenger

"The Deaths of Ian Stone" is a rather nice film if only it would've
fixed a few small problems.

**SPOILERS**

Always experiencing deja-vu, Ian Stone, (Mike Vogel) keeps wondering
why he always feels like he's experiencing the day before, even though
he believes the whole idea is insane. When he's informed that he's
being hunted by deadly creatures that are bent on making sure he is
dead, he wonders about his inclusion until he realizes that his sense
of deja-vu was caused by the deadly creature's constantly killing him,
but are unable to kill him completely and must continue to do so until
either side is able to solve a mystery lodged within his memory.
Learning that the secret involves him protecting his girlfriend Jenny
Walker, (Christina Cole) who is always involved in the situations as
well, he tries to do so while fighting off the creatures.

The Good News: There was some good stuff here from this one. One of the
best parts is the fact that there's a lot of really good encounters in
here that do lead this one to have a fairly fast pace at times. The
first big attack, down in the subway where the one who isn't thought to
be one of the creatures changes and launches a big attack, leading to a
fantastic supernatural-bent encounter that manages to remain incredibly
fun and exciting about the action that plays out. Featuring some really
innovative segments to it, this scene has a lot of good stuff about it.
There's another great encounter later on at a car garage where it
features the creatures doing battle with him in the facility before
spilling out into the streets in front of a gathered crowd, which is a
lot of fun and manages to make the events all the more fun and
exciting. It's got a lot of full-scale destruction and general chaos
going on and pretty engaging action makes this one a really enjoyable
encounter. The biggest part of the film, though, is the finale where
there's a lot of action that's included in the proceedings. From the
different ways the two sides do battle through the hospital and the
manners of fighting back are rather enjoyable. There's a couple fun
mini-battles spread throughout that are pretty interesting, the use of
their supernatural powers enables a lot of fantastic visuals, and the
general fun throughout it make for some really enjoyable time. The last
plus here is the fact that the film has some really good kills in the
way it manages to knock off the title character in the past lives. From
being impaled through the stomach with a gigantic sword extending from
the hand, being over by a train, crushed under falling debris, and an
assortment of stabbings and impalings, among others. Taken that these
are pretty much repeated to a single character, it makes for a good
time. Taken all of these together, it makes for the film's good points.

The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot here that didn't really work.
One of the problems is the fact that this is just completely impossible
to figure out the first time through. Due to the thoroughly new and
original storyline, it forces the film into a lot of exposition to get
it all across, and these scenes tend to take up a lot of time in the
film's running time getting these out to a point of being
understandable. The only problem is that it tends to keep explaining it
as it goes along, meaning the exposition gathered at the beginning is
repeated again, often-times either expanding it or rewriting it
altogether, making for a colossal headache when trying to figure out
the purpose. At the end of the film, it's still really unclear what the
whole purpose of everything is about, and it tends to wear on the film
as a consequence, making most of what happened not so clear at all.
That is mainly due to how many different rules are presented at various
times, making it almost like they were making it up as it went along
and making the film all-the-more confusing. The only other flaw here is
the fact that the film doesn't really have much interesting things
going on at the beginning. It's mostly a repeat of the exact same
scenario, he begins to live a normal life and is then killed off and it
starts again. It's repeated several times, and done before any kind of
revelation is made about what's going on, so nothing is really quite
understood about it happening, and it doesn't score as much because of
that. There's a few other minor flaws, but those won't be noticed
unlike these mentioned ones that hold the film down.

The Final Verdict: While not actively out-and-out bad, there's still
some things to get over with this one in order to really get into it.
Still, it's worth a shot for those who have enjoyed the other series
entries or prefer this kind of film, while those that know this won't
entertain them should ignore completely.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language