Flatliners

A remake of Joel Schumacher's 1990 psychological horror/thriller box-office hit, this retread centers on medical student Courtney Holmes (Ellen Page), who is riddled with guilt over her role in the drowning death of her sister, and is morbidly curious about the afterlife. Determined to use an MRI to map brain activity after “death,” she initiates an experiment in which her heart is stopped, and then she is revived. Afterwards, Courtney experiences an expanded consciousness and amplified abilities; she not only plays Debussy on the piano and bakes bread but also diagnoses patients' symptoms with unerring accuracy, recalling everything that she has ever learned. Naturally, her colleagues—insecure Sophia (Kiersey Clemons), cocky Jamie (James Norton), and driven Marlo (Nina Dobrev)—are also determined to have their turn in the chair in the hospital's sublevel lab. Only reluctant ex-fireman Ray (Diego Luna) tenaciously abstains. Inevitably, of course, there will be a traumatic price to be paid. Danish director Niels Arden Oplev moves the contrived and repetitive narrative along at a snail's pace while delivering minimal generic scares. Not recommended. (S. Granger)