Reviews

Always had great, vivid memories of The Thing, but having watched it after a gap of 30 years, it pains me to conclude that it is not a great horror/sci-fi flick. The required atmosphere that should inspire feelings of bleakness, profound loneliness, terror, and paranoia never is established. It is further undermined by compulsive wise-cracking that even takes the terror out of having (though never shown) 2 team members hanging upside down and drained of blood!. I was rooting for The Thing to take out the reporter. Well-acted, but it is afraid to go into the black depths that truly great 50s sci-fi do (e.g. Body Snatchers). Far too hollywood-ized with the bolted-on comic romance, relentless quips. Never establishes the atmosphere it should: people living in tunnels in a desolate place where no one can help them and facing an unknown, evil, and intelligent force, and not being able to even trust your companions.

A cheap and dishonest movie that exhibits no love for film-making or for Citizen Kane, but instead goes for an overly-dramatic story at the expense of truth and the character of the people involved. The distortions are too numerous to list, however the worst is completely missing the passion and genuine charm of Orson Welles, instead portraying him as a nasty, brutish brat. What a wasted opportunity to explore the tempestuous and amazingly creative people who produced a landmark film.

A movie rigged from the start to be a preachy, predictable bore. Would have been far more interesting if there were cultural differences between the white daughter and the black suitor. Instead, there is just basically two people from highly-educated, successful, good families that are not very different after all. Would have been far more interesting if there was a clash of cultures. This movie begs to be re-made today.

The Bad:

1. Katherine Hepburn looking 'dewy-eyed' scene after scene, enough!. Was here whole career success due to the ability to well-up tears in her eyes on cue?. 2. The actor playing the half-witted daughter was just awful, not only annoying, but who could believe that the Poitier character would find her interesting or that they could really be in love?. 3. Is this the worst set design ever in a movie?. 4. Tracy can act, but this is just a one-note narrow performance. Good actor wasted with a stupid script. 5. I deeply resent the male-bashing undercurrent of the movie. Women are just vessels of virtue and wisdom, while the men plod around dragging their knuckles and acting on prejudice.

The Good:

1. Hollywood's out of touch depiction of the 60s culture is always great for unintentional laughs, and this movie is full of them. That delivery boy should have gotten an academy award, not Hepburn. 2. Poitier is good, but looks pained throughout the movie, like he knows he is making a bad movie. Good scene where he confronts his father, the movie needed a lot more truth like that.

Made with little subtlety, grace, or wit, suffers from the same disease as Shawshank in seeking profundity in every vignette. Whereas I could overlook some of the preposterous and contrived situations in Shawshank and just enjoy the movie, the Green Mile just seemed contrived except for a few scenes and characters. Of course it has redeeming qualities about it, namely Duncan's performance and the gripping execution scenes.

I like Shawshank alot despite its flaws, however The Green Mile is just plain mediocre, not one I would ever want to sit through again. It could have been a decent 90 minute movie. The far too long and frequent mouse vignettes detracted and cost the movie momentum, there is no need to show a guy pee 10 times in the movie, we understand that it hurts when he pees, enough already!. The evil prison guard was just far too simple and one-dimensional a character to the point of absurdity which eliminates the impact of his comeupance at the end, contrast this with the very satisfying end to Shawshank's prison warden (a far more interesting, faceted, and believable character). The end was diluted as well, I think the movie went a scene too far at the end into some fuzzy preaching, as a viewer it really wasn't necessary, the impact of Duncan's end on the Hanks character and the viewer is strong and moving and the movie should have ended there instead of having a scene to explain to the audience (as if to a slow fifth-grader) the truth of the moment.

The sad and tragic development of this terrible disease is certainly a good subject for a great movie, but this is not it. Modine was not a good choice, and the movie does not grab you like it should. Also, it is too easy to paint the government so broadly as the bad guy, governments and big businesses act slowly due to inertia and soul-draining bureacracy, not always out of homophobia. Also, the responsibility of the gay community itself should not have been soft-pedaled, they 'played on' too long as well as others, namely the refusal to accept and deal with the risk brought on by promiscuous lifestyles within their community. A better and more powerfully written script and acting combined with a more honest and courageous examination of the early days of aids could have achieved greatness.

Have watched this several times on cable, had never heard of it and was pleasantly surprised. Sarah Polley is a very good and appealing actor and her character in this movie is fascinating. The movie is shocking at first by attacking the closed mindedness of the liberal orthodoxy of thought at universities today and the oppurtunists that use charges of racism to squelch dissent. Catherine Chapman thinks and says many things early in the movie that many people think secretly but are afraid to say for being branded, this is highly unusual for any film these days to face reality head on like this.

Unfortunately, this courage dwindles at the end and the producers of the movie play to the grandstand like all mainstream movies do and create cartoonish, reprehensible, easy to hate skinhead nazis as bad guys and Catherine repents. How disappointing, I wish the movie had continued to explore the gray areas of racial politics, where what is 'right' is not so clear as when nazis are involved, but rather there are intelligent people who have a legitimate argument against an entrenched political correctness and have a right to be heard without fear of being treated like pariahs by the establishment.

Satisfying, good movie, but the only great part of this movie is the magnificent performance by Morgan Freeman. An apparently inspired Tim Robbins rises above his very mediocre talent and delivers an adequate performance. Ham-handed attempts at profundity in every scene get tiring as is the use of every prison movie device, character, and cliche in the history of hollywood.

Not as scary as I expected, but you gotta love a movie like this while Hollywood is either re-making old movies poorly, making feature movies out of lame TV shows, or dumping millions into special effects. I hope some day soon the fat cats like Lucas and Spielberg who haven't had an original thought in 20 years will stop getting all the hype and movies like this that are original and interesting will be a priority in Hollywood.

What a shame. Could have been the greatest of all westerns if not for the inexplicable ending. The ending invalidates the whole movie!. The hatred and tension between Clift and Wayne turns out to be nothing at all, so what was the point of the movie?....I can't believe that such a good movie could have such an anti-climactic and truly insulting ending. Very sad.

Didn't expect anything out of it, but somehow got drawn into it despite flaws, it kept my attention. Not great, but somehow entertaining. Probably due to good and quirky action movie character actors. Only things that made me sick were the Liv Tyler character and the embarrassingly bad Aerosmith song at the end of an otherwise good soundtrack. >

Great western, maybe the best ever. Far better than the monstrously overrated 'Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'. Wayne is terrific as the aging, bitter, violent but courageous Ethan, who is a much more interesting figure than most John Wayne roles because he is a flawed hero. Ethan is weary and has lost heart at the beginning of the movie, and finds a bit of his heart at the end, but you never feel that Ethan is a saint. Only real weak link is Jeffrey Hunter who is not convincing.

Mostly enjoyable movie, but hardly a 'great' movie. I am most disappointed by the lack of depth in the Grace Kelly and Cummings characters, which are both one-note uninteresting roles. Grace Kelly is wasted in a passive, weak, and vapid role which relegates her to the status of window dressing (not that there is anything wrong with that!), she might as well be a nice looking piece of furniture in this movie. The Cummings role is wasted as the passion between him and Kelly is not developed, and amazingly, the tension that would exist between Milland and Cummings is never apparent!. This guy was sleeping with Milland's wife, but you would think they were best friends. What a waste. Would have been a lot more interesting if Kelly and Cummings were not such bland, cardboard harmless people and were a little more human, with real emotions (jealousy, hatred, passion, even a little evil).

Milland makes the move interesting to watch as he sets his plan in motion with great charm and flair. Unfortunately, as he is the only interesting character, you kind of feel bad when he is caught in the end and the two sappy characters prevail. Oh well, it could have been a lot more 'noir' if they had not glossed over the fact that Kelly and Cummings are far from the sweet innocents they are portrayed.

Typical of the sappy, touchy-feely, moronic, bland, stupid, formulaic, contrived, manipulative, and cliche-ridden movies that Hollywood shovels up for us to eat. Particularly tough to watch is the repulsive chracter Gillian, who I was desperately hoping would be killed off. Please, enough with these 'girls just want to have fun' movies, how about some intelligence?...does Hollywood really believe that 'girls just want to be dumb'?.

What could have been an intriguing theme, liberals self-destructing as a result of their own all-consuming moral rectitude and arrogance, is undermined by a very superficial and unintelligent treatment. Even the old warhorse philosophical question 'would you kill Hitler' is trotted out. This movie needed a much more intelligent script and some real actors (appallingly bad!).

I don't get it. Not a bad movie, but I must have missed something, I do not understand why all the hype or why it is considered a 'great' movie. The emperor has no clothes. A couple of laughs, I guess a nice message about living a life with quiet dignity, and a bunch of absurd and nonsensical stuff thrown in for no apparent reason. Interesting when shining a light on the destructive, hypocritical, and hedonistic underside of the 60's movements, should have kept it going instead of getting too silly.

Never saw the first two installments (star wars, empire) and after watching this movie, I have no desire to ever see the first two. Let me get this straight, a bunch of cute, cuddly teddy bears beat the Evil Empire by hitting them with logs?...er...sorry, that doesn't pass the sniff test.

Why in hell did they sell out and go for a Disney type of ending?. I thought Star Wars was supposed to be 'cool'. Even all the dead people came back for the (apparent) cast party at the end. Could they be any more manipulative?. And thanks to the producers for implanting that damn eewok song in my brain, I have not been able to get it out of me head for years, it is driving me mad.

Anyone else sick of contrived story lines and thin plots used as opportunities for Robin Williams to ham it up for 2 hours?. His act is tired and formulaic, he is a sad parody of himself.. They should have just cut the bull and named the movie 'Robin Williams'. This way, they could have 'RW 2', 'RW VII'. etc. and the studio could drop the pretense that they have a story to tell and stop fooling movie goers into coughing up $7.00 to see Robin's tired stand-up act. Yech.

A solid, enjoyable movie, not spectacular but generally well done. I did not expect to like it, as I despise the 'lawyer as hero' simple-minded theme that one usually finds in Hollywood legal movies. The character acting far exceeds the acting of the actors in the primary roles, leading one to root for the bad guys a little.

So bad that it tarnishes the whole series. Seems like a rip off of the previous two, as if some other film maker had tried to copy Coppola's style. Cliche-ridden, poor story, poor acting, passionless film-making, uses the same dramatic devices and dialog of first 2 movies, complete lack of originality, a movie that should not have been made, Coppola's cupboard is bare. He over-mined this theme.

This is a top 5 favorite movie for me, improbable that this was made, good acting, great music and atmosphere. If they had just clipped out that one awful scene where James Earl Jones gets up and makes a speech about baseball. The scene is contrived, seems phony and makes one cringe. This would be a near perfect movie if they had chopped that scene.