Reviews

Follows the plot line of the book fairly close, and is generally a good "who dunnit". You will never guess who the murderer is--at least I didn't. The last portion of the film dealing with the St. Clair Chapel is where the movie gets a bit improbable. The underlying religious premise is questionable, but one does not need to believe it to find this movie worthwhile. The R.C.C. and Opus Dei don't come off too well in this movie--but I think they earned the portrayal they received--vicious, manipulative, stop-at-nothing types. Again, you don't have to accept this view of these organizations to find this movie worth the watch--you can merely accept them as the designated villains and that only some of the members of these organizations are vicious corrupt characters. In short, this movie can be watched at multiple levels, depending upon your own beliefs/biases.

There are some jarring scenes, including Silas' self-mortification and some of the murders--but what's a good "who dunnit" without some good murders? The violence and suggestions of violence are appropriate to the story. The shooting locations were excellent, the plot twists every bit as good as the book. Not sure why some critics panned it. I would say go watch the movie, form your own opinions and don't let any priest tell you what you should/should not watch. I would see it again.

I was home on Sunday afternoon with nothing to do...happened upon this movie by chance, decided to watch. Aston Kutcher has never been on my A list for TV or Movies, but this movie showed me he can act! The topic of time travel always interests me and this was a unique approach to the topic. As time travel movies always seem to prove the basic rule is that you can't change the past without significantly influencing the future. It's refreshing to see that this movie doesn't give it a "Back to The Future" or a "Dr. Who" treatment ('in the end it all turns out good' and that you can change the future without ill consequences).

This movie also has a jarring dimension in that you're never quite sure Kutcher is time traveling or if he's just mentally ill--in fact toward the end of the movie, I thought that was going to be the result, that he was simply crazy all the time. For some reason the book "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" kept coming to mind as I watched this movie.

This is a good movie to watch if you want some emotions stirred in you and if you like a plot that twists and turns all the way through...

This movie is visually jarring and in many ways disturbing. At the same time it probably points to a truth that similar "hunting operations" do exist in some odd pockets of this world for the ultra-wealthy, So, I don't consider this horror story pure fiction. It has a share of nudity (mainly women, why not also some of the men?) but the nudity is not really gratuitous because it adds to the plot line. That is the main problem with this movie though--there is a very thin plot here. Basically you know the plot from the advertising and there is no character development, no strange twists or turns (relatively speaking), no revelations, epiphanies--not even the seeds of a sequel. I think Amsterdam gets a slap in the face as only a place for sex and soft drugs--Amsterdam is a lovely city to visit, has a great deal of culture and is a place to experience just for the free attitude of its inhabitants. I thought it interesting that this movie was set in Slovakia--kind of hearkens back to the Frankenstein, Dracula horror movies--perhaps the movie is stereotyping that part of the world too? The guts and gore are not as bad as I heard, but they are still not for the faint of heart. This movie would most appeal to teenage boys I think. This movie is not a "Salo" (which had a plot and some artistry to it despite it being as disturbing as "Hostel") more on the order of a "Caligula". I went to see it out of curiosity, wouldn't see it again.

The Matrix was a marvelous head game played on the viewer--made you leave the theater wondering if you were living in the matrix or if it could be real. The sequel played no mind games on the viewer. Instead the viewer got all the action of a Bruce Lee kung fu movie, a lot of dazzling special effects, a disjointed story and an absolutely stupid celebration scene at Zion. This movie captured none of the essence of the original movie. The car chase scene which was interesting was already done in the French Connection, years ago, The only scenes that interested me really were those involving the Merovingian--mainly because he was an interesting character. This sequel so turned me off that I did not see and do not intend to see the third in the sequence.

This movie starts out with an obvious and long standing premise that bad boys (and girls) are the only ones who can start occult trouble. I guess I can forgive this film for using that tired old premise, if it only stopped there. Unfortunately it doesn't, Roger Clinton as "Mayor Bubba?" Who's idea was that? He didn't look like a Mayor of a dusty old town, let alone that dusty old town. He neither acted like a mayor, nor added anything to the film. At best he could be called a stupid, trivial and distracting interlude.

Jumping back to the black and white beginning (rip off of the technique first used by the Wizard of Oz), I know we watch these movies for blood and gore, but the opening scene when the deformed Tommy is chased down hanged, sliced and diced, then dumped down the old iron mine was truly shocking, I found my mouth hanging open and I am no pansy when it comes to violence, blood and guts. It was gratuitously violent, left nothing to the imagination and never even satisfied with a good explanation for why it occurred. Yes, we know in real life that there is gratuitous violence, some even unexplained as to its origin, but in the movies I think I'm entitled to an explanation why a group of teenagers in a dusty old town suddenly maim and lynch a deformed outcast.

I won't go into the acting--can't expect much in the way of great acting in a slice and dice horror flick. That hair style of Caran Kaye! Whew that broom on her head that passes for bangs--I actually found them distracting, staring to figure out how they got the hair to stand out like that.

I put this one right down there with Mom & Dad Save the Universe. Pass it up. The better movie is the original Pumpkinhead, holds together much better.

I like porn and I like art movies and I like history, but unfortunately this movie is really none of those things...its got perverted sex, elaborate sets & has an historical topic, but frankly it is the worst of all worlds. No wonder why some of the stars tried to get their names removed from it! Its boring and a waste of time.

One would do better to watch the history channel, rent a porn movie and see something on Turner Classic Movies rather than buy this worthless film. I do believe the makers of this movie believed they were making great art and that the acting was great and that's what makes this movie unbearable because it does take itself seriously and miserably fails.

This is the best version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol bar none. There are only two which come close for me--George C. Scott's version and Mr. Magoo's version! Anybody who disagrees is just wrong.

Whenever I can catch this movie, I take time out to do it.

I rated this movie a 3 and that was generous. The scenery is ponderous and gaudy, the acting for the most part is terrible. I do think Peter O'Toole did a good job of acting (Tiberius), but he must have been mortified when he saw the final cut of the movie. John Gielgud, howsoever brief his appearance in the movie, still seemed to be playing a role from Hamlet. The hard core pornography parts were neither erotic nor did they do much to further the story. Okay Malcolm McDowell had a nice butt and the guy who played Macro was handsome. The guy who played Claudius, looked more like the traditional depictions of Nero and was certainly at odds with Robert Graves' picture of Claudius. The climactic (?) assassination of Caligula, wife and child is inaccurate in that it shows him after death lying on stairs in an open-air area, when in fact he was assassinated in the underground passage on the palatine hill which ran along the front of the Domus Flaviana that still exists today. There are places in this movie where virtually anything drew my attention away from it--merciful distractions. If you want history, read Suetonius or Tacitus, if you want pornography and sadism, watch Passolini's "Salo", but by all means stay away from this movie.

I've read a lot of the other reviews of this movie and have to add my two cents here. Anybody critical of Glenda Jackson's portrayal of Elizabeth I is just plain wrong! If there is such a thing as reincarnation I suggest that Elizabeth came back as Glenda...not only were many of her lines historically accurate but Glenda has captured the conflict, the caprice, the indecisiveness, the intellect, the willpower, shrewdness and the brilliance of Elizabeth. Her portrayal of England's greatest queen is matched only by her own portrayal of the queen in "Elizabeth R." I guess that a trained shakespearean actress, like Glenda has been immersed in all things Elizabethan and reflects the time in general. Vanessa Redgrave, although a bit too old for the role of Mary in the earlier part of the movie did a good job at capturing Mary's character as well. The movie does well to illustrate the contrast between the women and why one was so successful, the other not. It takes license with history in that Elizabeth and Mary never met and Mary's captivity was almost two decades long. In my view one contrast, whether intentional or not, is that Mary is made to be a much more sympathetic character than Elizabeth--it seems to stress the womanliness of Mary and coldness of Elizabeth and it does quote the historically accurate line about her being barren, I think to reinforce this unfortunate contrast. Elizabeth was far more complex than portrayed and Mary was close to being an empty-headded ninny, at least in the political sense. The movie has beautiful scenery and some great shots. Well worth the watching.

My uncle recommended this movie to me recently and since we often share tastes I thought I would try it--I like Bonnie Bedelia and Delta Burke so I thought it would be interesting. (All I can say is "what was HE thinking?") It started off pretty slow and while it introduced some very interesting characters, the story line lacked big time. Delta Burke needed a bigger role (and perhaps should have been portraying Latrelle, although Bonnie was doing a good job with that character). We could have done without Olivia Newton John altogether and they needed to do more with Beau Bridges' handicap--I'll say nothing more about it so as not to spoil this for anybody who still wants to see this movie. I can only say that this movie resembled a mix of the Jerry Springer Show, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and maybe Kiss of the Spider Woman or Body Heat--all of which, including Jerry Springer, are better productions. They certainly did get down the Texas types, especially the women--big hair and often foul mouths (and yes I AM a New Yorker). The character portrayals were actually pretty good--Earl and his Tammy Wynette fetish was actually funny in a few spots and I thought Latrelle was well-portrayed by Bonnie Bedelia--and there was a development or two in her relationship to son Ty.

All in all this might be worth a watch for the characters, but otherwise the whole thing fell flat. I gave it a mercy 4 for the characters and pretty Ty.

Hey, Casper Van Dien and the rest of the cast certainly provide plenty of eye candy for this film, however, I don't see much more in it. First, we are given no indication of why these "bugs" are attacking humans...it would have been nice to supply more of a premise than the three or four lines spoken by a reporter about how the "bugs" resented human encroachment...just before the bugs kill him. WWII movies could get away without supplying the premise for why we were fighting WWII, because it is to this day universally known why, but I'm afraid that the WWII formula won't work in the Starship Trooper context, we need a plot including the premises for why this war started in the first place.

Next, let's look at the credibility of some of the things seen in this movie--Reporters standing in the middle of a combat mission? When was the last time you saw a Geraldo Rivera-type standing in combat uniform in the middle of an actual battle ground in a hot war? The Earth appears to have been politically united and science moved forward enough to get humans across our galaxy...yet the best weaponry we have are hoards of combat infantry armed with machine guns? And in terms of realistic warfare, we saw infantry without armored support, without air support and apparently only armed with a total of two grenades (which were used by Rico and Diz respectively to kill two big bugs). Eventhough conventional weaponry seems to have been the choice of this film maker (and I guess Heinlein) we see no weapons like the bazooka or surface to surface missles, mines or tanks. There is one shot of what looked like a light anti-aircraft gun in action...why is the weaponry so primitive given the backdrop of intersteller space travel? Even now we are experimenting with particle beams, lasers, biological warfare and things more sophisticated than a machine gun, for sure. Apparently, between now and the time this movie is set, we forgot a lot of science, except how to travel across our galaxy. Maybe they needed a formula for bug spray?

There are loose ends in this movie too--we needed some exploration of the difference between citizen and civilian...seems like some new definitions were being applied here, which again, were minimally or not at all explained.

One cannot help but notice the symbols used that so strongly resemble those adopted by the likes of the Nazis, Falangists and other fascists. Given that it seems the earth is being run by fascist types, one might like to see in this movie an answer to the question "Just what exactly is back on earth that the troopers are defending?" It doesn't seem like democracy and freedom play much of a role in this new world--one that is hardly explored by the movie-makers, but I could be wrong since the moviemakers never told us what was happening on Earth, other than Buenos Aires was destroyed and that there was some kind of federal council sitting in Geneva (perhaps an apt venue for a fascist dictatorship given evidence of Swiss complicity with Hitler, but I digress).

I could write reams on what I observed that is wrong with this movie. I'll refrain from saying anything more other than to comment that if you want a movie with no plot, with really no beginning and no end, with minmal character development and growth, no premise supporting its existence, showing you illogically waged warfare with lots of action, then this is the movie for you.

I for one would have skipped it had I known what was in store...but at least Casper and the other members of the cast were pretty to look at. I gave it a 4 just for Rico and Zander's looks....

This movie has the same traits as "Johnny Dangerously"--so outlandish that it worked! A wonderful spoof of the porn business, a jab at religions (which I find just delicious) and packed full of the same twisted sense of humor that we find in South Park. Certainly worth the watch at least once. And, I agree, the humor will be lost on kids and the subject matter is not appropriate for them anyway.

That's right I think this was dreadful--Matt LeBlanc's acting was poor, William Hurt seems too passive and not the man in control portrayed by Guy Williams and the kid who played Will was no Billy Mumy either. The first part of the movie plot was directly taken from the TV show and then somewhere in the middle it zooms off into left field. The movie was neither campy like the TV show, nor was it a sci fi movie that I could say I found any interest in. Dr. Smith was made to be far more sinister than Jonathan Harris's portrayal of the character (a coward, nelly queen, but soft inside) with no redeeming qualities--Gary Oldman is a very good actor--plays wonderful bad guys...but he wasn't right for this part, much too dark. If they hadn't tracked the original TV plot for half the movie, perhaps I wouldn't have found myself comparing it to the TV show so much. The inclusion of half the TV cast in different roles didn't help either...those actors should have been insulted. This condition set the picture up for failure in my opinion. It looks like this movie was done with a sequel in mind..one I hope is never made.