I think when COVID rolled around, Benson and Moorhead fell off my radar. And that’s unfortunate because I liked everything by them that I had seen to that point. On the flipside, it not means there are a couple of titles of theirs that I need to catch up on, with Synchronic being one of them.

Set in the the same universe as Resolution, Spring and Endless, the story follows two EMTs, Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan). The pair are not only dealing with the static of their personal lives, Steve is dying from a brain tumor that has also kept his pineal gland from calcifying, and Dennis’ daughter, Brianna (Ally Ioannides) has gone missing.

Her disappearance may be connected to a new drug that is cauing overdoses and disappearances, synchonic.

As Steve digs into things, he learns that the drug interacts with an active pineal gland, and allows for movement in time. Different times can be accessed by different locations. Steve becomes increasingly convinced that Brianna is still alive, but trapped in another time.

He has a small collection of the drug so he needs to experiment carefully, and hopefully Brianna has left behind a clue to finding her.

It seems the drug is made from the same flower that is seen in The Endless, and smoked in Resolution. It also shows up frequently in Spring.

The pair of directors know how to handle their material and moments in the film walk the line between awe and horrifying. There’s also a moment that pissed me off royally, but I get why it was there.

The story rockets along, has some fantastic visuals, and the temporal transitions are very well done, and give us a different look for time travel.

Mackie delivers a solid and enjoyable performance, one of my favourite by him if truth be told. He struggles with his impending death, though it may be a blessing, as it is part of what allows him to time travel with the drug.

The visual effects and designs are solid, and well-executed, and Moorhead and Benson once again deliver an engaging tale that also asks you to think about things; time travel, life, death, our actions, our friends and families, and of course, how it all fits into the larger universe they are creating.

These guys are fantastic filmmakers, and have also gone on to do lots of work on Marvel television shows, but I hope they keep circling back to this shared unviverse, because I want to explore more of it.

I have one more film of there’s to check out after this, Something in the Dirt. This is a pair of creators that I will once again, eagerly follow.