Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you an action, sci-fi film from 2015, titled Parallels.
Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care. One night in a house in the suburbs, Alex Carver
is putting together an emergency bag while three dangerously looking men park in front of his home
and call out his name. Among all the essentials, Alex includes a strangely shaped package
wrapped in newspaper. The next day, MMA fighter Ronan Carver is losing yet another
match. After going through a doctor's check-up, his couch scolds him for not caring about winning,
choosing back-alley matches, and living out of a bag. Once the couch has paid him and left, Ronan
picks up his phone and finds a message from his dad, saying he needs to come home immediately and
enter "the building" on Sunday at 6:19 pm exactly. His voice sounds rather robotic, and on top of all
that, Alex and Ronan hadn't spoken in two years, so this is all very weird. But Ronan decides
to go home anyway, especially after his dad wouldn't return his calls. He enters his childhood
home using his old keys but doesn't find his dad there - he does find, however, his sister and
fresh college student Beatrix, who tells him their dad moved out a couple of months ago and
she hasn't seen him much since their mom died. The siblings realized they both received the same
message from Alex and agreed it was very strange, so together they search the rest of the house
for him. While looking inside the garage, they're approached by their neighbor Harry, who
is in love with Beatrix and works as a public defender. He tells them he's seen Alex around
but never interacted with him, he also mentions the men that were yelling in front of his house
last night. When they open the trunk, they find Alex's emergency bag, which he always had ready
when he needed to get out of town in a hurry. He's always traveled around for work, and his
kids didn't get to see him a lot. Inside the bag, they find various survival objects like a
knife and a flashlight, but most importantly, the package wrapped in newspaper. Inside there's a
strange black sphere that beeps and lights up when Ronan presses a button, and the newspaper that
it came in has an interesting headline as well, saying Clinton was assassinated and Gore took the
oath of office. Harry advises the siblings to go to the police and introduces them to his friend
Captain Stone, who sadly can't do much to help because there's no evidence of wrongdoing. After
promising he'll keep an eye out for their dad, he directs them to the building Alex described
and tells them that it is abandoned. Ronan, Beatrix, and Harry enter the building to find it
empty, just like Alex said. Ronan finds a paper bag with the brand "Dragon Burger", which doesn't
exist in this city, and Harry tries the elevator, but it doesn't work. The walls are covered with
graffiti that talk about different kinds of Earth: one where the Twin Towers fell on a different day,
one where all babies are born as twins, and so on. Suddenly, an alarm starts ringing as lights
flash around them, so the group rushes out of the building in fear. What they find outside is quite
a shock: the city has been devastated by a bomb, except for the building, which remains the same.
It couldn't have happened just now, because they would've heard it and, besides, the plants have
grown over the rubble, indicating the nuking is old. While freaking out, they see two people
walking by, so Beatrix tries to ask them for help, but they only get threatened with a gun and
told to stay back. At that moment, a roving patrol shows up in a truck and opens fire on the
strangers, so the trio runs back into the building for safety where the men don't dare follow them.
They start climbing the stairs, only to find them blocked after the seventh floor, so they enter
a room instead. Harry comes up with a theory that says the writings on the walls are real
and this building can take them to alternative versions of Earth, this is confirmed by a fourth
person suddenly appearing in the room: Polly, who proceeds to tell them everything she knows
while using some slang they aren't familiar with. The building is pretty big, and it has different
ins and outs. It jumps every thirty-six hours, and if you leave it, you have to make sure you'll
be back for the jump or you'd be abandoned in some random universe forever. Nobody knows how
many Earths are out there, but some people think every possible option exists. Polly is from one
of these many Earths and has been jumping around for a long time, so her advice when it comes to
a hostile world like this one is to stay hidden in order not to die. The group decides to sleep
to pass the time, but they are ambushed by an armed patrol led by Tinker, who takes them on a
truck to meet the boss of their local settlement. When they are entering the building, Harry sees
his mom but doesn't manage to make contact with her. The settlement leader turns out to
be an alternate version of Captain Stone, who tells them they avoid the building because
it's a dangerous place. Polly takes charge and convinces him that they are merely confused
travelers, but their cover blows up when Harry accidentally calls Stone by his name. Tinker
cuts in to accuse them of being dangerous, just like the guy that came out of there last
time and brought the nuke that blew up the city, so after the group fails to answer some
basic questions about the world they're in, Stone allows Tinker to interrogate them. Harry and
Polly are locked in a cage while the siblings are taken to a different room and handcuffed,
Beatrix to a chair and Ronan to a pipe. Furious, Ronan starts yelling and shaking his
body to try to break the pipe, so Beatrix brings up their mother as a way for him to stop. She
asks Ronan why he left after their mom died, and he replies he did to protect her from himself.
Beatrix starts scolding him for having left her to take care of their dad alone, but their
conversation is interrupted by Tinker's arrival. Beatrix tries to befriend Tinker to make him
lower his defenses, but he sees right through her. However, he stills answers her questions. He's
the man in charge of making and repairing things, he also does a bit of surgery every now and then,
but his real love is electronics. He also tells her about the nuke that blew up New York City and
killed his wife and daughter, plus the fact he's created a nuke of his own. Desperate to find the
person responsible for the bomb, Tinker shows them the recording from the security camera in front
of the building, and Beatrix recognizes it's Alex. Seeing as they may know something, Tinker starts
his interrogation by using a gun he's modified to adapt to any bullet. If Beatrix doesn't answer his
questions, he'll shoot Ronan. But his questions are all about her dad or the building, and she
doesn't know any of their secrets, so Tinker goes to put the gun directly on Ronan's chin.
Beatrix takes the chance to distract him by saying she'll talk, so when Tinker turns around, Ronan
uses an MMA move to knock him off. Afterward, he breaks the pipe and steals Tinker's keys to
uncuff himself and his sister while Tinker wakes up to active his bomb. Ronan knocks him out again
with a punch, then the two of them leave the room, taking Tinker's gun with them. Meanwhile,
at the cage, Polly is coming onto Harry. He doesn't know if taking her seriously or not,
but their talk is interrupted when the siblings arrive to rescue them. The group steals the
patrol's car after knocking out its caretaker and they leave the area while Stone and his men
find out Tinker has activated the bomb. He asks them not to follow them because he'll be using
the bomb to blow up the building, and he takes Stone's truck to take the nuke there. The stolen
car runs out of gas before they can make it back, so Ronan and the others run the last stretch
of the road as Tinker catches up with them. The group rushes inside and waits for the
building to jump, but seeing as the bomb is about to go off, Ronan apologizes to Beatrix for
everything. When the nuke finally explodes, the building makes its jump at the same time, safely
taking them to a new alternate Earth. As Ronan, Beatrix and Harry wake up from the jump, Polly
appears from a side corridor with her hair done differently and tells them there's no way to
return to their world as she takes them outside to find a more technologically-advanced version of
their Earth. It's not the future as Ronan thinks because the building can't time-travel, it's the
exact same day just in another reality. The group decides to split up to look for clues about Alex,
Ronan goes with Polly and Beatrix leaves with Harry. Unaware to them, Tinker has also come, and
he leaves the building right after they're gone. Beatrix and Harry stop by an electronics
store when Harry sees an extremely advanced cellphone and decides to buy it to resell
it in their world to some big-name company. The shop doesn't take his credit card, though, the
clerk asks for "bio" and makes him scan his hand. Surprisingly, it does work, and this Earth's
version of Harry appears on the screen. He takes the chance to look at his address, which
is only five blocks from the shop, before leaving with the phone. A second later, Tinker arrives
to purchase all of the store's electronics, which he manages to do through the hand scan
because this reality's Tinker is very wealthy. He stays in the shop and takes over the
back room so he can work on building something with everything he's bought.
On their way to Ronan's childhood home, Polly needs a reminder of all their names
and Ronan's connection to Beatrix. They stop by a food truck that sells something called
"crombies", and while waiting for their food, Ronan tells Polly how he doesn't fit in with his
family because they're all smart but he's just a jock. When he tries to pay the same way Harry did,
it doesn't work because he isn't in the system, which means the Ronan of this world doesn't exist
or is dead. They both leave before someone could call the police. Meanwhile, Beatrix and Harry make
it to the other Harry's apartment, which is very fancy and expensive because this Harry is a very
successful lawyer for an important corporation. Beatrix tries to use the laptop but she needs a
password, so Harry tells her his own in case they match: it's beatrix928, which is her name and her
birthday. It does work, and Beatrix searches for information about her dad: it turns out that in
this reality, Alex died three months ago while working at the building. The article mentions her
mom, who also died, and Beatrix herself, but there are no mentions of Ronan. Harry gets a surprise
as well when he reads some e-mails on the other Harry's tablet and finds out he's been suppressing
evidence of deaths caused by the corporations his other self works for. He considers the idea of
sending these e-mails to the news to expose him, but at that moment, the lights and machines in the
apartment start malfunctioning: it's Tinker, who is trying out his machine and causing the whole
city's electric system to fail. Beatrix decides it's time to leave, but Harry stays behind to send
those e-mails, although he can't bring himself to do it. However, he changes his mind when this
world's Beatrix shows up and reveals they're married, inspiring him to do the right thing.
After sending the information, he leaves as well. Ronan and Polly reach his childhood home and get
inside thanks to Ronan's old keys matching this house as well. There's nobody home, so while
having a snack, Ronan shows Polly the strange sphere his dad left him. Polly explains that kind
of technology can only come from the Core World, which is the reality where the building
was built but nobody has ever visited. Ronan wonders how his dad obtained it and uses
the slang Polly used earlier, but this time, she doesn't recognize it. They check out Ronan's room,
which obviously doesn't have his things because he doesn't exist here, and Polly calls it "parallel
universe deja vu". After she messes with him, Ronan confesses what happened with
his mom. He used to have a bad temper, and this one time when they were driving
home, a truck ran them off the road. Furious, Ronan left the car and dragged the other
driver through the truck window to wail at him, so when his mom tried to come closer to stop
him from killing the driver, she was hit by a car. Crying, Ronan admits he blames himself for
her death and that's why he left his sister, who had to postpone her college plans because
of it. When Polly tells him to get used to how different yet similar the world can be, Ronan
gets an idea and goes to the garage to check inside the car trunk, his hunch is proven right
when he finds his dad's emergency bag. This time, however, the newspaper doesn't have anything
inside except a message telling Ronan to get out. At that moment, a car parks outside and the three
armed men that were looking for Alex the previous day start calling for him now as well. They even
enter the house, but because they split, Ronan sneaks behind two of them and knocks them out. The
third one is brought down by Polly, who uses some kind of taser that she found in another reality.
Polly doesn't know who these guys are, but she's seen them around in other worlds and knows they're
dangerous, so they need to leave immediately. After seeing the other Harry being harassed by
reporters on the big street screens, they enter the building and find Tinker is already there with
his new machine. He explains he survived the nuke because he hid inside the building, and now he's
here to ring the bell. There's no way the creator of the building has left such a powerful thing
alone, so he suspects this person must be on one of the blocked floors. Tinker uses his machine
to hack into the building's system and give it some electric shocks, making it shake until Harry
and Beatrix show up and she points his gun at his head. Ronan convinces her to let him finish since
this could bring him answers, and Tinker continues to increase the shocks until the elevator door
rings. The person that comes out of it surprises everyone: it's Alex, who tells Tinker he's the
first person to even connect to the building like this and that he should take the elevator
if he wants answers for why his Earth was nuked. After Tinker leaves, Alex comes closer to reunite
with his children as Polly backs away from him. Alex explains he's always tried to shield
them away from the building and that he's been traveling for a long time. He and their mother
don't come from the Earth Ronan and Beatrix grew up in, they just went there when they decided to
stop traveling in order to protect their kids. He also tells them not all of their mother is
dead, so they should find her and give her the sphere he left Ronan because she's the only
one that knows how to get to the Core World. This is important because the person who created
the building is gone and nobody is running it now - the upper floors are empty. Tinker's
machine is the key to starting their search, it'll help them find their mom. Speaking
of Tinker, he is coming back to them, but as soon as the door opens and he calls Alex a
liar, Alex takes the gun from Beatrix and shoots him before leaving. Beatrix intends to follow him
but the lights of the building start flickering, announcing a jump. The group rushes to
Tinker's machine and looks at the screen, which is currently displaying thousands
of lines that represent possibilities. Ronan chooses one at random and the building
jumps, so he, Beatrix, and Harry go outside to see what kind of Earth they're at now.
Polly stays behind to meet with two other Pollys that have been hiding in the building
all along, and they play rock-paper-scissors to see who will go with the group next, even
exchanging their jackets to keep up the ruse.