“Collide” opens, in earnest, with a preamble about reasons. The narration comes immediately. “We all have our reasons,” says protagonist Casey Stein (Nicholas Hoult), “and mine is love.”
Currently trapped inside a flipped over car — we’ll get to that later — Casey is alive right now because of love. That intangible magic he says “we all believe in.” It’s a broadly appealing sentiment with which to begin a film, but it also illuminates the script’s unending search for, ironically, reason.
I don’t subscribe to the notion that a piece of art shows its entire hand within its first ten minutes; there are plenty of quality movies with less than auspicious beginnings.