James Vs. His Future Self (Jeremy LaLonde, 2019): Canada

Reviewed by Diego Moreno. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2020.

James Vs. His Future Self is the best comedic film I have seen at SBIFF 2020. If you’re a fan of sci and/or comedies, go see this. It’s an entertaining sci-fi flick that’ll have you laughing a lot. The chemistry between James and well, his future self is a highlight and standout of the film.

I viewed James Vs. His Future Self at the Metro 4 Theatre as one of the films that was playing during SBIFF 2020. James Vs. His Future Self is a science fiction comedy is directed by Jeremy Lalonde and stars Jonas Chernick, Daniel Stern, Cleopatra Coleman, and Frances Conroy.

The films follows a obsessed and overly-dedicated young scientist named James (Jonas Chernick), who is about to discover time travel when his own self (Daniel Stern) visits him from the future in an attempt to stop this discovery in order to prevent unfortunate events that made future James travel to the present in the first place. Present James decides to try and go the time travel path despite knowing this while future James continuously tries to foil his plans for his own good. Throughout the plot, present James wants to win the heart of his crush, Courtney (Cleopatra Coleman), who disapproves of his science obsession, making it more difficult for him to achieve this goal.

James Vs. His Future Self has a great script. Full of funny dialogue and situations, and also some complex mathematical content, which according to the director, are all real. The actors do a rock solid job in their roles, but Daniel Stern stands out in his role as future James. He’s my favorite character in the movie. You may be familiar with Daniel as he played Marv in Home Alone 1 and 2. He’s very hilarious, charismatic, and likable in this film. His chemistry with present James throughout the movie is very amusing. There’s a very humorous scene, for example, between him and his present self where he tries to prove he’s James from the future by comparing both of their…junk, only to discover that they’re both identical.

I had a very terrific time with James Vs. His Future Self. It’s worth the time to see it. It’s a delightful, fun film filled with many great comedic scenes and a knockout performance from Daniel Stern. Like I previously mentioned at the beginning of the review, sci-fi/comedy fans should be pleased and I highly recommend it.


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