Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man (movie)

Either I've been watching more intellectual films of late, or I'm becoming stupider.

This is another cinematic outing that I just did not understand the plot of. Carl's body is covered in tattoos, sorry, "skin illustrations", and he's out to find and exact revenge upon the mysterious woman who drew them.

Carl's temper makes him an unlikable lead character, but this does lend the film an edge of realism. We get several short stories from his past life with said woman, which seem to suggest that he married her and travelled to the future, where they had kids, he joined the army, and then they put their kids to sleep to save them from the end of the world. That's the only narrative that I can make out, but it makes little sense because they could have saved their kids by travelling back in time with them.

It might be that these were just unconnected tales that had been illustrated on his body, but I thought the reuse of the same actors, particularly the same children, implied otherwise.

The final space on his body, he says, displays the death of whoever stares at it long enough. So of course Willie stares at it, and sees Carl murdering him, although Carl doesn't look injured yet in it.

The individual chapters are absorbing, and it's a shame that more wasn't made of some of their great ideas, such as the virtual reality machine that develops such a threatening undertone. Overall though, I'm afraid I found that this required more patience than it rewarded for.