Hands up who's in the mood for a female-led, sci-fi film noir involving supernatural powers, medieval conspiracy, metaphysical questions of free will and complicated theories of simultaneous multiple existences. Everyone?

Let's take that as a yes. For it's time for the revival of the private dick genre! Here's Yesterday Was a Lie.

But this time, the hard-drinking, cynical detective with the gravelly voiceover happens to be a stunning blonde. A bit of a novelty.

And what's her case?

"A book! That hasn't been seen since the second world war!" says a breathless voice. Its relatively strong placement in the trailer suggests this is important. Its lettering suggests it's German. Was it hidden away from evil Nazi searches? Or hidden by evil Nazi types, in case of searches?

Whichever, it does suggest a longstanding conspiracy and/or mystery. But how longstanding is longstanding?

Very longstanding indeed. Because, although this film may be shot entirely in black and white, everyone's using spanking new Macs. It's just in black and white because … actually, I'm still not sure. Hopefully we'll work that out later.

But it's so easy to get distracted by the plot points that crop up every two seconds or so. "I keep coming across this term in the case I'm investigating. Fenestra Aeternitatis," remarks the blonde hottie. And it's at this point, as it all looks like it might get a little bit Dan Brown, that we start to get a bit worried.

Independent female private detective we could go with. Independent private detective using modern technology but classic photography – that was fine, too, once you'd got your head round it. But add more implausibles? Hidden Third Reich manuals? Creepy religious paintings? Batty riddles?

That's not the worst of it. Two-thirds of the way through, people suddenly start banging on about alternate realities, the ability to recognise other lifetimes and live them through dream states. And it's around then you start to suspect they may just have piled too much into one film. Particularly one in which they've only been able to afford a single light source.

Yep, it's true to the genre. But there's something odd about the idea of people who can afford iMacs and fancy hats, but can only splash out on one light and a room the size and shape of a letterbox. Effective – yes. Logical – not so much.

But then, you can hear the trailer-makers thinking, if this whole thing wasn't logical, it might be a more attractive trailer. It's actually quite good at the start, when you think it's about a foxy private detective meeting up with similars (also blonde and stunning, and wet from rain). But at that point there were only three genres jostling for space, not eight billion.

Blonde with gun. In hat, or not in hat. That's how they should have trailed this film. Stripped down, de-plotted, going big on the visuals and small on the detail.

Like that, Yesterday Was a Lie could have had me. As it turned out, Yesterday Was Confusing. In fact, Yesterday Was Way Too Much. And Tomorrow (whenever that may be) will be Me Going to See a Different Film.