Reviews

I love this series but Tom Hughes is terrible in the role of Albert. To compare, watch the films Young Victoria and Victoria & Albert and the actors who played a more believable Albert. I would be happy to see Hughes replaced on future seasons. I would also fire the hair stylists and costume dept. Albert was impeccable about his hair and clothes.

Hughes is a negative personality who whispers his way through his role as his unkempt hair dangles in front of his face as he hovers over Victoria and constantly berates her. He shouldn't be kept simply because he is dating the star.

Hughes has a dark personality and does not represent the real Prince Albert. His hair, persona and attitude are offensive on screen. He should be acting in Jack the Ripper movies. He is ruining this series.

Secondly, historical films should be historically accurate. It is one thing to fill in dialog for continuity and quite another to use creative license to completely falsify events such as the affair of Ernst. It should be illegal to falsify events in historical films about real people such as was done in another film showing Albert as falsely shot by an assailant. No excuse. It should be illegal and any screenwriter, director or producer who deliberately engage in falsifying historical events should be banned from the film and TV industry.

Other than that, I love the series and hope it continues with the exception of the issues I mentioned.

This is a movie about diamond smuggling and Keanu is a diamond appraiser and a go between. It mostly involves the Russian Mafia and a small interaction with the FSB (KGB) and the married Keanu meets a Russian girl while he travels between Russian cities and waits for his supplier & contacts.

The movie is painfully slow and boring as he waits around from his AWOL contact for the diamonds. The action consists of his getting beat up and left in the cold to freeze. Heckled by the girls brothers because she took him home and they thought the worst. Sex every 5 minutes because she wants to get back at her brothers who thought the worst. They don't show any body parts. Just kinky behavior or places. And then the FSB gets into the picture and Keanu gets blackmailed and caught between them and the gangsters. The ending was really rotten' especially after suffering through a horribly slow, boring movie.

The actors did their best despite a horrible script and worse directing because the director also approved the script and then made it worse. The script writer and director should limit their careers to the porn industry since that seems to be their only interest. I doubt any respectable film would hire them after this. I feel sorry for Keanu but I don't know whether this porn theme was to his taste or not. Pardon the pun.

First: Film Makers need to understand that people who like a steady diet of porn or sex will be buying their movies from a porn store. Not watching movies. The focus of this movie does not appeal to anyone who would watch it. Nor would the 5 or 6 acts of sex (every 5 minutes) appeal to the porn addicts without showing any body parts but do their best to imply kinky acts and places. Porn lovers aren't interested in a story line, only sex, so why pursue this type of story line which offends both the regular audience and the porn lovers at the same time. So nobody likes it and they get nothing but bad reviews from being totally out of touch with their target audience.

Second: Keanu looks terrible in a beard. I realize the actors who are straight wear beards in Hollywood so they wont get hit on as much but it looks terrible and ratty and adds 15 to 20 years to their age.

Third: It was so painfully slow and boring as we watched Keanu fly back and forth between Russian cities and sit waiting at each place while the background actors have to carry the film until they give Keanu something to do, since that is how the script was written and not his fault. Then they add a Russian girl to the formula whose behavior doesn't warm her to the audience. This is the fault of the script writer and director. Not her. Then they have Keanu who allows her to be disrespected on the utmost of unforgivable levels... at which point he loses the respect of the audience... which was already hanging by a thread due to the issue of cheating on the wife.

Fourth: This is truly a horrible job of script writing. The story theme was thin, Cagney corny, a subject of diamond smugglers right out of the 1940's which is of no interest to the audiences and a pitiful lack of action and plot. Plus the really rotten ending. There was less than 2 minutes of Keanu showing us his trade (out of bed). The film makers & scriptwriters need to learn to create movies that the audience likes. Not what they like. But as far as the script goes, there is no dialogue, no story beyond the diamond transaction and the Russian girl to fill the time. There is no reason Keanu should be wasting his talent on movies like this. He should get a better agent and find better movies before he loses his appeal. He also needs to shave the beard and mustache. It is quite awful and would be hard to get a decent acting job with it. Maybe another Sci-Fi film and a better writer and director.

Fifth: However, the audience would have liked to have seen a movie actually made in Russia with a story about the interactions of the citizens, the gov't, the authorities and how they live and function on a personal level and the misbehavior of our CIA and Corporations taking advantage of them. And the aftereffects of their changing gov't and lifestyles... without the sex and only a brief reference to the mafia. We don't need to see another boring shootemup story again. Nor an FSB torture nor a focus on politics. It needs to be a character driven story with a character like Dobrynin with his humorous remarks to JFK and Haig.

Dr Zhivago was a big hit so there is an audience for it. Telefon was also a good movie to watch as was the film SALT. Perhaps with a touch of humor like the Get Smart film and Yellow cake (Uranium).

However I cannot recommend this movie to anyone. Not even for Keanu's sake. It is the movie and the script problems. Not his acting. Actors have to follow the script and the direction they are given. Clearly Keanu has a bad agent which he needs to change ASAP and stay away from sex oriented movies and gangster films.

The Audio, video, editing & actors all did a great job on this disaster film. However, the screenplay character behavior needed work. Clearly, a third rate scriptwriter. The story was good but the behaviors had these good actors running around & breaking into gov't facilities to save the world as the clueless FBI agents & gov't minions chase after them with guns.

Once again, the roving gang of bullies tries to trash another Scifi film... just for the fun of it. These worst movie critics are juveniles & crazies trying to get attention & attacking any film too smart for the peebrain or getting revenge on their parents generation by trashing decent movies.

A high school grade C script on character behaviors. But still a pleasant film to watch. No battles, blood or violence. Just meteors wreaking havoc upon the earth & the whistleblower trying to stay ahead of the authorities & disasters. His family doesn't understand him. Their shallow needs are paramount.

A standard disaster story, so you can watch it with your family. Similar to the movie Earthquake in the 70's.

I recommend this movie for viewers over 40 who are not looking for violence or factual scientific realism.

This underrated movie had excellent Quality in every aspect except perhaps screenplay. The photography, Audio & editing are comparable in quality to any top rated scifi. It also had recognizable Stars like John Beck (Mark Grayson on Dallas). It also had some fairly decent effects.

The story was good regarding 2 engineered creatures from a CIA front company. One creature sent to Mars kills the astronauts. A second creature, stolen using sophisticated methodologies which gets loose. Inside job. Agents & developers sent to find it.

Here are the weak points in the screenplay. Dumb character behaviors such as putting their hands in creature goo, wearing no protection, having no weapons when sneaking up on it (such as a freeze gun or flame thrower or chemical deterrent) until the end.

Scientists can't describe their own creation, have no sense of urgency, have bad attitudes and are of no help, 3 ignore their own tracking device alerting the creatures presence, and go right where they shouldn't (even though they know it is there & just killed their teammates). The town is not evacuated & no military presence (probably lack of budget.) Town cop locks up gov't & NASA agent. Gov't agent is a bad version of a 007 wannabe (not the actors fault). The screenplay must have been written by an untrained neophyte.

Except for the screenplay, this movie is excellent quality. Better than the junk films getting hundreds of millions which can't compare to this underrated film. The critics sound like 10 year olds who trash things as bullies wanting attention. This film doesn't deserve the treatment this roving gang of underage neophytes & bullies are dishing out.

This movie was shamelessly included as one of two bonus movies on a DVD which was only listed after you started the DVD. Yet the real rotten movies far worse always seem to get their own DVD with great artwork & disappointment when you start them. There are bad movies, but this isn't one of them.

People also need to remember the actors are following a specific script, dialogue, behavior & setting. They are following script & direction. They do what they are told by the script & director. Not making it up as they go along.

Don't listen to people who deliberately trash good films like beating up a school mate just for the fun of it.

This came on an Asteroid DVD at Walmart. I highly recommend the film. Especially to those who loved 50's & 60's & 80's scifi. The story; reminds me of an Outer limits episode, The Voyage Home, in the 90's where a creature from Mars came back with the Astronauts (One was Michael Dorn, Worf from Star Trek). He was in that OL episode. Not this film. Their creature had a few more tricks but similar.

This film has better production quality than Alien Even better than the recent Star Wars film with Ford & Fisher.

This film has a recognizable cast & a decent story. If not for the screenplay with poorly written scenes. Actually, the scenes were good. It was the character behaviors in those scenes which were badly written. This could have been a top ten movie if they had been given enough budget for an upgraded creature.

I rarely rate movies this high.

Try it. If those of you over 40 like it, please share it.

First; I don't like the new star rating system. I liked it better when they picture the number of stars. Not one star with text for rating.

This movie is in serious need of a new director & screen writer. They fixated too much on the bad air & endless wasted shots of people running through it with failing hazmat suits. Not once did anyone bother to fix the com system between the hazmat suits and their command center or the suits continuous degradation. Yet they have no problem reading the suit integrity data which showed the shelter command had contact but didn't let the people outside be heard. Probably deliberate but no one bothered to check the problem.

Then there was the raving & rioting of the minions and the political backstabbing & brutal military not following orders. I'm really sick of violence & loudmouths. They need to focus on the story & character interaction for a change. That's what made Star Trek so popular. The character formula & fresh scifi space stories.

Let us not forget the Androids on this movie who decided humans weren't worth saving. Then there was the totally unnecessary scene of the rioters burning their leader alive while his backstabbing assistant survived. We don't need to see people burned alive or an hour of people choking on poisonous atmosphere in every scene.

This movie also needs better audio. They need to do some major overhauls in personnel before making another movie. This one could also use a better name.

You'll get sick of the running in poison gas with failing suits which is the very first scene & ridiculously long & monotonous. Then the same type of scenes repeated every 10 minutes. I also found it unbelievable that they had no idea of the status & locations of other shelters, and little detail on how they got that way. I fast forwarded it the first time & finally want back & rewatched the entire film.

I cannot recommend it.

The film is definitely interesting & colorful & imaginative. But somewhat confusing to those of us who are not familiar with the French comic book stories. There are also some ripoff's from American scifi. They have 3 short bargaining creatures which are clearly a cross between the MIB Worms with attitudes of Star Trek Ferengi's.

On the DVD extra's when they showed the comic book pages, you could see a collection of Mr Spock characters but these were not in the film. What creatures were in the film were unique & interesting, but a few in the opening montage were clearly of Star Trek origin.

However, those creatures in the core of the film were unique & fun to watch. However, those of us who were not familiar with the comics were somewhat confused about the plot for the first half of the movie. We finally caught on when the pearl people explained it halfway into the film. The plot should have been described at the beginning after the attack on their planet.

The 2 big problems were the costumes of the 2 stars. They should have worn sexy white jumpsuit spacesuits like shown on the comics. That would have made a huge difference.

The second problem was the 2 main actors. They both looked 15 years old & certainly didn't evoke the sexy comic book couple. The actors should have looked like they were in their mid 20's, more mature & sexy supercouple stars. This pair of actors was unbelievable in their roles. Not the actors faults. We could not imagine these immature teenagers in these roles of the supercouple duo shown in the comic book pages on the DVD extras. When you choose the wrong actors for a role, it can ruin your entire movie. This couple was simply wrong for the supercouple role. Wearing dark, clumsy costumes made it worse.

It was a bad casting fit with bad costumes. If they could correct this and did a better job of presenting the plot so we knew what was happening, it could have been a truly great movie.

The pole dancing creature was a work of genius. No nudity. Just very creative. The actress was very talented & gymnastic. I mean this seriously. I'm not into females since I am one. The choreography was exceptional & cleverly edited with costume morphing. Deserving of an academy award.

Definitely worth watching. The acting is OK. It just doesn't click with this pair of actors who don't fit with the comic book supercouple. I hope they do create a sequel & make these changes to the 2 main actors & their costumes.

I loved the original Westworld & Futureworld. Yul Brynner was unforgettable.

However, as I sit here watching the first of 3 discs, it just seems to drag at a snails pace. I don't want the show to be cancelled. Just retrofitted.

I spoke too soon. The show really improved on the 2nd & 3rd DVD's. The role of Maeve was a well written stroke of genius although I didn't like her choice at the end. Bernard & William also developed into great surprises. However, the constant violence & old west shootemup scenes grew intolerable. It desperately needs variety & other worlds even though it did improve after the first DVD. Twice as much screen time was spent on Delos & robot issues after the first 3 painfully slow old west episodes.

However, the full frontal nudity of all robots in the Delos maintenance center was unnecessary, denigrating to the actors & characters & offputting to the audience. Not to mention hygienically unsafe for the cast endangering them to ecoli & other such bacteria from sitting bare bottom on chairs & stools. It doesn't improve the show & ensures families, children & most women wont watch the series due to the bad taste nudity. This is not compelling or sexy nudity. It is degrading to the actors. At least put them in matching, one color, one piece bathing suits.

Even in the scene, the robot is dressed one minute on the western set and naked on a chair or stood in Delos one minute later. In the story if seems they wasted a half hour undressing the robot off camera just to talk to it naked in a chair for 10 minutes, then redress the robot again off camera to return it to the saloon. It is stupid that every robot is stripped naked for no reason when at Delos.

The only time a robot should be naked is during underground torso repair. There is no reason for full frontal nudity in every Delos robot scene. This is not attractive nudity. It is insulting & demeaning to the actors, audience & robot characters. It shows us the directors & producers are low brow perverts. I should have known JJ Abrams was one of them. Low Brow destroyer of beloved films. It is just gross. I don't know how the actors put up with it, much less the health concerns for bacteria & disease sitting bare on chairs & stools. It detracts from the entire series & is a full X rated full frontal nudity which Cuts down on anyone under 21 & anyone else offended by it watching the show. Totally unnecessary. Cuts into their own pocketbooks by limiting their audience. Usually US TV cuts out such scenes but that would be constant in this film. I remember Canada did this nudity to the New Outer limits in the 90's, but not the lower genitals like this show.

Instead of constant repair of bullet ridden Robots by the hundreds each day, it would be more sensible for the robot to bleed where targeted by infrared laser without requiring damage from bullets. Sound effects & fake blood would suffice for realism for saving cost by Delos.

It needs a new scriptwriter & a new director to speed up the pace. 70% of the screen time should be spent on hi-tech, robots, repairs, Delos, etc. We don't watch it for cowboy & old west themes. This isn't Bonanza. This is scifi. Don't drive away your core audience. We like futuristic hi-tech. No violence.

Get rid of the dust & get rid of the smoking tobacco. Both are sickening enough to make us gag. Use sun baked clay or damp clay for dirt so it doesn't cause clouds of dust. Dust destroys your equipment; your actors lungs & eyes & health; the animals health; and the viewers tolerance. It does nothing for the show.

The original Westworld had multiple settings. Westworld needs to add an ancient Egypt world; a future Mars world (complete with aliens & their advanced cities), ancient Rome & Greece; & colonial Europe world (1600's-1700's when they had the fancy formal Balls such as the Dutchess of Devonshire era) and maybe a tribal jungle theme (Mayan, Inca, Native American, African, Malasian, etc) or middle ages. This will provide variety for the audience who will quickly sicken on the old west theme. I'm already sick of the endless shooting & violence & slow pace. If they don't spruce it up for sci-fi tech, they will lose viewers & the series.

By the way, $40k per day is absurd beyond belief. They would make more in volume at $2k to $5k per day than the handful at ridiculous rates.

Either the guests or robots need to wear a medallion or something so we & the customers can tell the difference at a glance. I also hope the director isn't dumb enough to film the episodes in the heat of the summer. Shades of Howard Hughes who killed off his cast with radioactive dust. Or the deaths of John Candy & Clark Gable from excessive desert heat.

This show has great potential if they make these changes, speed up the pace with new writers & directors & don't drag out scenes, arcs & mind numbing cowboy backstories.

I've loved the Planet of apes movies since the very first original. This is one of the few reboot series film which is improved from the early version (technically speaking); although you still can't compete with Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell. Although Andy Serkis is neck & neck.

However, what kind of morons kill off their star & then whine because their sales has dropped? Talk about ignorant & out of touch. No one will appreciate killing off their favorite character unless it was a true history situation.

Shades of George Lucas, JJ Abrams & Veronica Roth. Has everyone forgotten the uproar when Rowling was going to kill off Harry Potter? The Prime minister, Royal family & half the stars in Hollywood got involved to beg her not to do it. Like many authors, they grow to hate their own creations & try to kill them off to end the series. Rowling gave in but slaughtered everyone else including the owl & broom to get even.

Do they think Star Trek fans were pleased to have Vulcan destroyed & the timeline scrambled on the horrible reboot? They only made money because it was all there was. We hated what they did.

This is the problem with Caesar's demise. Film 4 will crash & burn unless they bring him back & have a positive theme other than the boring war which has gone on for 3 films. The first was great. The other 2 apes war films were battle OD punishment. We want to see progress in building their world. No more battling humans. How they mix with the new humans without Koba hate or the original series or Roth reboot gorilla war or radiation mutant mindset. Stop listening to the opinions of warmongering critics. Listen to fans not critics who just want to destroy everything These producers, director & scriptwriter are totally out of touch with the audience. You don't kill off your star character & expect people to rush to the theaters. You have to be a moron like child mentality George Lucas to kill off your biggest star like Harrison Ford (Hans Solo) and now Caesar. It's like expecting the audience to accept Camilla in place of Diana. Get real. Who are they kidding? There is no audience of any notable worth who appreciates the killing of the top star. These producers & directors have to be plain stupid & not qualified to make any film if they think killing their star is a good idea. If they plan on a 4th movie, they had better bring Caesar back & let the audiences know it before it is released. We need to see Apes & humans coexisting without wars.

This is why the second film of Allegiant was never made. Just because fans bought the 3rd book doesn't mean they approved of killing off Tris. This is why the 3rd movie did so poorly. Everyone assumed the film would kill Tris off like the book. The audience boycotts these movies which kill their star. Or damages a supercouple. This is why no one wanted a 4th Divergent film which killed off their star like the book. Learn from the mistakes of others.

Another issue with Apes films are the constant battles. We are sick & tired of wars & battles, even if that is the name of the film. We want to see character interaction, relationships, building a new society. Progress, Ape cities, no killing, progress in interacting with mute humans. Developing a new Ape government. No more warring humans.

So bring back Caesar. Nurse him back to health & have him lead the apes in building cities, government, educating their young, society, learning & becoming more advanced in skills without any more wars.

Call it Planet of the Apes; The New world Order or New Frontier.

This is one of the best miniseries I've ever seen. It is right up there with John Adams and Thornbirds. I rarely give out 10 stars but this series truly deserves it. The DVD's can be found on Amazon.

The makeup and hairstyling was better than any film or series I've ever seen. In fact, Kate looked better than Jackie. It was also nice that we didn't have to suffer through overacting and ridiculous forced accents like we did with Martin Sheen on Kennedy. All the actors in this miniseries were so natural and looked so much like the real life persons, I forgot they weren't the real deal. Truly exceptional acting and natural makeup without prosthetics. Tom Wilkinson stole the show as Joseph Kennedy. The Kennedy early years was excellent about the son Joe & Rosemary. I wish we could have seen the others like Kathleen, Pat and Eunice. Teddy is shown in the sequel. But they forgot to include John John.

However, whenever there is a foreigner or foreign country involved in a true life historical show like the recent Jackie, (Canada in this case) they inevitably show Oswald as the assassin when all of us who were alive at the time know depict no one as the assassin and just the result... so the lie about Oswald doesn't PO the American Public. Oswald grates through us like chalk on a chalkboard anytime someone shows that ridiculous lie.

Then we had the BS with the fake history channel boycotting the film in the US. Read Wikipedia. I hardly believe Caroline's opinion carried that much weight. Especially since she wasn't even alive during the first part and a child during her fathers administration. So she wouldn't know the truth any more than Will and Harry really know how their mother Diana was killed.

There is nothing revealed about the Kennedy's or outside of what we know from news articles, so no surprises which should have upset the last of the original Kennedy family so I don't know why they tried to destroy this series before it was even cast or filmed. This was a deliberate premeditated attack before the filming script was even written.

Read about Operation Mockingbird if you want a real eye opener how our media has been controlled by the CIA. Think I'm kidding? Look it up. They recruited publishers, broadcasters and filmmakers in every major company to control what we see. People like Ben Bradlee and Katherine Graham of the Washington post and Newsweek. CNN, Fox, History Channel, A&E, etc. My brother was a CIA publisher. This is the real deal.

Read about Operation Mockingbird on Wikipedia and Ben Bradlee's obit to learn just how free and honest our press, broadcast news networks and filmmakers really are with the CIA involved. Allen Dulles, CIA director fired by JFK along with Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell, is the one who orchestrated the assassinations. Cabell's brother Earl was the Mayor of Dallas in 63. Notice how all the secret servicemen were all standing on the 2nd car following Kennedy and how Kennedy's driver slowed down when the shooting began. Bolton, Kennedy's protection was sent away to keep him out of Dallas and set up to silence & discredit him.

JFK's mistress Mary Pinchot Meyer was CIA like her ex husband & brother in Law Ben Bradlee who gave her diary to the CIA. Mary had been assigned to control JFK and his cabinet. Read about her on Wikipedia. She was murdered a year after JFK to silence her. The staged witnesses gave CIA safe house as their address and the other gave phony military identity as they tried to set up a scapegoat for her murder. Bradlee admitted to lying about the diary in his trial testimony. He was Washington post and Newsweek.

Dulles was put in charge of the Warren Commission by LBJ to mislead all of the evidence and testimony. Pres Ford & Arlen Spectre were also on the commission and Bush Sr coordinated from the CIA. Witnesses say their testimony was changed and completely altered. Why would LBJ appoint the fired CIA director Allen Dulles over JFK's assassination investigation unless LBJ was involved or knowledgeable of the complicity of Dulles and put him there to misdirect the evidence.

I loved this miniseries with the one exception about Oswald. I had to buy it on DVD due to the ridiculous boycott by History channel. So be sure to boycott them. Contact all their sponsors and tell them you will boycott any product which sponsors that network and A&E. I cancelled my service 5 years ago. Isn't it amazing how the UK History Channel aired this series and called it one of the best ever with nearly 3 million viewers there. We are the victims of propaganda and media control.

This is an excellent video. Highly recommended.

I thought I was going to see a nice scifi about a space colony and their efforts to build a home & society on a new planet. The colony story lasted all of 5 minutes. It also gets old showing Earthlings as having no consideration that someone else might own the planet before we setup colonies or try to strip the planet of its resources or disrespect a sacred site.

What I got was a gung ho "Marines in Space" which spend every episode shooting & attacking their Alien enemy. Every episode was the same boring repetitious shootemup, over & over again at an incredible slow pace. It doesn't even have any decent technology or effects. Only the alien design was unique.

Also, what moron would use C & W music on a sci fi? I had my lifetime fill of Patsy Cline & Johnny Cash. Most sci-fi fans are not C&W fans. Personally, I can't stand C&W. It belongs on cowboy movies.

Clearly, this series must appeal to males who get off on war films & shootemup violence which doesn't require any thinking or storyline outside of the repetitious battles between the space marines & aliens... over and over and over again on each episode. There is no depth to the characters. They are 2 dimensional & you never warm up to them. This is the fault of the screenwriters & director. Not the actors. The potential to develop the characters was in their profiles but never attempted.

The scenes drag so slowly, you have to fast forward to tolerate it to make it thru to the end. There is only so much shooting & watching marines running thru the trees in full gear you can tolerate. After the first few episodes, this flying space squadron of Marines mostly become foot soldiers on the ground shooting toy machine guns. They don't even have laser weapons.

This show would probably appeal to ex marines who crave combat and don't care about story lines or thinking. But not scifi fans. This series would drive any intelligent, thinking person up the wall after one or two episodes. There is only so much repetition someone can endure.

This reminds me of NBC execs trying to turn Star Trek into a cowboy wagon train to the stars. These neophyte execs seem to think they need to dumb down everything so the public can handle it. Anyone who is that bad off wouldn't watch sci-fi in the first place. They would be watching Martha Stewart or Archie Bunker.

Almost all engineers, scientists & technicians are sci-fi & Star Trek fans. Out of several hundred of my peers, I never met one engineer or Scientist in 30 years who wasn't a Star Trek fan. We were all influenced in our careers & our hopes for a better future by Star Trek. The scifi series & films should be written for these fans. Not the critics.

We like in-depth, intelligent stories which don't drag. Fancy, futuristic technology & effects. As well as 3 dimensional characters & a deep connection & relationship between the cast members like Kirk & Spock or Ender's game or the series Eureka. Of course, every time someone comes up with a great series, they cancel it or do something stupid to ruin it like they did to the reboot new Dallas series by turning an oil & riches show into a Mexican cartel with dumb idea story lines which violated the original Cannon. Bobby already owned Southfork outright from the original series final season. Nor did they utilize surviving former cast members & slung Sue Ellen back on the bottle when she was so much better when successful. This is a perfect example of wasted opportunity as they did to this series.

One of these days, maybe someone will create sci-fi for sci-fi fans instead of trying to appeal to some other low bracket to attract non scifi fans and ending up with none at all.

If you like scifi, this isn't it unless you like slow, boring, repetitive shootemup marines running through the trees with full backpacks & toy guns firing at aliens who dissolve into green goo when they get wet or exposed to air. Every episode the same shootemup, no technology, no story & no effects.

At least it doesn't have some overprotective mother whining about her spoiled kid on every episode like we suffered thru on Earth 2 (forever lost in the wilderness) or the reboot of V (FBI agent) where they stupidly killed off the original Diana. Or some lost in space series where they never get home. Or Rick Berman & Abrams killing off every decent character which appeals to the audience & deliberately destroys everything Roddenberry created. I include these side issues as comparative analogies in the hopes that someone will learn from these mistakes & avoid them & create something great.

The last two episodes are the best. I agree with those who suggest watching the first 2 episodes & the last 2 and skip everything in between. The alien was clearly an award winning design which should have been shown from the beginning. The characters left in jeopardy at series end were all recoverable. The two females had thrusters & parachutes to land. When Wang's pods blew apart only the right side was obliterated. The section he was in broke away intact. Rerun the scene & you will see it for a split second. McQueen was still alive but wounded.

The alien spy they never revealed was the commander of the Saratoga. He sure recovered from that fake cold quite rapidly. Nary a sniffle after the big meeting & they made sure to show a few shifty eye clips of the commander. He's the alien mole whose been providing info to the enemy.

Unless you only plan to watch the last 2 episodes, don't waste any time on this series.

Clearly, the Spiga corporation who is the ruthless power is patterned after Monsanto. Monsanto is a vicious, power hungry, sue happy, GMO dangerous, roundup ready corporation in real life whose cow hormones in our milk & roundup weed killer in their GMO soy & corn make us ill. They have been banned around the world except US & Canada where they are 95% of the market.

I suspect they recognized themselves in this series & exerted pressure to have this 75% positive review, yet unflattering series about their abuse canceled.

The high tech & effects were superb. The actors were great. And I'm delighted the cast was not making us ill by smoking. The real surprise was watching this series during the Houston floods was so close to current real life I was stunned. The scene of flooded & hurricane damaged coastal cities from glacier melting as the planet heats up matched the real world exactly. As did the Fema camps filled with refuges, held at gunpoint without food to sustain them. Not to mention the scenes of Spiga rescuing & feeding flood victims because the gov't agencies steal the donations & do not provide anything for the victims. A true IRL of what is now ongoing today.

However, I did not care for the key actor who played Ben Larson. Nor did I care for constant violence or the obsession with some childhood girlfriend whom they dragged through every episode ad nauseam. Nor should audiences have to endure someone deliberately cutting themselves. That doesn't belong on any TV. Who would want their family exposed to the unrelenting violence in this show. That could have been eliminated for a second season without cancellation. The public would benefit from watching their future where we will surely be under corporate control in the near future.

This show could have been great by focusing more on technology, hazards of the food they produce, experiments showing effects on humans & their health & the dirty plans with their products. This moral have been an easy fix without requiring any violence & lame old girlfriend themes.

Otherwise a great series which had no reason to be canceled at a 75% rating.

Fast forward past the shark attacks to the rescues & watch from there to the end. This is the only good part of the movie. Prior to that it is inaccurate & unwatchable shock value with 90's attitudes on 40's sailors. The screenwriter & director were clueless.

I saw a much better WWII version in the 70's & was horrified to learn about hundreds of sailors eaten by sharks for days until spotted by accident. Then using the Capt as a scapegoat so the gov't would be held blameless. Where was Truman's sense of propriety & honesty while this farce occurred? Not to mention the misguided families who believed the propaganda & cruelly made this innocent Captains life a living hell. He was also a victim in shark infested water as well as a scapegoat for merely surviving. Shame on the gov't & those ignorant families who stalked & tormented him to death.

This screenwriter had no business writing 40's dialogue & WWII behaviors. He was clearly writing with 1990's attitudes which didn't fit & ruined the movie with inaccurate BS. The blacks of the 40's did not behave like punks or taunt whites. Challenging would have been a death sentence. There was a separation between races in the military until Truman corrected it.

This movie has terrible dialogue, terrible characters & worse acting with bad story lines from the wrong decade. Stupid stunts like blacks spitting in food & harassing the whites, knife fights, fist fights, gang attitudes. Totally doesn't fit the 40's. Same with hispanics in the 40's. This scriptwriter & director couldn't even create believable behavior of stranded sailors in the ocean without food & water. All of these characters were right out of the 90's & unrecognizable for the 40's as were their side stories as portrayed.

The writer & director clearly had no Navy or background research either. The bell bottoms which were heavily starched were designed to create water wings when knotted in the ocean to keep the sailor afloat. This is true. Whether it worked in practical application is unknown. Even the life vests in the film were modern design as were the styrofoam floaters. This occurred in 1945. Not 1995. Clearly, no one did any research. They also forgot the ships were diesel not gasoline. But the director had the crew running around with multiple sailors on fire and explosions as if it were gasoline.

This movie tried to cash in on the horror & gore of a horrific historical event. They turned this travesty into a horror movie. Not even close to historical reality. Creative license on a true historical event is unacceptable.

Instead of focusing on gory scenes of fires, shark attacks & fictional 90's, the travesty of this horrific incident was the failure to escort the ship after it delivered its nuclear cargo; the failure of the Navy to report the missing ship & intercepted message; the loss of hundreds to sharks and the inexcusable persecution of the captain who later killed himself. Only after his death & the death of the Japanese sub commander who sought to clear the Captains name did they finally pardon the Captain & clean his record. After everyone involved was dead, it no longer mattered.

Now I learn the main scriptwriter was a foreigner & a neophyte who has no clue about US 40's attitudes since English is not his native tongue. The director was so spazzed at having Nick as his star that he couldn't function. While Nicholas was clearly not comfortable doing his speech to the ship crew, he obviously had no help from the director or the writers.

When one of the crew on the extras exclaimed how well they researched, I nearly fell over. Maybe the shark. The animatronics shark was so real I feared it might attract real sharks or they could mistake a real shark as fake. They should have filmed in a pool. As suspected, the crews main interest was in shark attacks not the story. They also could have saved the real seaplane by using CGI than losing a real one in the ocean. Especially an antique. They clearly chose an incompetent cheap CGI company to pocket more money. What loser idiots they were.

Cage was so uncomfortable as captain, he made all of us uncomfortable to watch him. I found myself waiting for Andy Griffith to start saying "Helloooo" over the speakers in a southern drawl.

Who would hand over $40 million for a limited theater release? That's why it flopped so grossly. It wasn't shown in most theaters except Philippines, Japan & a limited few US theaters.

They took one look at the extreme negative feedback & decided to eat the money loss than risk extreme damage to their reputations by distributing this mess. Honestly, would you want to go to the theater to watch a true story of a crew eaten by sharks. Fiction is one thing but the graphic deaths of hundreds of real sailors by sharks in a feeding frenzy is too much to stomach. It probably would have crashed & burned at the box office. The film & script were too terrible to fix.

This historical travesty should be known & seen but more as a TV movie or documentary about real life stories than the blood & gore aspect. The true travesty was the failure of our gov't to protect the ship & leave the crew to the mercy of enemy subs & sharks; then savagely convict the captain as a scapegoat to hide our gov'ts own accountability for this atrocious farce. No president corrected this outrage until over 55 years later after they were all dead.

Even on a well made movie this tragedy is difficult to watch. Between the sharks & gov't persecution of the scapegoat captain, those responsible should all burn in hell.

Clearly, Ridley never learns. He just cannot get off of his one note tune. In every movie, the crew has a tough woman survivor, a black, a smoker (usually cigars), a drinker, a dumb loudmouth, a couple lowbrow idiots wanting to get rich, a robot sadist and swarms of horrific massacres & bloody gore from the never ending aliens & ship destruction. They never have a second lander. Only one. They never use good sense about wearing protection against viruses & contaminants.

He almost got it right on Prometheus where we actually thought we were going to see another planet with civilized intelligent alien life, explanations & interacting. Instead the ET's were all dead except one who wanted to destroy everyone without explanation. Then Ridley brought out the alien creatures for the usual gore & left us hanging. Of course, there are rarely more than one or two crew survivors plus the alien creature.

On this movie, he went back to his usual formula of swarms of bloody gory, attacking horrific aliens & ignorant crew members who shouldn't be driving a soap box peddle car, much less a multibillion dollar spaceship with thousands of colonists. Even our poor 1960's space crews met better qualifications as a respectable space crew. Who would hire such ignorant morons for a space crew? The only difference was the white slob was the loudmouth hick in control this time instead of the loudmouth, cigar smoking, alcohol drinking black slob in charge. But the same character & cast formulas are used on EVERY movie he made. They are just as illogical now as they were then. No one would allow a crew like this to have responsibility for the welfare of Billions of dollars of spacecraft & personnel.

After you learn that David is another Dr Frankenstein, you can fast forward to the end past all the bloody gore from mind-numbing creature attacks from every possible method.

Once more, we were cheated from meeting intelligent alien societies & learning what they knew about us & the horrible alien creatures who should be dead & gone so we wont have to see them anymore. And we need a robot for once which doesn't consider humans as a way to experiment with the alien creatures. You almost had a good robot this time but let the bad robot kill him. We need a peaceful, happy sci-fi without attacks & gore. Get rid of David & his 2 creature eggs. Have Walter brought on the ship for spare parts, come back to life & destroy David & the eggs. Fix the hand while you are at it.

Allow them to land to colonize a new planet & meet new civilized EBE's & learn how to live in harmony on their new planet. No more alien creatures except to destroy the planet where David bred them.

We need a happy movie with no more gore and no more alien creatures, no psychotic robots, battles & holocausts. Let's see our smart engineers, colonists, scientists, etc., build a new colony & live in peace with new intelligent civilizations & learn harmony of living without pollution or wars from our new neighbors. A colony of smart humans. No smoking, no drinking, no porn, no loudmouths, no fighting, no polluters, no killers, no haters and NO Alien creatures or violence. BTW, I live in Dallas (also Houston & SA) and NO ONE wears cowboy hats except JR Ewing on TV & a couple drop out farmers in west TX. They also bathe, comb their hair & shave. Ridley is out of Date with one tune stereotypes.

We'd like to see use of sci-fi special effects to thaw & grow embryonic livestock & plants & people. Creating a new utopia society. We can watch them solve problems, learn to communicate, learn to deal with new diseases & animals they encounter, etc. We don't need more alien blood & gore & slaughters. We need happy sci-fi, high tech, intelligent life, positive achievement & new pleasant interactions with other EBE civilizations. No violence, no wars, no ghoulish creatures or deaths. If Ridley can't do this, then he needs to get out of making films. This is the last straw! We gave him every chance but we have had enough. We are SICK of it. NO MORE ALIEN BLOOD BATHS or HOLOCAUSTS.

Either change completely or STOP making alien movies. NO MORE ONE NOTE Plots. ARE you listening to us, Ridley? Are you deaf & blind? Can't you see how we have reached our limit & our patience? We only gave you another chance because you Almost got it with Prometheus, but you still used the formula Characters, destroyed the ship, brought out the alien gore & left the audience hanging with no ending.

This movie was supposed to fix those mistakes. Instead, Ridley did everything wrong in the worst way possible. Instead of getting rid of the creatures; he created an onslaught of creatures massacring the crew & the former inhabitants. It was sickening! Even fast forward wasn't enough to relieve the creature massacres of people.

If Ridley doesn't see this problem, he must be suffering from dementia. If he wont fix this, then he needs to get out. We've had enough. No more alien holocausts. Ever!

I would have rather seen the British locale instead of New York. They showed what kind of people we truly are. I don't like David Yates directing. He may be everyone's friend on the set but he is also the director who cut off the Dursleys on HP changed the endings & filmed the half blood prince in Yellow lights.

The best director would have been Chris Columbus who did the 1st 2 HP's and was faithful to every aspect of the books. He set the standard. It would not have been such a great series of films if Columbus had not directed the 1st two films. I wish he could have directed them all.

Yates allows the DP to swoop past everything so fast, we can't enjoy or appreciate the background details & props of the wizarding world. If not for the pause button, I never could have read the alert meter. Without the DVD extras, I never could have seen the carvings. Same goes for the wonderful international costumes they failed to show us. The only Macusa magic features were the 2 house elves, the alert clock & the animated messages.

While the actor portraying Newt looked like a match for his role, on several occasions he had an inappropriate smirky grin which did not go with the scene or dialogue. His facial expressions did not match the scenes. He was not believable in his delivery. Only his appearance fit the role.

I did not care for the character Tina in any respect. I did not like her role, character, the plot or her acting. Nor did I care for Macusa. The building or the people. Nor the story line & the stupidity involved in the characters, carelessly & incompetently losing animals. It was written & filmed like a vaudeville slapstick comedy full of stupid AH Americans. Being one myself, the recognition is unmistakable.

Then we had the death pool. Who would keep something like that at the Ministry unless they held frequent executions. Not to mention the sickening grins & patronizing attitudes of the 2 women trying to put them to death. As if they were enjoying the task of killing fellow wizards. And where was their wizengamot trial? Then the Macusa president orders the death of a child for violating rules they never went to wizarding school to learn. Since when are children executed & without a trial. The plot of the Senator also did not fit.

There was also that ridiculous, offensive breeding dance by Newt which we could have lived without. And the repeated escapes of a niffler because the word "Reparo" wasn't in Newts vocabulary. He also didn't connect as compassionate toward his creatures. He was very lackadaisical & unconcerned about them. Not to mention not securing the case to keep them from harms way.

Since when does an expelled student have a wand or be allowed to disapparate or perform magic? Yet, expelled Newt does all these things.

It was one thing to use a tri-wing design on one creature, but the same wing design on 2 was absurd (Thunderbird & Occamy.) Not to mention the similarity to a hippogriff. I liked the creatures & efforts but not their lack of diversity. Some creatures were quite neat but we barely saw them.

The plot was awful & poorly written. A shock for a Rowling novel. I agree with the actors about the utter waste of money creating real props for drawers that are never opened. Millions are being wasted.

However, the saving grace was the characters Jacob & Queenie and the actors who played them. They stole the show completely. His giggle water scene was hysterical. As was the bowtruckles scene. Utterly enjoyable from beginning to end. I could have watched them another hour. They could have left Newt & Tina on the cutting room floor as they thankfully did for Jacob's prior girlfriend.

Newt overdid the stumble bum persona & made his character too stupid to be a creature expert & too dispassionate to be a caretaker. His inappropriate facial expressions did not match the dialogue or situation such as grinning about not turning the swooping evil loose inside his suitcase house with Jacob. Or his total lack of concern when Jacob was bitten in the first place by his escaped animals, no less from repeated slap stick suitcase swaps & bad, unsecured luggage latches.

However, the movie is worth watching just to see Jacob, Queenie & the creatures. Especially, the bowtruckle. Thankfully, the next film will be in the UK.

But as with all her books, she always includes a wizarding villain; ad nauseam. They think we can't enjoy a movie or book without a nasty bad villain. There are other stories without "evil versus good" wars. She just cant let go of Voldemort & now Grindlewald.

But this movie seems to unintentionally imply what happened to Dumbledore's sister. She must have been an Obscurus after the 3 human boys terrorized her. After seeing the power of Dumbledore's sister, Grindlewald went to seek one in the US. They haven't told us any of this yet, but I suspect they will. Ending the series in 2024 with the famous duel & the search for the deadly hallows.

After 8 prior movies, I expected better from Rowling. I like the idea & creature plot but only the 2 characters & actors for Queenie & Jacob and their relationship. The actor playing Jacob was brilliant, endearing & funny. One of the best acting jobs I've seen in a long time. Queenie's performance perfectly complemented Jacobs. They made the movie worth watching. More time with the animals in the suitcase would have been nice & a better job of magicking the Macusa building would have been nice.

Please bring back Chris Columbus to direct. You can have tea with Yates on your own time.

I love scifi & despite what some overinflated critic hack might claim; there is no lack of demand for this genre. There is a lack of original stories and competent directors.

I was astonished to read 650 of 700 reviews posted here all agreed about the bratty kid character who ruined every scene of the movie for all of us. (Will Smith, this is what happens when a child has no punishment for bad behavior. They don't learn without sufficient consequences.)

I blame the screenwriter & director for the terrible characters they developed with even worse dialogue. The worst character was the bratty kid. He was simply awful. This was not an ethnic issue. This was an attitude issue. A smart mouthed brat constantly back talking & causing nothing but trouble & fails to behave. He does exactly the opposite of what he has been told. Nor does his caretaker pay attention to his behavior as she foolishly brings him along with her instead of leaving him with a neighbor or relative as she did at the beginning. What's worse, the kids role & dialogue controlled the entire movie. The audience felt he needed a good paddling.

The kid literally ruined the movie for everyone. He was nothing like the wide-eyed boy with curiosity & amazement as in the original movie.

Dr Helen was no better. Neither her demeanor nor her dialogue were believable in her role. She acted more like some inexperienced teen than a respectable doctor. Arguing with the gov't before learning their purpose for her expertise. Her inability to control or monitor the brat was evident of this characters lack of experience & maturity.

Then we have a Sec of defense who goes out of her way to provoke the alien into a conflict. No diplomatic skills there. She also does everything possible to make the alien hate us. She was clearly overbearing.

Keanu Reeves made a great alien but his character in the script never bothered to discuss his purpose before the destruction was unleashed. Nor did they provide a second chance warning. Or consideration for those who were innocent. The first movie at least received a warning to all nations.

I didn't know why some reviewers kept referring to "canoe". I now realize it was a nickname used for Keanu by those who can't properly pronounce KEY AW NEW.

Then we had an incomplete ending & unsure of the actual ramifications. Permanently without power or temp? What about medical technology? This portion of the film was incomplete. Also, with the alien leaving without explanation or threats, the gov'ts would continue their bad management. Nothing would be accomplished without a terrifying warning of what they needed to do to avoid utter destruction.

I have to agree with those who complain about the constant use of NYC or Washington DC as focal point locations for these films. There are plenty of other cities. But I do realize that those 2 cities are also focal points for the UN and the US gov't. However, I always wondered why Paris was the locale for so many peace treaties (Rev war, War of 1812, Viet Nam war, etc).

Those rednecks (who are always blaming leftists in their comments) are the ones responsible for global environmental destruction, wars, violence, pollution & corrupt gov't. Shouldn't you be out killing some endangered animal instead of watching scifi you clearly don't understand? Or are they those who are Incarcerated without the ability to change the channel.

The special effects were interesting but nothing could overcome such horrible dialogue & weak characters. We needed the wisdom & calm demeanor of Morgan Freeman in this film.

The movie is watchable but the kid will still ruin it for everyone.

At the end of the film, the host comes on to explain the harsh treatment of the Prince of Wales (Duke of Windsor) & Wallis. He said they made it to reflect changing attitudes against the Windsors. That tells us, they deliberately fabricated their portrayal to make them more hateful instead of the king who wanted the woman he loved. Facts don't change with attitudes. Apparently movies change facts to create attitudes. (As an example of a similar situation, Charles divorced & married Camilla who was also divorced).

Here is an example of this movie being falsely hyped to make us hate David & Wallis. When they first introduce Wallis in this film, the camera is at waist height pointing up at her chin where a giant black mole has been placed. This makes her look like the wicked witch of the east. I defy you to find a photo of the real Wallis with a giant black mole like that. If she had one, it was so small & covered up, it wasn't visible on any photo. So, this giant mole & zoom was a rotten trick to make her abhorrent to us.

I suspect the involvement of the Queen mother on this movie before she died. She helped them with the story at some point in the past or in a biography and they trashed David & Wallis due to her extreme hatred of them.

It was the Queen mother & Queen Mary who retaliated against David & Wallis to cut them out of everything. Titles, money, appointments, palaces, you name it. They were spiteful. Not Bertie, but he was weak & couldn't say no to his wife & mother. Even forbidding Royal family or servants & employees to attend the wedding. Including his other brothers & his security man. Bertie could cut off their money, palace rooms & jobs if his wife insisted.

Use your common sense, if David showed up to ask Bertie for money & titles, he certainly wouldn't have called Bertie's wife names in the process. That wouldn't have gotten him very far. Nor did he have a cocky attitude as he was portrayed.

I didn't know about the bow tie aversion & his association with the windsor knot. I know the knot very well & taught every male I knew how to tie it. It is the only way to create a perfect knot. They used bow ties on his movie character to make David look like a honky tonk jerk.

There is a much better movie called Wallis & Edward which shows how she tried to extricate herself & begged him not to abdicate but he threatened to kill himself if she left him. He was totally besotted with her & wouldn't let her go. Once he abdicated, she couldn't abandon him. She was trapped trying to make up for his sacrifice.

I didn't know about the way Bertie's father snapped at him & Bertie's stammer. His teachers also slapped his hands to force him to write with his right hand. He was left handed. I can see why he stammered but it got old very fast in the film.

I also didn't care for the dumb bumblebee proposal scene; even if is was true. Or the "I don't like your face" scene. Or the shooting scene. It was the cigarettes which killed him. Not the job. Many Royals in their family died from throat cancer from tobacco use.

But, if you can overlook the phony Edward & wallis scenes and assume this was the Queen mothers edited nasty version of events, the movie is still watchable.

If Edward had just married Wallis civilly like Charles, without asking anyone, there were other Kings who did (George IV), the entire parliament wouldn't have quit. Churchill would have remained to form a gov't. It only takes one or two. Just like Melbourne when Victoria wouldn't remove her ladies. The gov't survived. When you ask someone for permission, you are giving them power over you. Do it without asking. It's your life.

The boy Alexei ruins the movie. His part is poorly written. Every 5 minutes, he is screaming about something so everyone comes running & indulges him. It repeatedly stops the flow of the film. He's a spoiled, self indulgent brat.

On top of that, he deliberately does everything he can come up with to defy the rules of caution he must follow to prevent bleeding injury due to hemophilia. He goes out of his way to do dangerous things which will cause bleeding injury & does not care what problems it causes for everyone else. Then add the constant screaming every 5 minutes and you will be so sick of this kid after 30 minutes. It's a wonder he did not rupture his larynx. This was clearly poor scriptwriting & poor direction. Totally unnecessary.

Then we have the Tsarina wife of Nicholas; Alix or Alexandra who is constantly feeling sorry for herself & always pampering the screaming, self indulgent son. She is so self consumed & lost in space she refuses to perform her duty & sign the paperwork to feed the Russian people. It was her pressuring which made her husband abandon his duties & run off to war leaving her in charge. But she is paralyzed with self pity, her pampered son's antics and the vile influence of Rasputin. This is actual history but it is still as irritating as is the poor script mishandling of her son.

Finally, the weak, indecisive Tsar Nicholas who is so in love with his wife, he can't say no to her despite her terrible advice. He is a mentally immature little boy in a man's body. He does not feed his people or provide schools, medical, homes or shelter. He thinks they need only him & indulges in the peoples adoration and lives in autocratic opulence. They want gov't control. Then his troops started killing the strikers & marchers.

The tsar sends his peasants out to war without ammunition, modern weapons, food, clothes, shelter, education or pay to die in senseless wars by the millions which he was cautioned not to start & no way to win. The Tsar can't do his job & his wife constantly whines with self pity & neither can be reasoned with.

The peoples Duma gov't takes over but they listen to the US who offers $300 million to stay in WWI & continue to die. Lenin offers the peasants peace & power instead so the rabble become violent Bolsheviks who take over the new gov't & kill the Tsars entire family who didn't have the sense to flee Russia. They had a yacht & several properties outside of Russia as options. Killing the children was going overboard.

The British were willing to give them sanctuary as they had done with many other leaders but George V, the grandfather of QE2 & cousin to the tsar & his wife, personally withdrew the parliaments offer to allow his cousins Nicholas & Alix and their children sanctuary in Britain. His cowardice got the Romanov's killed. His journals reflect his cold blooded attitude about their deaths & show no remorse for what he had done.

You may have to watch it more than once because the slow pace allows your mind to wander.

This movie would have earned a ten except for the rotten ending. I rarely ever rate a film this high.

If you are not a scifi buff & not adept with computers & technology... this movie is not for you.

It is excellent, advanced high tech & high drama with excellent sets, effects & acting. It pulls you in & keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end... EXCEPT for the very last scene which was a huge let down.

There are some technical holes in the story. Polonium is the radioactive substance which Russia used to kill former spy Litvenenko when he changed sides to Great Britain several years ago. It is hard to obtain since it is primarily produced in a nuclear reactor. Extremely radioactive & deadly with alpha. Not something a terrorist group could obtain as implied in this film. Only gov't access & clearances could obtain this toxic metal.

You should also know that dental labs have been using Polonium in partials & other dental work. It is listed on the contents of semi precious metals used in dental materials which leach into your body. Choose precious metals instead of semi precious to avoid this. They also use palladium but it is the listed ingredient use of radioactive polonium which I am concerned about. It may be "spent polonium" but that isn't any better than spent uranium artillery shells used by the military & the terrible effects on the crews and life near the shells or targets. Even spent they are still toxic. They also used toxic mercury in amalgam fillings, so don't think they wouldn't use such things. Read the ingredients on your dental work and go online and search for the words; polonium & dental. Polonium is also in tobacco & other things... just so you know. It is no accident.

When the key character in this film was mildly grazed by a polonium coated object, the hospital scene was a ridiculous "do absolutely nothing to help him" in regard to medical treatment. This was not the same situation as ingesting polonium. There are radiation treatment medications and dialysis and blood transfusions,chelation & surgical removal of the tissue around the wound & a variety of tests & scans to show the irradiated hot spots for treatments they could have used since only a day had passed. It didn't hit an artery so it was still in the entry wound, not the blood supply. So watching the doctor do absolutely nothing for the character was unacceptable. This film clearly got bad advice on polonium.

Next film plot hole: for such an advance facility & power source, there was no security at all to protect the underground lab facility from intruders. Especially when cost was no object. Not to mention advance antivirus protection. Also, in any high tech setup, there are always duplex sources for backup power, trunk circuits, internet connections, hardware, cabling, fiber optics, power cabling, you name it. That entire area should have been a fortress with a million sensors & security teams & devices & intruder protections. The attackers should not have gotten that close. Site security systems & personnel were nonexistent. Especially since she owned the entire town. He would also have had access to military satellites & ground penetrating radar to watch the area & use the satellite weaponry.

Why didn't he just heal her? She didn't need to be uploaded to treat her injuries. Plus, he knew what they were planning & easily could have antivirus protection to deal with it. They also showed 95% of the self healing solar panels undamaged, so the power loss didn't make sense. Those were also hardware power sources which would not be affected by a virus & not on the grid nor connected to an external software source. Very few power plants are connected to the internet so not quite as devastated as shown in the film. It would need a global EMP pulse to cause such total destruction.

Also, it wasn't like Morgan Freeman to go GI Joe without talking in depth to the key character; Depp. He is usually cool headed in his reasoning. The two pro AI characters joining forces with murderous, violent terrorists to wipe out everything was a huge overreaction to solving a perceived problem without in depth analysis & finding alternate, less radical options to deal with it. That's like killing a patient to remove a splinter. Who gave them permission to destroy the entire planetary infrastructure?

Not once, did anyone talk to Depp in depth about his actions & intentions. They were all assuming the worst without asking questions.

Then the huge let down at the end where he could have used the self healing bodies for both. 90% of the audiences probably didn't understand the ending & final scene. I got it; but I did not like that ending for the couple. Especially since he had the capacity to do so much more. Not to forget his global access.

However, it was still a great movie except for the last 2 minutes for anyone who loves scifi, technology & Computers. The newer Outer limits in the 90's had a couple episodes similar to this theme but not quite as high tech.

Don't mistake my nit picking as a reason not to see this great movie, Those issues are meant for the director & screenwriter to learn from their errors. Those are only issues noticed by those of us with technology backgrounds.

You will enjoy the movie as long as you are prepared in advance to dislike the last 2 minutes.

Clearly, those who liked this movie were not alive when Kennedy was assassinated. Those of us who were alive at the time do not care for this poor caricature of Jackie.

First, there was so much nonstop chain smoking by nearly everyone, it was physically sickening. Clearly, Tobacco money paid the bills.

The direction was so bad, I don't know where to start. This is one subject that should never be directed by a foreigner who wasn't even born at the time. He was utterly clueless. I have about a dozen films & documentaries on Jackie. None of them come close to being this bad.

The dialogue was terrible & inane. Natalie's attempt to copy Jackie's speech impediments was very painful & distracting as we had to suffer with it throughout the film.

Her hair wasn't right either, nor the pink outfit stains.

They go into detail about the funeral & leave out the 2 best remembered features such as the riderless horse & John John's salute.

They had her fighting with Bobby when she adored him in real life.

This was a bad script as well.

The music was awful, too loud & distracting. These problems were all due to a very bad director.

I visited JFK's grave just 18 months after he was buried. The lines of people waiting to see it were 2 miles long. He was not buried in an open space as this movie depicts. There were graves all around his. But it was at the top of the knoll. They used a smudge pot for the eternal flame until the gas lines were installed IRL.

Very little of this film is historically correct. It evokes sadness because of the subject. Not due to the film efforts. Even worse was the extreme graphic of Kennedy's head wound. Far worse than IRL.

Not recommended.

Any other film on Jackie would be better than this one.

This movie was more about the central human character & her life as it was for the key character in the film Contact. The first 5 minutes were terrible & boring & made no sense to the audience until the end. The movie should have started with the nearly empty classroom scene & placed the first 5 minutes farther into the film. The beginning of any film or novel should grip the attention of the audience or reader. This Director clearly failed to attend basic Directing 101 class.

However, the key characters interaction with the aliens & overcoming the language barrier was quite unique & would appeal to a non scifi audience.

The space crafts were so bizarrely oriented & crude interiors that they bordered on absurd. The premise that the aliens were here just for the topic of the future life of the key human character & her premonition skills was ridiculous. As was the insane notion that they would send 12 ships to earth just to chat about the future life & premonition skills of the female language expert or just to relay the message they would be back in 3000 years.

This is the third scifi film which has wasted a unique alien plot & effects by focusing on the life of the key human. This one inserts scenes from her future life without any prelude depiction of what was going on. They were irritating interruptions. Almost nothing was revealed about the aliens even after she broke the language barrier. She did not even accomplish the minimum of her intended job duties with the aliens. You would also think they would have studied one of our languages before visiting us. The military's lack of site control & security measures was truly unrealistic from reality.

Nor did anyone seem to comprehend the aliens had saved her life when a group of soldiers went off the range to kill the aliens. Nor did she thank them. One alien was dying as a result.

The music, sounds & background vocalizations are absolutely horrible. It sounds like someone killing a cow. This is the worst I have ever heard on any film ever. It is quite distracting & quite awful. I can't imagine what they were thinking.

The heavy breathing & her overacting when they first entered the craft was really annoying. Her constant near fainting was also way overdone as were her habitual hesitations to every question & task. All I could think at those scenes was coward & the military should have replaced her. Especially with her obsession with one word such as human, instead of moving on to something else. The choice of words was also quite bizarre. It didn't demonstrate her supposed language skills. She also should have had pictures such as the earth & galaxy & other pertinent subjects to identify. Their progress was also way too slow.

Too many missed opportunities wasted on the key character's personal life which was the central plot in conjunction with her language skills. The language barrier story was unique & interesting to watch although her choice of words to teach the aliens were less than preferable. But her personal life should have been jettisoned from the film entirely & replaced with details about the aliens, their home & intentions.

IRL; We need to get off these narcissistic ideas that we are great & the center of importance in the universe or the idea that aliens have any interest in helping us. Their only interest is in collecting our water resources, plant & animal life, ores & minerals and using us for laborers or experiments. They are not here to save us so we need to stop deluding ourselves with false impressions of our own importance. We cant even get along with other countries or have a common language with our neighbors. We are in for a rude awakening when we discover just how unimportant & chaotic our planet's divided population truly is in the universe.

This movie reminds me of the art critics who rave accolades over a pile of garbage like made by Homer Simpson and destroy excellent movies like Oblivion. Non science fiction fans or critics or awards should not be judging scifi films. Nor should studios get involved with film titles & details like they did with Robinson Crusoe on Mars. An excellent realistic film forced to carry a bad title & no marketing promotion.

The language barrier theme is good enough to hold your attention so the movie is watchable without violence or battles but lacks any technology or special effects, even on the space crafts. Basically an egg shaped rock with a square tunnel drilled lengthwise & nothing else inside or outside which sits ungainly on the end. The aliens are each a giant Octopus missing one leg. Non scifi fans will like it better than true scifi fans. Anyone who needs battles, violence, special effects, technology & terror to gratify themselves need not bother to watch this film. There is none. It is a lot like the film Contact which focused on the human characters life.

The jacket says 2178. This was not a bad movie. I will agree it was like 10 little indians in theme but they didn't pursue the deaths enough to determine if sabotage was involved. Nor did we ever find out who did it. But it must have been the android.

However, the movie was believable as was the acting. I didn't care for the drug addict doctor nor was an escape pod for only 2 believable or reasonable. Nor was the ending expected. That comment was BS.

It was disappointing that they never reached their destination.

I will agree with the comment about the absurdity of an underground bunker on Alcatraz island near the Goldengate bridge. Not a logical place for this.

I am disappointed that I could not fully hear the comment on the holographic phone except for mention of everything gone & Nostradamus. But the full comment was indiscernible. Without closed captioning, we may never know his full comment.

I could have done without the virtual reality & nudity on them. Those were a waste of time better used for improved story instead. I didn't buy the film to see their virtual reality trips. There was a short lived TV series or pilot very similar with virtual reality & deaths on a space craft. Someone was killing everyone via virtual reality. That series was really bad. I have it somewhere.

Kids don't need to see nudity fantasies & drug addict shoot ups to escape problems. Neither were necessary. It is rated R as a result which killed their main audience from watching it. It showed a lack of faith in the movie by the Director or whomever came up with the idea to insert scenes like that. I also would have liked to have seen more about the new planet and more ship & crew functions between the deaths instead of back to back.

But still is worth watching for adults. It was a B++ above all other B movies. The acting & sets & story were quite believable. Nothing cheesy even without expensive effects.

This is what you get when they give $80 million to a bad director & a rotten script but with a good crew.

It is as historically inaccurate as imaginable. I recommend listening to the local vulcanologists about the real events. Not your TV cable network celebrity hosts. The real quake damage was days before the eruption because they were repairing the city when it was buried.

On this movie, there was no ash & pellets from the sky which buried Pompeii under 40 ft for 2 days.

The city was preserved IRL under the ash & pebbles. Not trashed & burned as shown, although roofs caved in under the heavy ash. Any moron knows a tsunami travels away from the source. Not toward it. This idiot had the ocean & ships surging into town. The real tsunami surged across the bay away from the volcano. Did the director & scriptwriter even bother to look up Pompeii on the computer? They certainly lacked any basic common sense. This director is a violence freak and lived up to his reputation & killed everyone.

The Romans treated their gladiators & slaves better than this. That was not the southern US or West Indies. Again, morons. Rome had very strict laws about the rights of gladiators.

Then they killed off all the heroes & no one survives. What kind of jerk would write or direct such an ending. Who was dumb enough to give this violence freak $80 million for this movie? IRL Most of the real citizens escaped except their slaves left behind, the poor, elderly & stubborn. But most citizens escaped except those who waited too long & had no ship to leave on. They only found a few dozen in Pompeii. Herculaneum had over 100 found under the docks.

Even the gladiator game was awful. The only things worthwhile were the costumes, sets & effects and the younger actors.

This film is for those poorly educated who don't care about inaccuracies or killing the entire cast.

I gave it 3 stars for the premise. The acting, directing & writing is horrible. Namely Matt Johnson. He ruined the movie in every way possible. It was like watching a bunch of 12 year olds trying to make a movie in their garage at home. Both on screen & the crew behind the scenes were clueless Jr high school mentality & totally unaware just how clueless they truly are.

IRL, the real moon photos prove the scenes were falsified. I'm an engineer, scientist & photo expert. This movie was just moronic. It made me nauseous to watch these morons. Save your money. This movie has no redeeming qualities. It is so bad, I couldn't bear to watch the deleted scenes.

Capricorn One is much better. Great actors, excellent story & wonderful filmography. Everything this movie is missing. Matt Johnson needs to get out of the film business & never show his face on the screen again, much less write or direct. He bombed out on every aspect he touched. The movie is so bad, it is painful to watch. Even their personal assumptions are clueless on every issue.

This is a subject which is of interest to me. It could have been a good movie if properly written with a good crew, good director & decent actors. All of which this film was missing. These actors weren't just bad. They were offensive with Matt Johnson as the worst. It certainly is no thriller. The reviewer who said it was Bill & Ted meeting Dumb & Dumber hit the nail on the head. The entire crew who created this film were a bunch of clueless morons. You can see this by watching them on the special features if you can tolerate it after suffering through the movie.

Boring, disappointing, moronic, bad acting, bad directing, bad writing, clueless crew and a waste of money.

I loved the original. It was a great movie to watch but some moron wrote this one & spoiled our chances for a great trilogy. This movie definitely needed a better writer & director. Someone like Chris Columbus.

There is a great DVD extra "The war of 1996" which fills in all the missing story background. The other extras are terrible. Goldblum ruins the gag reel.

The movie is still worth watching despite our complaints on the bad writing.

If Will Smith is going to demand $50 million to do a movie, I think it is time to start boycotting his films. He's a great actor but needs a lesson in humility.

I also have no tolerance for stupidity IRL or in films.

Stupidity such as:

--shooting at something before finding out what it is.

--counting down from 10 to 0 before firing at an attacker who blows up your weapons before you reach O. Just fire, morons. They didn't count down when firing at the friendly.

--waiting 20 years to study the alien language & ship.

--to only build a handful of defensive craft & weapons.

--turning Hero President Whitmore into a moron, & copying his role from the drunk pilot who sacrificed himself on the original.

--thinking original fans want to see copycat plots & themes.

--having a hive queen leave the hive.

--having Okun in a 20 year coma.

--having the original cast psychically connected with visions of symbols.

--having a bad writer & director deliberately turn every original cast character into humiliating morons to purposely trash their characters.

--waiting 20 years to begin preparations for defense.

--sticking the US craft under the mother ship. Then doing it twice with the stolen crafts stuck in a vortex.

--a stupid, airheaded president insisting on a celebration before dealing with aliens.

--having the mother ship scrape the moon.

--putting gov't leaders in Cheyenne mountain where they were all killed in the original movie; so they could do it again in this movie with the same results?. Didn't they learn the first time?

--Bringing in African warlords. Really?

--having no detection system to see invaders BEFORE they arrived.

--using the earths core as their target when we have water, food, animals, slaves and precious minerals & ores to harvest?

--waiting for the last minute to evac mother. It was reboot Spocks mother all over again. Utter Stupidity.

--Then there were the morons on the gold ship with rotten character attitudes.

--Levinson's fathers role in this film was totally absurd.

Everything was clearly written with a 10 year old boys mentally.

The friendly alien sounded like a kindergarten teacher. Like a corny Disney character.

If the core drill was that close to completion it would have pressure exploded.

They claimed to have copied alien technology to build our defenses & craft but were totally unprepared.

They also should have figured out shields & intergalactic travel from the first aliens technology they recovered. But they never figured out how to turn on the alien ships lights in 20 years.

The primary actors roles were complete idiots except Dylan. Although, I'm not sure the audience these days could recognize an idiot.

As for the friendly sphere: Outer Limits (orig) had a better version of alien refuges in spheres on the moon who sacrificed themselves.

I also have to agree with the British about our shoving this Cowboy politics & swashbuckling hero mentality and Independence Day down their throats. Talk about lack of tact. The Russians & Chinese hate this swaggering US attitude as well. With the rednecks in Texas, I have to agree with the British, Russians & Chinese. We are blustering AH's. Why would they like a movie like that? We went to war with the British on Independence Day. I saw their comments. Their critics didn't appreciate this theme for the reasons I mentioned.

Despite all these irritants and rotten writing it is still an enjoyable movie if you loved the original. But if there is a next time, get a decent writer & Director. Someone with imagination, education & common sense.

However, these really nasty reviews are undeserved overkill by a bunch of hateful millennials getting even with their parents by trashing anything they loved out of pure spite. If you are going to trash something, do so because it deserves such treatment. Not as a weapon against your parents.

The movie was still worth watching despite the bad writer & director just on tribute to the original movie alone. But it was missing memorable new key characters for the audience to bond with. The 4 new key characters were forgettable with dumb roles like punching the other in the face over an old grudge and behaving like irresponsible jerks who nearly caused a major accident. Cowboy daredevils. They cast a bunch of key roles with people you never connected with. They needed someone like Charliz Theron. Actors which grab your attention in a blockbuster film.

I fear this writer & director & lackluster characters roles played by forgettable actors may have destroyed our chance for a third movie.

At least they did not split the 2 films like they did with Harry Potter & Allegiant. That would have been the final straw to PO everyone.

If you can overlook the utter stupidity of the writing it is still a good movie with all the borrowing from the original & effects. It is the plot & poor writing & bad directing which spoiled it.

This is what happens when you hire a foreign director who can't speak English and therefore can't communicate with his cast. He was on the DVD extras. Since he didn't understand a word he was filming, how could he make a decent movie or anticipate what the English speaking cast or audience would like?

I have not seen hunger games, etc, so I'm not judging this movie by comparison. However, this so-called labyrinth looked like they were filming in an abandoned power plant. I sure hope it wasn't a nuke plant for the sake of the actors. It wouldn't be the first time a director exposed his entire cast to radiation & they ended up with cancer. (Howard Hughes; The Conqueror film with John Wayne, Hayward, Moorehead & 90 others got cancer from filming in the Utah desert downwind near the Nevada nuclear test site).

The control room & cooling towers & water systems in this Andron film sure looked like an old nuclear power plant.

Oblivion (a movie I loved, was partially filmed in an abandoned power plant in New Orleans. It was not nuclear as far as I know but was leaking water all over the cast, crew & equipment while filming Oblivion. These abandoned power plants are pretty awful. Wet, rusting, dangerous, crumbling, possibly toxic and are rotten locations to use for filming. But they come cheap.

I gave Andron 3 stars because I actually loved the few glimpses of the futuristic city. One of the best future cities I've seen. Too bad more of the movie wasn't filmed there using a different plot. Gleaming glass future cities would have been a much better theme.

Baldwin & Glover should have reversed their roles. This is not a racial statement. It's a personality observation. Baldwin would have done much better as the asinine Chancellor with Glover as the game Host. It was also in bad taste to show Glover owning a slave. He was clearly uncomfortable.

I agree the ridiculously oversized office the size of the French Palace with a single desk & CG screens & controls in the air was indeed absurd. It reminded me of the oversized, empty CG sets on the V 2009 TV reboot series.

There should have been more technology & a place for Baldwin's assistant to sit instead of her walking across a football stadium sized room in a rubber suit every time he wanted to have her perform a task. (like ST:Voyager's 7 of 9).

There was the total lack of logic behind the plot. 9 Billion killed in a catastrophe caused by this handful of corporations running the world. Using the games as a way to thin out the remaining 2 billion slave population they couldn't feed by encouraging them to bet their lives on which of the 10 contenders would win; & die if they picked a loser.

The lack of logic is where they claim they can't feed the 2 billion surviving slaves. They should have the slaves plowing & planting crops & orchards & process fish & food production instead of sitting around, filth encrusted, watching games. 2 billion slave laborers can do a lot to produce food & the privileged few elite would not need to kill off their labor force. These few elite leaders were clearly Not smart. It also made no sense why their slaves were filthy & living in squalor since the gleaming city of glass spread as far as you could see. So plenty of available room & technology for their slave laborers. Also, if they killed off all the slaves, these elite idiots would have to do their own work. Somehow, this population thinning reminds me of the Georgia guide stone. NWO

Then we are stuck watching these actors in their young 20's, who have no memories of who & what they are; wandering around this nasty abandoned power plant, doing stupid things & getting picked off; one by one by trick walls & glowing eyed robots. Victims too stupid to stick together or fashion weapons & too stupid to not leave any weapons lying around. The females (except 2) stand there looking stupid while the guys are pounded trying to bare hand fight robots.

I wouldn't chastise the acting skills of this cast. They were young actors mostly in their early 20's. Even famous actors often started doing low budget flicks to pay the bills & get experience. Some of the older actors do the same. Remember Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns?

The problems on this film were a rotten writer and a rotten director who couldn't communicate with his cast. But they all had to praise him in order to get hired by others.

The best way to watch this is with your finger on the fast forward button. Go normal speed whenever you see Baldwin, Glover, the future world or the bald black female because she has the entire plot in her dialogue & acting. Also, go to normal speed whenever they are outside. Otherwise, just fast forward. The victims don't know who they are or what they are doing there, so you won't miss much.

I usually fast forward through any battles or fights on any movie. There is no value in watching mindless violence no matter how fancy the special effects may be. I have no desire to watch faces punched in. Also, how many laser, sword or gunshots do you have to see? They all look the same. It is boring. I would much rather see sci-fi, high tech & intelligent interaction & fresh new story lines like the film Oblivion with Tom Cruise & Morgan Freeman.

As I said, the futuristic city is the best part of this film. Have your fast forward ready for the rest as I described.