I had decided not to bother with this movie after reading the reviews here. Then circumstances left me with this or a couple of hours of crosswords. The plot varied only little from the original. Back then, the message was 'do what you like here but expand your warlike ways into space and it's goodbye'. Now the message is "you've screwed the planet, there aren't many livable one's around, so you've gotta go". The point wasn't belabored, it was simply stated. Klaatu accepted the verdict of a predecessor that we were incapable of change. This was confirmed by his own brief experience here and so he triggered our doomsday. Then he saw another side to us and made his own decision to halt the already underway destruction. The plot, outwardly simple and seemingly in danger of being a 'greenie' message, did not descend to preaching. It was well paced, well acted and with good special effects without depending on special effects. I would have liked more of John Cleese however.
Reviews
12 Reviews
300
(2006)
Another mutilation
6 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Why don't filmmakers read a bit of history rather than ask themselves what would appeal to a 13 year old. No Spartan mother would need to be held back as her son went to the agoge. Spartan kings were exempt from the agoge. The agoge was not a 'dump them in the wilderness' thing, it was a controlled and disciplined training regimen. Add to this that the ephors were depicted as dirty old men on a mountaintop. They weren't. They were elected magistrates with much power and respect. So the historical errors piled up quickly. The Gothic atmosphere didn't belong at all. The battle scenes were quite good mostly, except that Spartans didn't fight with the main aim being to display their abs and pecs. They wore breastplates and other protection. The Persian 'mad giant' was a stupid addition, as were the elephants and rhino. Xerxes was utterly ridiculous. Neither would he have put himself within sword range of leonidas, who would have killed him without hesitation and thus ended the whole invasion. Overall, this movie was ninety percent junk and belongs in the lower B grade horror genre.
Alien vs. Predator
(2004)
Lightweight but good
28 February 2005
Warning: Spoilers
It tried to fit too much into too short a timeframe. Didn't allow for much development. Yet it moved along briskly with only a few obvious flaws. The humans died quickly but the predators didn't have many victories either. Two of them bombed out at first encounter and the last was a goner after his first kill. Fortunately for this last one, aliens gestate much slower in a predator than in a human so he was able to rack up a few more scores before his waterloo. I didn't get to count much but it seemed there were more aliens than hosts to create them. And how did big mamma survive the explosion and cave-in? I loved the scene where the alien slithered menacingly up behind a predator, ready for the coup de grace. A flash of movement from the predator and then for a couple of seconds the alien stands transfixed, it's lips making funny little movements. Then it's head falls of and it collapses. OK, so it wasn't original, but still... Overall, it was a watchable movie. Big mamma's down there in the depths somewhere waiting to be discovered... for a sequel? Oh yes, and that middle name of Bishop for the man who played Bishop in two Alien flicks.
The Notebook
(2004)
Absolutely unforgivable emotional twaddle
21 February 2005
This movie fails on every level. I can't recall ever seeing such trivial drivel pathetically attempting to masquerade as a meaningful story. The plot? There wasn't one. The characters? Stupid and shallow. Good points? That it finally ended. Why I watched it to the end? The hope that beats eternal. Don't waste your money, not even as a weekly video for two bucks. If it comes on free-to-air, bypass it. The last movie I recall that was as bad as this was Kramer versus Kramer. This was an attempt to take a teenybopper B grade comic-book love story and turn it into a meaningful movie. For whom? Pre-pubescent fairytalers probably, and I imagine it even failed for them.
Lifeforce
(1985)
Not as good as the book but good enough
5 June 2003
Colin Wilson's book 'Space Vampires' was a bit of a spin-off of his earlier book 'The Mind Parasites'. The book was good and whilst the movie deviated somewhat (less philosophy to think about, more special effects to look at) I thought it quite good too. Certainly, to get an acceptable movie they couldn't have done much else than make the changes they did.
K-19: The Widowmaker
(2002)
Great movie
21 November 2002
Not so much a true telling of the incident, but rather the whole sorry story of Soviet submarine warfare built around a fictionalised account of one episode. After wasting my time and money on the most recent of the Star Wars debacles this one was a real refresher. There were no boring parts, no slow-downs, no feeling of cartoonish simplicity. After seeing the movie I bought the book, also worth having.
More junk
4 June 2002
Too wrapped up in special effects and marketable toys. Childishly simplistic and tedious. Boring, aged plot with stereotypes like the evil Count (or was he a Duke, I forget). Something like a 50's B-grader. One out of ten.
Planet of the Apes
(2001)
A good one, a mixture of gothic horror and adventure.
12 August 2001
OK, so there was a flaw. He went forward in time and his base stayed on same time. So the ending didn't fit. The only way to make the ending fit was for him to have gone back in time and his base ship to have gone even further back. Then, when he returned to his own time that black ending would have been feasible (he should have stayed and finished the job). If you pretend this dating then the events were consistent and feasible (given acceptance of time travel, etc.) Either way it was a top movie. The apes were more primitive than in the original; no guns, and their behaviour was more ape-like. There was a gothic atmosphere to the ape culture which I liked, and the kind of individual variation in attitudes that could be expected of any culture. There's always material for dedicated flaw-hunters but I'd give this one 8.5 out of 10.
The Puppet Masters
(1994)
OK, but the book was worthy of much more
9 August 2001
Hollywood can't do science fiction. It's tendency to go for the spectacular is probably forgivable since the target audience is aged about 15. This film was ok but given the budget and the right director this book could have made a really great movie. Pity.
Red Planet
(2000)
Among the better sci-fi of recent times
12 June 2001
The usual technical flaws are there of course (even half a century from now movie electric circuitry still hasn't invented fuses and you get lots of sparking. The Russian escape vehicle looked big enough to lift off the moon, but not Mars, etc.), but it's good sci-fi, miles better than Mission to Mars. A couple of times it seemed to teeter off the rails into B-grade (robot behaving a bit too Alien-ish, bugs burrowing into flesh) but it held onto plausability. The plot was entertaining enough and, if you got rid of the space-jock, the characters were good. The special effects were tops. I'd give it 7.5 out of 10.
Battlefield Earth
(2000)
Not a stinker at all
29 April 2001
After all the adverse publicity I expected a really bad one, but watched it anyway because I don't recall seeing a bad Travolta movie. I was surprised. The plot wasn't that original but it was OK. Travolta played too tongue-in-cheek and the dialogue was too modern-day corporations-versus-people type of thing. But the movie was quite good. If they'd just left out that ludicrous bit about learning to fly jet planes in seven days (in fact, leave the jets out altogether) it would have seemed less Independence-Day'ish. Overall I'd give it a seven.
Chicken Park
(1994)
Bloody awful, but....
15 February 2001
Think of 'Chicken Park' and 'Kramer vs Kramer'. I would rather watch Chicken Park again, at least it didn't pretend to be anything more than a quick, cheap rip-off. And there were some mildly amusing parts, and a fairly attractive chick (human variety) who bared her breasts. El cheapo and too dependant on tiresome sexual referencing trying unsuccessfully to be funny, but tolerable because it knew it was bad.
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