Hypnotic (Mini-Review)

Hypnotic is a dark fantasy mystery movie. Danny Rourke's daughter went missing and the disappearance was too much for his marriage to handle. While he still mourns his daughter, he is caught up in a case involving a man who can control people with his mind. Danny comes to believe that this man was the true culprit in his daughter's disappearance. His investigation also leads him to discovering the existence of hypnotics. Hypnotic was released in 2023. It was directed by Robert Rodriguez. It stars Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, J. D. Pardo, and Hala Finley.

This movie has a mid-credits scene. This scene changes the ending from one thing to another. I prefer the ending in the mid-credits as I feel it greatly improves the movie.

This movie isn't a big game changer and feels extremely generic. But, at the same time, it is the entertaining generic that makes sure you are never bored. There are enough twists and turns that utterly reshape the movie so you are constantly having to rethink what you have been watching. The twists and turns are so great that it's honestly hard to talk about the movie without talking about them.

When Danny and Nick, his partner, find Diana Cruz doing business as a mind reader, my mind formed a few new theories. Dellrayne, the man I mentioned in my summary, was working with Diana. Or Diana and Dellrayne were enemies with Danny caught up in the middle of their war. Or nothing Danny was experiencing was real. You'll have to watch the movie to see if any of those theories turned out to be true. I just need to give an example of how much this movie keeps your mind busy.

Jackie Earle Haley is one actor I love seeing. He has such a creepy demeanor but if you watch behind the scenes features he is just goofy. I enjoy The Nightmare on Elm Street remake because he's in it. So his appearance was a pleasant surprise to me. Though throughout the movie I was thinking why he was familiar and it wasn't until I saw the credits it clicked. He plays Jeremiah who was a Division, group of government trained hypnotics, contact. He is hardly in the movie but his screentime makes its mark.

Dellrayne makes a memorable antagonist. He is painted out to be an unstoppable force. Hypnotics can control people's minds and he is the most powerful. So every encounter seems impossible to win. How is a mere mortal supposed to fight against a force of nature? He is a little too overbearing as the missing daughter storyline is soon pushed to the background. Not that I minded as he was more interesting to me than a missing daughter. The missing daughter subplot seemed to exist purely so there were things to do outside of Dellrayne's appearances.

I would recommend Hypnotic to those looking for a dark fantasy movie. I would also recommend Hypnotic to those looking for an engaging mystery to decipher.