"Because I'm the director, that's why."

Movies about science, scientific discovery, its consequences, its unfathomable beauty, can be incredibly compelling.

Or, they can be Primer.

Not that I hated Primer. In many ways I truly admired it. But I never really engaged with it and since movies are, after all, an emotional medium, that’s a problem.

Primer is about two guys who make a break-through scientific discovery, something with big implications, something that could get them everything they’ve ever wanted. The trailer makes a big deal about not telling you what it is and I suppose I should respect that, but . . . okay, it’s a time machine. (Hey, at least it’s better than a Segway.)

At the beginning of the movie there are four guys, all spending their spare time in one guy’s garage, trying to invent something that will make them all rich. (If you’re an engineer, that’s what garages are for, after all. Just ask Steve Jobs.) Two of the guys accidentally invent the time machine and decide to keep it for themselves. This seems like it’s going to be important, but isn’t. They start to use it to go back and make killer stock buys, which is exactly what I would do. (If I understood the stock market. But if I had a time machine I’d have an incentive to learn, wouldn’t I?) Then things get weird, or weirder, depending on how you’ve felt about the movie up until this point and the invention leads our brainy heroes in directions they hadn’t anticipated.

Seems like a lot of work to invent a new hot-air hand dryer.

As I said, in some ways I really do admire this movie, and not just because first time writer/director Shane Carruth (who also stars) made it for about a buck fifty. Spare by necessity, Primer has a raw, bare bones feel that focuses attention on the essentials of plot and character.

But that’s kind of the problem. The plot feels more like a concept and the characters are under-developed. I was curious about these guys but was left with more questions than answers. The story is unsatisfying and stubbornly obscure. Funny movie-going experience: after the lights came up, nobody in the theater got up right away. All through the auditorium there were pairs of people trying to explain the movie to each other. (Not many pairs, but I’m not holding that against the movie.) I’m not averse to a puzzler of a film if I think it’s worth the time to puzzle over, but Primer just isn’t.

Still, it held my interest while I was watching it, and that’s an accomplishment when you consider that so much of the dialogue is techno-speak that may as well have been a series of clicks and buzzes for all I understood of it. Carruth does a good job with the build-up, but like his characters in search of the elusive venture capitalist, he needs to work on the pay-off.

Gorilla Pants rating: 2 out of 4 bananas