Unfortunately, I found the film overall pretty boring. The acting felt incredibly flat despite managing to get some recognisable faces involved such as William Baldwin. The closest I got to excitement during the whole thing was when I realised Christopher Judge, who voices Kratos in my favourite video game ‘God of War’, was in it. However, his character was barely in it so what little interest I’d managed to muster up was short lived.
It might not be the actors who should take full responsibility for the bland characters, however. The script left a lot to be desired from the very start; exposition is dropped on you like a brick from the very first scene and lacks any kind of subtlety or sense of mystery. Not to mention the romantic history between Sophia (Sara Fletcher) and Michael (Bryce Draper), two characters I just didn’t care about, that’s attempting to bring some emotion to the film but if anything, it’s just annoying when it seems the only thing that defines Sophia’s character is the fact that she’s upset about Michael leaving her. I know it’s a slasher film, it doesn’t need to be complicated, but it wouldn’t hurt to allow the audience to care more about the characters in order to make the horror they experience hit the audience harder.
One thing I did like about ‘Minutes to Midnight’ though, is the costume design for the murderers. The mask that Angus (Aaron Aguilera) wears looks good and doesn’t look too derivative of anything I’ve seen in other films of this genre. The gore is also good, so these practical aspects of the film are the highlights of it.
Overall, I didn’t particularly enjoy this film because it didn’t seem to have much of a personality to it or anything special that made it stand out. Despite managing to put together a relatively well-known cast, the writing is what held it back the most and didn’t give the actors much to work with.