Reviews

First of all, in my view, if Mr. Hanks were to be seen in 2 or 6 films per year and they were as good as this one then all of them deserved a full menu of award nominations. That the Academy decided that Mr. Hanks was to be overlooked for best actor award shows once again that it has had its rudder shot off and it is adrift. More than this, the Academy, to which Hanks has graced so many films, honouring the craft of acting, has shown that it is without sense and is not above trashing one of its greatest stars. Shame on the Academy.

This is a really good action adventure based on a true story. There are so few weak points in this drama that they do not merit mention. To say that the end of the film is one of Tom Hank's finest film moments would not be so much of a spoiler as a loud standing ovation. This is why we love this man.

A deeply disturbing film on some levels, stolen as it is from the yearly toll of hijacked shipping both in the Somali arena and in other areas of the world. Cargo carriers are forbidden to carry arms, which they could use to defend themselves. Hence, so many are taken over by gun wielding pirates of the seas. This film is not in defence of or is a critique of why Somali's take to the oceans to launch piratical attacks. It is a drama that forces human beings into collision courses, with long premeditated plans tossed overboard, with chaos coming down all around. This is the world we live in and it is not pretty.

I would watch any film with Tom Hanks in it. He is a joy to watch. The Somali actors were also very convincing. As I say, a very well done drama and worth award considerations.

I finally watched this yesterday and I am going to go out on a limb and register my disappointment with the film. When you look back on a film made when Bowie was at his peak, you have to consider his star power in being cast in a Japanese film. He is a fine actor and his work, small in number, is good enough to consider watching in other films. I feel that he was miscast for this film or put another way round, was cast because he was the blue eyed wonder boy from British pop. I mean, a English pop star in the same film as a Japanese pop star? Flags should have gone up on that. In Bowie's defence, he's not given a lot of latitude to move around in his role or much in the way of dialogue. He is used to glare at the camera a lot or else munch on flowers in a grotesque scene that, if important, passes over our heads. Conti is an excellent actor but what drove me nuts was his smirk or smile or fawning good humour with his Japanese tormentors, who were regularly killing soldiers. It made very little sense in the context of what camp life was really like for POW's.

The flashback scenes to Cellier's childhood made little sense. What are we to make of this other than he has feelings of guilt, for having been such a cold hearted jack ass to his kid brother? So what are we to make of this guilt? It is not developed in a direct and full manner in the film. I mean, if you want to coat the film with Shakespearean drama, then do something with the guilt. Nothing; and so, it makes little sense.

Which leads me to a deeper sense of disappointment. I might be dead wrong, but I had the sense throughout the whole film that the really shocking horrors of what the Japanese really did to prisoners were bleached a bit, sanitized to make the film more palatable to the Japanese market. It is fairly well known that the Japanese to this date have not dealt with their war crimes in a full face on mea culpa. Not even close to the soul cleansing that the German people have done and seen in their movies and literature. Go and ask the South Koreans, Chinese or Vietnamese what they think of the Japanese, especially about their war crimes and you'll get a totally different perspective than this film shows. I mean, it is not that Japanese films cannot be bloodily and bluntly honest. Most of Kurosawa's films are unsentimental, brutal and fearless in depicting the savagery of the Japanese warrior.

Consider then, what this topic would look like if made by a British director, who might have known Brits who survived a Japanese concentration camp? I dare say that the drama would not have been so ambiguous, teetering as it does several times, on the travails of a camp commander as he has his Shakespearean moments of doubt. I was so sick and tired of the commandants pouting facial gestures and his childish tirades. If you really want a taste of what these camps were like then forget about this rather silly film. Read the book "Unbroken". It is a stupendous book on all levels and it covers the survival of a man in the midst of the most brutal, savage and bestial actions, that take place in a Japanese POW camp. That is the real heart of darkness and it is watered down in this film. I was not impressed. "The Bridge over the River Kwai" is far superior. This film should be remade and not by a Japanese director, with all due respects to some of their excellent cinema.

This is really a deeply emoted and nuanced story that is what dramas and film entertainment are supposed to be about. We have grown so dull and emotionally retarded by the endless onslaught of special effects 3D films that are shallow, unrealistic and barely come close to touching our inner spaces. It is a pleasure to take a delightful journey into a story that lifts us up just a bit from our torpor and tedium, heats the heart a bit and leaves us feeling opened up. Just a bit.

Reviewers have commented on the truthful and honest manner in which this film depicts the onset of Parkinson's disease. For me this was more of a plot colour that thankfully did not overtake the centre stage for longer than was necessary. Is the plot believable? Sure, why not. Artists are no less human than the lunatics we read about in tabloids every day. They are prone to all the failings we are. At the end of the day it is a fiction lifted out of the way lives could be, given an exaggerated boost for plot development and then there is the Beethoven music.

One can never speak highly enough about Beethoven's quartets, especially the last few works. Commentators will lapse into mystic-speak when they try to find the words to describe the way the music impacted on them. Transcendent, other worldly, trans-formative, religious are just a few such words and of course none of our words can really capture the genius of Beethoven's creative soul. We just have to sit and listen and for each of us an impression will come. The great late Beethoven quartet that is woven in and out of the fabric of the film is a perfect foil and mirror to the angst and personal travails of each quartet member. Quartet music has been used before, many times, in movies to depict deep thoughts or emotions. Key moments in the HBO film "John Adams" used quartet music to great effect.

Anyway, this was such a richly enjoyable film. The actors were all wonderful and showed why they are highly respected. Of course we all take note of Hoffman and Walkins who have played highly wired characters in the past. It is a joy to see them portray constrained and controlled people; although held together we also see them straining at their own boundaries and in the case of Hoffman's character, hurting and damaging himself as he tries to unshackle some of the fetters. Despite the obvious emotionally charged scenes, this is a very internalized performance. Young actors take note: this is the way subtlety is depicted. No need to hang a sign on the face and announce "I'm being subtle now". The radiation of turmoil comes through facial gestures, the limp hanging of the head on the chest, the pain in the eyes. A really fine and bravura performance by an excellent cast.

You know I've grown quite jaded after so many years of watching old fashion films and now a whole generation of CGI fakery. I am no longer so stimulated by things blowing up or people hashing and smashing each other with great bloody abandon. (However, as an aside, I did recently watch "Body of Lies" and it is fantastic on all levels - a must watch) Anyway, the premise of this film is grounded in history so of course the first question I ask is whether the film adheres to what is known or goes off on the seductive Hollywood nonsense? I have read a few books about this period of time = and I will mention a superb one that covers the year 1000 (close enough in my view) "Millenium" by Tom Holland. To really understand what life was like back then you have to do this type of reading. What I find just turns me off about these types of films, including the noxious Ridley vehicle "Robin Hood" is that they so quickly abandon history in favour of readily digestible formula's to feed to the public. My point is that a good story can be told without making history up and yet the best of Hollywood is not interested. I mean, if it was Herzog making the film you'd be more certain that history would be respected.

I found the physical layout of 12'th century Jerusalem so far removed from what it looked like that I just cringed. I've been to Jerusalem several times and I'm telling you that it didn't look like that back then. Not even close. The one thing that the film gets quite right is the heat and dust in the Holy Land at that time. There are other problems that come to mind about a siege of Jerusalem (and here I'd have to go back to reading the real story to be very sure) but it had a huge underground source of fresh water. Outside of Jerusalem there is no fresh water for many, many miles and true enough, if you strayed from water your troops would die. And so the idiotic Christian troops were doomed.

I am also put off by actors who are overly beautiful or handsome in the roles of those who were most likely worn out, bedraggled and ill looking at the time. In short I found the film inaccurate, predictably transmitting plot movements by overstimulating the eyes and ears. The dialogue was underwhelming and the actors appearing to go through their motions, relying on skillful inflections that the action demands. A ho-hum affair and one that I wished a more honest director like Herzog to cover.....In short: boring. Books about this time period still triumph over gratuitous images.

Oh, I don't know...such great actors stuck in such a stinky and crappy film. I can't imagine the private conversations between them. The good thing is that this film is based on a true story. The bad thing is that from my vantage point in 2012, it looks awful, cheesy, horribly edited, grating music, clumsy special effects. Things for me started off bad from just a casual glance at the photographs of Peck, Moore and Niven on the jacket of my DVD and even on the photo here at IMDb. I cannot recall a moment in this film when Niven and Moore dressed up like German naval officers. So, why have them depicted as such in the photos? Ridiculous.

Gregory Peck, one of the finest actors ever, was there ever a miscasting mistake in his career worse than this one? Atticus Finch tries desperately to sound like a lord of the manor and it is painful to listen and watch. Some actors just should not attempt to sound British and the sad joke of Kevin Costner trying to be Robin Hood in his Yankee-English disaster....is the stuff of Hollywood jokes. So no, Peck should not have been cast as a British officer. He was, strangely enough, very powerful and frightening as the evil Dr. Mengele in "The Boys from Brazil". He pulled that role off with great effect. In Sea Wolves I was almost howling with displeasure.

Roger Moore was apparently in between shooting two James Bond films and the Sea Wolves was the sandwich centrepiece. His debonair mannerisms were detracting. David Niven looked exasperated and embarrassed to be stuck in this clunker. Oh, the better days were way behind him. The great Trevor Howard is wasted in this film, his time on screen too short and the material just garbage.

This is a film that should be remade and with a better script. And please, next time, don't include the scotch dowsing scene.....just such a sad sight to see good scotch wasted.....on such a dreadfully boring film.

I very often will read a book first to learn a deeper level of knowledge about a historical event. Before watching this film I read "The Battle of the River Plate" by Dudley Pope (circa 1956) - paperback. I really liked that book as it provides loads of information about the Graf Spe, a German "pocket" battle ship, which was brand new at the outset of WW2 and for its time and size, cutting edge and fearsome. I recommend viewers to that book.

The movie was quite enjoyable as an action adventure / historical drama. My version of the film had "extras" including interviews with Christopher Lee and others. We learn that the directors had to capture long distance shots of US Navy boats whenever they could, which was often last minute. In any case, the story is fairly well covered. I have to admit that I am not always a fan of the acting quality of certain eras. I don't want to give the impression that I dislike older films; the exact opposite is usually the case. I am trying to bring out a point and that is often set pieces like this film, done in studios and not on location, like this one, the actors sadly take on a very mannered, somewhat brittle and stiff physicality to their "acting". And this film had such a fine collection of terrific actors, who aged well into their craft as they grew older. Look at Christopher Lee, who has a tiny role in this film, whip thin, you can hardly recognize him. Most of the lead actors were incredibly slim (not that it really matters). I find early Michael Redgrave films troublesome because I find his approach too self conscious and remote. Seeing him as Master and Commander of his small scale and somewhat suicidal fleet, hunting down a far superior ship, chomping away on his pipe, it's a bit too much. I suppose that people actually behaved this way but I find it grating on my nerves.

I often compare one film against another and for me one of the top films of the sea, not yet eclipsed, is "Das Boot". Imagine the Graf Spee story as told by Wofgang Petersen? You'd have an anti-romantic, blood and guts story, with the battle see sawing back and forth, no one really knowing who was winning. That was the truth of the matter; the Brits did not know how much damage they were causing and the reason was not a lack of radar. It was because these ships were lobbing shells at each other from many miles separation! The Graf Spee's biggest guns could lob shells so far that it took almost a full 60 seconds for them to hit their target from the moment they were shot out of the cannons.

The dialogue was not overly impressive and the loss of life and damage of the Exeter was underplayed: they had the crap smashed out of them and were almost sunk.

The Graf Spee was the first ship in history to be outfitted with functional, if weak, radar. The Brits sent up sighter sea planes who could radio sightings back to the ship. Minus radar, the optical sighting of the crew was limited to the strength of small telescopes and hand held binoculars. This was early in the war. The scuttling of the Graf Spee is still discussed today because it seems such a mystery. Although his ship did take a fair amount of damage and his cooking areas (galley) were destroyed, Langsdorf still had the use of his superior guns. Why did he scuttle the ship? We still are not sure but the defeat and scuttling must have really shocked the German Naval Command.

Other than somewhat wooden acting and commanders who didn't seem all that worried that shells were hitting the waters just a few feet away from blowing huge holes in their own ships, it's a pretty good film. I think Petersen should remake this film from the German point of view. Now that is something exciting to contemplate.

Oh gosh, some films do start to look a bit tired. I'm reviewing this after seeing it for the first time in 2012. To say that the film is a tad bit slow is being generous. The script is quite all right; it's just that Ritt seems to linger too long on each scene whereas he could have made the points in a tighter and more urgent manner. Think of what Clint Eastwood would have done with this material. The end credits to the film claim that this is a fiction and rightly it might be so. However, the not so subtle subtext is the labour situation in the deep south, which continues on to this day.

I live in Ontario and I have seen recessions come and go and years back one of them saw a lot of furniture manufacturers close up shop and move to brand new facilities in the south. In states that had practically no union presence. The impression we had then was that expensive Canadian labour went south to much cheaper non-union labour in the south. There are still many factories in the United States that are under represented by unions. I am not advocating unions and the issue is broader than I need to refer to in a movie review.

The poor and largely uneducated working folks of this southern town have no where else to go, no other local jobs open, certainly not for their skill sets. So, they feel obliged to take any work and the factory owners take full advantage of that fact. Comes a Jewish labour leader from New York, who just as slowly as the film plods on, finds it tough going to get any of the workers to come on board. Norma Rae actually is not the tipping point for his labour organizing. Not at first. A spontaneous stand taken by Norma, done with great contrast to her surrounding, in silence, by holding up a made up "union" sign, tips the balance. This type of battle took place all across the United States for as long as it ramped up its industrial foundations. There have always been too many unsafe work places where labourers are paid third world wages. There are many movies dedicated to just such a story. This is a good one but it suffers from dragging its feet in the soup.

The actors are all good and the chemistry in particular between Sally Field and Ron Liebman quite fun to watch. Were this film not so long on the sweating and plot development I would have given it higher marks. Not great, but worth a viewing. Then: think again about the recent headlines of the terrible working conditions of workers producing Apple computer parts in China. So little changes.

I had forgotten that the director of 2010 was the same sad sack who directed one of the worst stink-bombs of all time "Capricorn One". Be that as it may, a director is allowed a few disasters in their career. When watching 2010 I could not help it but I had Kubrick's magnum opus playing side by side in my mind, minute by minute. This made for a painful watch because Hyams film sinks by as many degrees as Kubrick's rises. The contrasts could not be more obvious and any serious film buff should first see Kubrick's a few times and then see Hyams. With K. each single frame is meticulously thought out and from beginning to end the images force us to immerse in contemplation and poetry is everywhere. Each sound bite is crafted to highlight the drama without submerging it. The music is perfect in all moments. Hyams film suffers from early 80's schlock. The music sets ones nerves on edge, is awful, the editing is as subtle as a meat cleaver rendering flesh from the bone. The plot, well I don't know how close his script was to Clarke's novel and to be fair I would have to read it first. I understand that Hyams had to recreate all of the set pieces and they work fairly well on a special effects level. The overall pacing, dialogue, creation of tension and resolution are all rough edged, we see it coming almost half a light year away. Kubrick's is dream like and we do not anticipate where the dream is leading us. Hyams ham fisted attempt to deliver a sequel dies on the table and by 2012 standards is almost unwatchable. Here is a man who created special effects in 1984 that looked half baked, whereas Kubrick's 1968 is still unsurpassed to this day. A great disappointment; this one gets donated to the library.

Having not seen this film or having read the novel, I approached it with no preconceived notions other that so many on IMDb have given the film so many accolades. Alas, I will not be joining that group. Watching this film in early 2012 I was confronted with a depiction that was overtly jingoistic and so fawning towards the US Navy, that I found the preening gestures to be detracting, robbing the story of any possible objectivity in the story telling. While I am not unaware that every film will mirror the times in which it is crafted, I found the musical score to be mediocre and too strenuously fixated with reproducing a gallant and martial atmosphere. Subtlety this film had none. Some critics have noted and I will agree with them that the first half of the film really drags. I also feel that the romantic peregrinations of Ensign Willie Keith are unnecessary, weakly depicted and developed. Watching it now made me cringe, with the watered down tension of his divided loyalties towards his mother and the woman he asserts he is in love with just comes across as unconvincing, drained of real passion, conviction and angst. It doesn't help the movie that the two actors playing the roles had practically no sparks between them. That entire part of the film, even if it is in the book, could have been left out.

My impression of Bogart as the mentally unhinged Captain was that he was miscast for this role. Bogey, for me at least, was too wooden, stiff, an obvious land lubber trying to make himself look like a seasoned sea dog and I didn't buy it for a moment. I kept on waiting for him to pop a cigarette in his mouth but not once is he seen smoking, which, as hilarious as it might sound from a health point of view, was his trade mark in so many of his films. Another thing I was quite surprised at was how short he was. Every time he stood beside Van Johnson or Fred MacMurray, both quite tall men, Bogey look so much smaller, which of course he was.

Much has been made of his recourse to fidgeting with with balls of some metal, and even if it is in the novel, the way he acts this out looks contrived and with no subtly. Imagine if it was Charles Laughton portraying this captain as he had on the film "Mutiny on the Bounty"? Bogart's Captain is portrayed more as someone who is severely anal retentive, given to ridiculous attention to details that have about as much place on a minesweeper as they would on a chain gang. That type of spit and polish with harsh consequences for insubordination belonged on a big battle ship, not a rusting hulk.

I found the emotional projections of every single person in the film to be too cautious, unnatural, forced, self conscious of being an "act". Fred MacMurray, a talented actor, hardly breaks away from his monochromatic portrayal, and strangely so. The only person in the film who evoked a few moments of real emotion was Jose Ferrer, whose sneering revulsion for the defendants is a welcome jolt of a real moment of conviction.

A word about special effects and stock footage. The film used three sources to show the boats. One was shot either on a stage or on a real boat, another was stock footage from WW2 and the weakest was the model ship being shot in a large tub. The model scenes looked at today will only make you laugh. I suppose that in 1954 people didn't much care if the ship looked like a toy; they focused on the overall story. I am someone grown accustomed to quality effects and looked at now, the storm tossed boat looks silly and amateurish.

The premise of the drama is not impossible to conjure but I felt that it lacked enough life and death held in the balance to convince me. Bogart's reaction to seeing the mutinous defendants outside the court room was typical of how odd the relationships were. He was not the least bit perturbed by seeing them and he greeted them as friends. The court room drama was the strongest part of the film and I will grant that watching Bogart's character fall apart was the climax of the film. However, it was a short moment in what is otherwise a rather dreary and muted film. You would think that the actions taken in the middle of a typhoon to save everyone on board from imminent drowning would have evoked a stronger reaction from all concerned but you won't find it here. I was bothered that the film does not tell you what became of Bogart's character, Captain Queeg. All that we know is that the defendants won their case and that Queeg lost. I found the lack of follow through to be a weak point. All in all, the film looks very dated, the actors all look devoid of conviction and by comparisons to other boat films, this one is flat. Not impressed. Go and look at what Laughton and Gable did on the other Mutiny film and then you'll see action worth writing accolades for. Not here.

I quite enjoy most of Spielberg's films. From the trailers I had moderate expectations that he would deliver good entertainment value, which is why we go to the cinema in the first place. I am not familiar with the novel that this film is based on and know nothing of the play version. I know a few facts about WW1. The operative word that kept going through my mind in the film was "improbable". It is a given that at some point in most films you are requested to surrender your belief that the images are realistic representations of some story. In this case WW1 is a fairly well known event so if you place your drama in the midst of it you had better get it right.

The drama begins in Devon just before the war, where an impoverished and semi drunken farmer bids an enormous amount of money for a horse that would be put to use behind a plow. While most level headed men would have purchased a stocky draft animal that was well suited to hauling a plow over rough terrain, this farmer inexplicably buys a horse far beyond his purse and his choice is a thoroughbred, unbroken racing horse. His young son has had eyes on this horse for several years, don't you know and throws his body into saving the horse from his fathers wrath. Eventually his father has to sell the horse to pay for the rent on the farm. The horse is bought up by the British Army and is shipped off to France and Belgium to help in the war effort. The young lad is too young to go fight in the war just yet but don't you know that he'll be there just as soon as he possibly can. And in the back of his mind he is hoping against all odds to find his horse. And at the end of the film, again against the highest of all odds he finds his horse. A more impossibly silly story in Spielberg's output is rarely found. The horse is taken over by several different people who for short periods of time take care of it. In the midst of the carnage of a full scale front line bombardment it survives being entwined in layers of barbed wire, while a plucky and perhaps insane British soldier decides to wander out under cover of a white flag to try and relieve the horse of it's sufferings. Don't you know that the horse is down closer to the German lines and a brave and perhaps equally foolish German soldier wanders out to watch what the British soldier is going to do with the horse. At this point, I'd have to say that it's all down hill and into a Disney-like wrap up.

The battle scenes are very loud (I had to plug my ears) but there is very little gratuitous blood and gore, that lots of his films are rich with. No head exploding, blood flying everywhere like in Saving Private Ryan. This seems to have been toned down for a younger audience appeal, maybe? The problems with the film are obvious. The first 2/3's of the film are slow, ponderous, quiet, overly dramatic but without any direction to a climax. The war is depicted for what it was, horrific and led by supremely inept leadership on both sides. This is really a side bar, because this is a horse movie. That we watch British Cavalry ride off with sabres flashing, as if they were fighting Napoleon, only to be mowed down in a slaughtering hail of bullets from machine guns, is really the only major display of insanity that the witless leadership brought down on themselves. That they fought trench war fare and were killed or maimed by gas is given just a passing glance. The war in this film is a distraction and at the point where it looms large on the screen you've forgotten exactly where this film was supposed to be going. Oh yes, the horse.

A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that at least 480,000 horses died on the British side alone. That this film wants us to zoom in on the travails of just one of them in the midst of maybe a million others, is far fetched and a stretch too far. Would we be as swept up in the glorious drama (these are words used by other reviewers) if some heart broken bloke had his dog overseas and in the trenches and somehow he finds it in the middle of hell? It is preposterous. This part of the film reminds me of two other occasions where a major Hollywood film puts men at risk of the trenches with someone trying to keep a sharp eye open for a close friend or relative, the premise being that they've given a promise to someone back home that they'd bring them back alive. It was covered in "Legends of the fall" where the brother dies and it is covered in "Passchendaele" where the main lead gets himself killed. Those were more believable front line stories than War Horse.

I found the dialogue unmoving, the visual images overly beautiful, the plot predictable in the midst of a muddy sea of improbabilities. And for God's sake, Spielberg has the German soldiers speaking English but as they are led away in a march, the officer leading them away counts off in German. Give me a break. Consistency be damned. The music was predictable John Williams fare. All in all I was let down and found the first 2/3's of the film tedious and too slow. I would hardly use the words "stunning", "enthralling", or "exceptional". Surprising let down from a real master.

Watching this once was enough to convince me that a donation of the DVD to the library was a splendid idea. This film had one of the very worst scripts and dialogues that made me squirm from beginning to the end. A highlight of awful dialogue was the back and forth banter between Karen Black and Elliot Gould where they would repeat "wanna jump me" or some variant of this, trying hard to talk dirty but sounding like they were describing the air temperature. O.J. only has a few lines, thank goodness and the very first thing he says, after many scenes of him looking all artificially peeved is "I think I want to throw up", which pretty much sums up the feeling I had at the end of the film. When I think of it now, this film reminds me of some of the very popular (but now unwatchable) 70's television shows like the Six Million Dollar Man.

For the life of me, the many people who have expressed their opinions here about how terrific and exciting this film is I cannot speak to the low level of taste so many of you must have or your complete lack of knowledge of what makes a cracker-jack good plot, snappy dialogue or semi-believable premise. None of this is here. The writer/director should have stuck to journalism where his talents would be best utilized. In terms of atrocious films this one sits, for me, in the basement with "Joe" (Susan Sarandon's debut) and "Highlander". There are zero redeeming qualities to this stinker. Even the Jerry Goldsmith music is the worst of his entire output. I always come back to comparing films like this to masterpieces like "2001 A.S.O." and "Apollo 13". Even "Silent Running" is miles above this in story telling strength. Completely bad film.

Saw it last night and it was wonderfully satisfying. This morning it occurred to me that one of the films it has absorbed into the plot was a Robin Williams vehicle, "What dreams may come". In that film a man seeks to find his lost wife, who has descended to the depths of "hell" all of which she directed herself there as a form of punishment. The husband seeks to go and find her, at great personal (spiritual) peril, knowing the risks, to try and convince her to come away from the dark corner (of her soul) that she has condemned herself to, all in the name of love. Sound familiar? If you have seen Inception then it has more than a solid resemblance.

The other film that immediately came to mind was the Matrix (trilogy). In fact, half way through this dazzling film I had made a mental note of calling this "Matrix 4"; although they run on different premises, the influences of the Matrix films are all over this new one. And this is a good thing as far as the overall film is concerned.

This is a thought provoking film. How far removed from reality is the premise of this film? Considering how the mechanics of hypnosis works, with how a mind can be taught to think certain thoughts, all through soft suggestive words should make us consider the plausible successes that dream manipulations might entail. The sci-fi aspects of the film are of course just that, not really within our (current) grasp. That does not mean that it is impossible to be developed or is within striking distance now. I have read stories of how mind washing techniques are supposed to work and one could do well by reading up on the Manchurian Candidate types of techniques. The problem with this type of material is that so much of it (in print) careens off into super conspiratorial side roads and before you know it, you've lost the original premises. Suffice it to say that mind manipulations exist today, the most commonly used ones (that will reach the unconscious or preconscious mind) are hypnosis. Also remember that hypnosis can be self applied with behaviour modification as the objective. People who seek to loose weight or stop smoking have used mind altering techniques for years.

What is fascinating about this film is the idea that not only can we reach into a persons first layer unconscious mind but that doors can be opened at that level to reach even further down into deeper layers of the mind. What this implies, for me, is the dual aspects of our minds capacity. Our minds, even if one argues existentially, have the innate and potential capacity for an (almost) limitless expansion outwards and the same is probably true for reaching the unconscious aspects of our minds total capacity. One could even argue that the overall total capacity our minds ALL sits in the unmanifested and always hidden unconscious state, just waiting for direction. Some would reverse the direction and say that all of our conscious mind is entirely directed by the unconscious, which again is always hidden from our conscious consideration. In this myriad of considerations this film gives us adequate reasons to pause and consider our own capacities.

This film, like all modern action films, has wonderful special effects, many of which will have you saying out loud 'matrix' inspired. They are delightful to watch. The actors all play off the nervous and edgy vibes of the action. The plot is confusing and circuitous but the writer is smart enough to throw in just a small handful of very funny bits to ease us through the long periods of tense moments. This is really a film to watch several more times, with so much going on and quite a bit of dialogue spoken one needs several viewings in order to digest the meaning. Highly recommended and certainly a career highlight for the always powerful Mr. Di Caprio. This will be high on my must own list.

There are several reasons I treasure this film. What lingers for me, because I play the piano, is Randy Newman's sentimental and delicate score. I noticed in a recent viewing that the editing placed the score in the background, which added subtle texture, whereas in the Pixar films he's done the soundtracks are more aggressively in your face (ears) so to speak. The haunting themes in Avalon I consider to be some of master Randy's finest, with only "Awakenings" topping the list.

I had not realized how much of a family film this was, with no violence or vulgarity anywhere and frankly we don't miss it. The film is filled with nuances of ethnic inflections that capture the mannerisms in which people of that era communicated with each other. Sometimes the body language alone even was more hilarious and important than the actual dialogue.

Having grown up in an environment not too far removed from the immigrant Polish Jewish one portrayed, I recognized many family dramas that were so familiar I could pick them out one by one. It is not that families don't eat at table and talk and squabble anymore. It is often the starting point in which they bring their heated conversations to a boil that has changed over the generations. Consider for example the focus on pooling family finances either as a yearly tithe towards favoured charities or the same channelling of resources to sponsor or subsidize the arrival of another relative stuck in Europe. Families today rarely have cause to consider their lives within this framework.

The film is honest, charming, funny, sad and warm, by turns nostalgic and also quite descriptive of how European immigrants worked from nothing into (sometimes) very successful living conditions and levels of wealth and affluence. The generation of immigrants (not just Jewish) that fled the turmoils of Europe almost without exception came with very meagre resources. Pushing their children and encouraging their grandchildren to work hard, keep focused and to excel the standards that they lived helped propel the higher levels of success and affluence. All of that drama is given a proper map in this film.

There are some very funny scenes in this film, none more touching than the famous turkey scene in which Lou Jacobi's character (and his wife) typically arrive late for a Thanksgiving Dinner, having travelled by car quite a distance, only to find that his younger brother has just cut the turkey. Outraged by this insult to his pride, screaming at his brother that he "cut the toikee" (accents included) and making a family fuss of huge over reaction, makes for very funny but recognizable stresses that many families I'm sure faced.

Another thing that caught my attention is that Levinson almost completely bleached out the reality that these were Polish Jews. You can find maybe one line where someone responds to a sentence with Yiddish phrase, but it is spoken so quickly that unless you are aware of it you'll miss it entirely. No one is depicted going to synagogue or consulting a Rabbi. I find that a bit odd, considering that even if coming to Baltimore in 1914, the Jews were at that point more obviously Jewish, many men still wearing traditional head coverings. The only obvious sign of this being Jewish people are the exaggerated Jewish accents.

Watch for very young Elijah Woods who is quite good for a little kid. The real stars give an understated performance, allowing the richness of the story to speak for itself. I love this film and could recommend it to those who need an uplifting family based drama. Excellent.

I am a fan of Crowe and Scott so of course I was attracted to watch the film. My knowledge of the "real" Robin Hood was very little, but I had the notion that he, like King Arthur, was much mythologized. In both cases it appears that the clear identification of one particular person fixed in time still evades considerable investigation. Both play a large role in English folklore and have been covered numerous times in movies. The last and now sadly silly Robin Hood film I saw was Kevin Costner's attempt. The one single redeeming memory from that film was the terrific love song at the end of the film written and performed by Canada's Brian Adams. Otherwise a film completely stolen by Alan Rickman. What then of Ridley's portrayal? Given the opportunity to show that he had done his research he came back half done and then shot this sprawling epic. What we get is an action flick filled with clichés of the genre; this is just one of it's several unfortunate disappointments and misgivings. The film is crafted strictly along commercially viable lines that cater to the majority of film goers. No small art house purity shining here; this is big, expensive, boisterous and oh, so Hollywoodish. The sacrifice of authenticity while pandering to the masses is sad given how much energy is expended making a film this large look historically viable.

There are laughable historical impossibilities that are worth making fun of. If Robin lived in 12'th century England, then having his fun loving friends enjoy a song and dance blast with music that is best placed in 20'th Century East Coast of Canada is foolish at best. The music of his era is known and it could have been reproduced. But, that would have robbed Alan Doyle, the lead singer from Newfoundland's Celtic folk group "Great Big Sea" from his rousing numbers. At this point in history, Scottish people were enraged at the very severe taxation he had heaped upon them to pay for his disastrous Crusade march to the Holy Land. So, to see a Scottish warrior tagging along with King Richard is just not going to happen. Probably the same would hold true for the Irish as well. The depiction of the French defending a small castle as slavishly devoted to their hungry stomach, abandoning their posts as soon as supper arrives is just too ridiculous and I just have to think that it is meant as a joke.

Sadly there were zero kinetic sparks between Crowe and Blanchett, much to my surprise. Almost without exception Robin Hood is depicted as a glowering and somewhat distracted bloke who somehow survived 10 years of slaughter and deprivation without much to show for it. I think that Crowe might have subconsciously had in mind to portray a person deep in post traumatic syndrome and it's a shame he didn't do more with that idea. The fight scenes were all anti-climatic, anticipated many minutes before each one and after hundreds of others in the offing, this one was filled with typical gestures that were largely uninteresting. While it might be true that since we do not really know the true story of who Robin Hood was and therefore this lack gives greater artistic and interpretive freedom and space I found the direction that Ridley and the scriptwriter took was too middle ground. Lots of gnarling, smashing of huge swords, endless swishes of overly accurate arrows, lots of bodies being impaled. Ho hum...another epic. This version of the tale, with a terrific actor who could not make up his mind on what type of accent he was trying to work with, could have been more rewarding if more risks had been taken, a more gritty and honest approach, perhaps moving the classification into the adults only maturer audience....Instead we got a tepid version of Gladiator and that's disappointing.

There are a number of very good and perceptive reviews of this film. Just a few comments from me then. I have seen Daniel Day-Lewis in only two films, much to my chagrin (now). The Last of the Mohicans was the first and now TWBB. In this film Lewis displays his refined method actors chops and for me it was a frightening embodiment of a really creepy man whose lust for power and wealth ran amok, twisting and subverting his sensibilities much like I imagine a drug addicts mind succumbs to the chemical demons flowing in his veins.

The era of the great oil men at the outset of the oil industry is well covered in novels and movies and this is a very fitting depiction of one of the most Dickensian avenues of American history. When we see pursuit of ambition it is riven with hellish violence that lingers in the memory long after the curtain rises. While I have not read the Upton Sinclair novel "Oil", I think that the film stands on its own. Its despair goes a fair stretch deeper than Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden". Funny that I think about it, but the pain in this film much reminds me of the same found in a book I am half way through now, "The March", written about General W. T. Sherman's blood soaked march of death and destruction through the deep south in the middle of the US Civil War.

Several themes stand out. The young child that Plainview raises as his own is shown a degree of respect and tenderness until that fateful day when he is nearly killed by a well head explosion. Now suddenly a distraction to the endless hunt for more oil, he is cast aside in a heartless manner; something that will come back to haunt Plainview throughout the story. Second is the powerful tension of contrasts set up between Plainview and Eli Sunday. The mutual loathing and hate these men had for each other grows like a sickly moss until it overcomes them both.

The surface layer themes are all moral and should remind us of the era, still with us, of Bernie Maddoff and "Gordon Gecko". Should we cringe when we watch this type of drama? I should say so. Does it not well describe our current ultra consumerist mentality? While we are not all directly involved in the dark deeds, do we not indirectly contribute to questionable acts of environmental degradation and support of highly suspect third world labour pools, all for our own creature comforts? Should we not think on this when we do all the cringing? I don't know where Day-Lewis found that voice of Plainview but it seemingly embodies a man possessed of urges that would make us hide the children and have us slam the door shut. His hypnotic self assured expression of will makes his descent into madness even more unsettling. He richly deserved the Oscar. An excellent and powerful film. (I found the soundtrack very nerve wracking. It felt like someone was running their fingernails down the chalk board, many times over....all to spine tingling effect. The visual special effects were wonderful to watch...)

After having read Robert Littell's masterpiece (can you believe that only 6 people have given their opinion on the book over at Amazon???) I was already set up with very low expectations for a film version. I have been more disappointed than satisfied with the film versions of good novels and this was just one more flop.

The novel is very long (896 pages) but is as deep as it is wide from the point of view of a plot that grabs you from the outset and doesn't let you go until the very last page. The story he weaves is a believable pattern of interconnecting stories that are borrowed from real Cold War history and fictions crafted from the vapours of that real history. If you know your history well then Littel's craft shines; I mean, without that knowledge you would not be able to differentiate where the real and the imaginary part ways or merge.

The film version, in my view, suffers from several weak points and I'll describe them. Much is made of Michael Keaton, one of my favourite American actors, known for his versatility in both dramas and comedy (see: Clean & Sober, Beetlejuice and Multiplicity). He gets the mannerisms and physical gestures of Angleton down pat. What works against him and I know that I am being very picky, are his looks. Keaton looks like what he is: a very healthy and squeaky clean guy. Angelton was a chain smoking and borderline alcoholic whose many decades of this lifestyle left him looking like a train wreck. Keaton looked too healthy. John Turturo would have been a better choice. Alfred Molina is a terrific and very physical actor but for me he drew too much attention and gave me the impression of over acting but without the inner turmoil that his character possessed. His role would have been better captured by a younger Gene Hackman or Charles Durning. Molina was not believable as the man depicted in the novel. Next is Chris O'Donnell, someone I have yet to like in any movie. I think he was completely miscast as Jack McCauliffe. His boyish good looks worked against him. His character would have done better with Jude Law or Colin Farrel.

I found Rory Cochrane to be a delight, giving a finely honed and substantial performance. His responses were periodically obscure as if his attention had wandered and I think that the writers/director could have given his character more time....which the book certainly does. The woman actors were all fine and I had no problems with them.

All in all I think that one would be better off reading the book as its power far eclipses this film.

I saw the first episode tonight and the first thing your mind does is compare. We see similar introductions to surviving American Marines (that were showcased by members of Easy Company in "Band of Brothers"). The landing on the beach invites comparisons with Saving Private Ryan. SPR was a far more elaborate and bloody landing scene. In fact what was anticlimactic for the whole of the first episode is the small amount of ground battle on Guadalcanal than is yet to come. The hour whizzed by so fast it was over before I knew it. The main characters are introduced and the story has its foundations laid. From the (limited amount) of what I know of the Pacific battles, they were very long and took a huge toll on both sides as one side fought with determination to dislodge the Japanese invaders and as they got closer to the homeland, the Japanese fought with ferocious tenacity to hold off the American's at all costs.

What I did appreciate is an early pointing at a Pacific side of the world map by a commanding officer as he explained what had happened on the day that Japan attacked not only Pearl Harbor but many other places as well. The impact was that they were attempting to secure a stranglehold on half the world; I had never realized how vast their appetite was until then. I look forward to the rest of the series where I am quite sure the horrors of the battles will reveal their ugly selves all too well. A good start.

Watched Part 2 last night. HOLY COW, what a nerve wracking bloody affair that was. The suffering of the Marines (food deprivation, malaria, constant enemy bombardment, being out numbered) was coupled with very intense close action as waves of Japanese soldiers ran headlong into blazing walls of gun fire. The hand to hand combat in the thick jungle was very dramatic. In short, a tremendous up-tick in the temperature and depth of the combat, as expected. Once again the show was adequately introduced, giving us historical background before the show begins. The show was about 50 minutes and it just zoomed by. Very impressive and gut wrenching.

Watch for how some of the soldiers act out of complete adrenalin, in what we would term irrational....not able to pause to consider what they were doing.

When Kubrick's "2001: A space Odyssey" came out in 1968 critics hailed it as a milestone, a trailblazing incarnation of cinematic entertainment not seen before. Kubrick and Cameron are both great technical innovators who created new ways of making movie images, often stretching the technical limits of their own era and pointing a clear direction for future film makers for years to come. While Kubrick did not have access to the modern and incredibly powerful world of computer animation, he made up for it by creative tricks with cameras and stages that bamboozled the eyes. Cameron has all of that and then more. He has created a luxurious wonderland of images in 3 dimensions (of course they work best when you watch it at the cinema in 3D) and from the very first images you are drawn immediately into the drama with no let up till the end.

About a half hour into the film I began to take notice of the historical and film influences as they surface in the story. Right away I was of the opinion that the Pocahontas/Captain Smith story was the strongest source. That was funny for me because the great Wes Studi who was in Malick's "The New World" is back again (very under-utilized) as a "native" Na'avi in this film. Another influence and one that caught me by surprise was the 1997 Paul Verhoeven film "Starship Troopers".

It is clear that clichés appear off and on but this is the realm of myth making in Hollywood and it always works for the audience because semi consciously we are attracted to heroes of myth, be they sports or warrior stars or pop stars. We like the feeling of being in league with large groups of other like minded folks who are all into some love affair with someone.

Technically this film has set new standards. We get full value for the extra payment to see the 3D version. Thankfully it was not ear popping loud, as I detest films that are overly noisy. The story line, which is science fiction mixed with a loathing of large mining companies by indigenous groups mixed in with tree hugging geeky science nerds (with hat tips to Spielberg in several of his films) is fun, predictable and emotionally stirring enough to keep us alert for nearly 3 hours. The actors all gave 100% with extra kudos to the mean-assed Stephen Lang (who I loved as General Pickett in "Gettysburg")who gives a richly textured characterization of a villainous soldier who gladly was the willing executioner of the corporate vision. The idea that nothing much worse than a poor last quarter (of profits)is lifted right out of the current hatred of Wall Street (both the real one and the film).

I can see why people fall in love with this film and see it many times. There is so much going on and you maybe didn't catch a line here or there the first time. It is worth owning when available. Not the greatest film of the last 10 years but well worth all the investments that Cameron and his crew have laboured at. Terrific entertainment value. A new milestone in cinematic creativity.

I choose both J & A in my summary because one without the other would not have succeeded in the deep and profound lives they lived. First of all a sober assessment of this film should be put aside until one has read David McCullough's fantastic historical account of J.A. The reader is entertained by a master storyteller, who first caught my ear in the ever great Ken Burns series "The Civil War", where he was used as narrator and historian. Once you have read this book then the many facts that you face when watching the film will make all the more sense.

Why is J.A. such a great series? The producers and director took great pains to reproduce the look and feel, the authenticity of the times. (my one and only criticism of this and just about every such series is that costumes, especially of the soldiers all look like they were just freshly pressed and taken from the closet. Soldiers of the day had no such luxury and probably looked pretty shabby, notwithstanding the bright colours. But I quibble....) The overall view is the impression that we are looking at the times as they really were. What I noted in particular was the extreme hazards of a winter time boat crossing of the Atlantic !!!! Good heavens, I can think of few things at that time or our own that were more perilous and as we watch poor J.A. wretchedly sick as the boat crashes upon the waves....we tremble at their fate. Never mind that they had to fight a pitched battle against a British ship....and could have been sunk themselves.

John Adams was a complex man but a very good and moral one. Bull headed when he dug in his heels, opinionated, erudite, hard working, a devoted and loving father and husband. All of his life's energies he channelled through the filter that was his beloved wife, Abigail. John trusted no other human as much as his Abigail. They say that they had one of the great love and literary affairs of the century. If the volume of correspondence and the expressions therein are adequate testimony, then we witness a true love. John was both a farmer, scholar and lawyer, something not seen much in our time. He was also guided by a simple but iron willed principle that all men must be governed by laws and that society that abandons them opens itself up to the rule of the mob. Early in his life he is tested as he is given the thankless task of defending British soldiers who stood accused of killing several colonists. His uneasy but fierce and successful defence of the soldiers gives us an idea of the depth of this man. He was to be tested over and over again as he was torn away from wife and children to tend to national duties as they rapidly evolved. There was not a single time that he did not gain his wife's blessings to his paths, no matter the pain it caused her.

The series quite accurately tells their story. From the incredibly difficult days where he was away in Philadelphia helping hammer out the declaration of independence while sickness and the British forces gave his wife and children many sleepless nights to the even more wrenching times when John was alone in Europe trying with great vexation to motivate French and Dutch bankers and royalty to support the erupting American revolution. The series shows the physical depredations he lived through and the mentally trying decision to send his young son John Quincy off to St. Petersburg as a diplomatic assistant.

The ensemble cast is superb from top to bottom. Much detail is given to making the actors appear as close to the historical characters. While they had no photography back then they certainly had plenty of portrait painters and we know pretty much what they looked like. David Morse's depiction of Washington was almost inch for inch what he would have looked like, the actor being as tall as Washington was. As well it is known that Washington's teeth had been removed or came out and that he wore ivory dentures. Look at all the stuffing in Morse's mouth and the attempt to reproduce the generals face is all there.

While there is so much tragedy in the Adams family, with the loss of a daughter to cancer and a son to alcoholism, the most shattering moment comes when John watches his wife slip away. Such very great people you cannot find much in the historical record. I still must say that I find Thomas Jefferson one of the most vile of the founding fathers. A prosperous, brilliant, urbane, conniving, calculating and charming man who simply could not see his pleasures and wealth compromised by ever giving up his slaves, of which it now appears that he fathered a number of children; I find him personally disgusting. Give me John Adams and the manner in which he was a father, a husband, a Vice and President of the United States. When all is said and done, this is one of those very great series that should be mandatory in every American school system.

The chemistry between Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti is composed of a wealth of excellent dialogue, quotes from their huge output of letters to each other and by the unbreakable bonds of love. Clearly these actors felt a sympathy for these founders and were able to channel their spirit with such clarity. Tom Wilkinson's depiction of Dr. Benjamin Franklin is wonderful to behold. Watch for the hilarious chess game played in the bathtub. As I am watching the series all over again it motivates me to re-read McCullough's book. Both are treasures you should own and learn from.

I have enjoyed this film since it's release. Sat down to watch my old VHS copy last night. The edit on film was a bit wobbly, should get the DVD and see if it is cleaner. My copy is the original, shorter version, not the longer one that came out later.

What can you say about this film? You don't have to like Italian cinema to savour this films joys, but it helps if you do. There is a long tradition in Italian movie making to highlight the pathos, struggles of the poor and the humour in odd (but mostly Italian) behaviour. This film plays to that tradition. Sentimental recollection of what was left behind in poverty stricken Sicily as a local boy, energetic in his obsession with films, leaves his history and family behind him only to become a great success. At an unanticipated moment he is brought back home to mourn the loss of his most beloved mentor and father figure. The closer he looks to drink in all that has changed in his home town during a 30 year absence the more it seems to him that nothing has changed. Perhaps just the outer layers have added different coverings, but underneath it he wonders what has changed especially in himself.

There is almost nothing lacking in this film. Certainly one of Ennio Morricone's most haunting and heartfelt soundtracks move one to laughter and tears and we welcome it all. The chemistry between all cast members was perfect, especially between the beloved Philippe Noiret and both actors who played Toto as a child and young man. Antonella Attili's role as Toto's mother is given depth, tenderness and suffering without over indulgence. Her issues speak for themselves and as a young Sicilian mother trying to raise a small family without a husband we fully appreciate why she cries in anguish.

This is a masterpiece of storytelling, evoking the depths of the human experience while maintaining an over all subtle sense of optimism. One can rise from a seemingly stifling environment and find fulfilment. A film to be watched many times, enjoying the tears and laughter. Superb.

I watched the movie recently and was just rocked. I had heard something about the story but had not really explored it. The film re-creates most of a true story that among Holocaust stories shocks us for reasons not immediately apparent. Basically, when pressed into making a choice by their Nazi tormentors, a small group of (mostly) Jewish artists, bankers and mechanical technicians is given the choice of the main concentration camp life or a secluded, protected and quite comfortable section of the camp where they would work as a team of master counterfeiters. What a choice to make, but this was truly what happened. Nazi Germany at this point was quickly losing the war, was aware of this and at least under Himmler...endeavoured to find a way of creating fake money both to undermine the British (later the American) economies but also to give them the means of buying war material on the black market. This is the premise. Now for the drama. The crux of the film rotates around the choices made by the master counterfeiters (in this film = Sorowitsch - not his real name) and Burger. Sorowitsch's belief was personal survival at all costs and Burger's was a willingness to die in order to subvert the Nazi's killing machine. The film forces us to ponder what our choice would be if placed in their shoes? Is it then justifiable to save oneself in full knowledge that your fellows just over the wall in the same camp are being demolished and that your ticket to freedom is cooperation with the demons? What then of the moral compass when making what was (for Burger) the deal with the Devil? Ultimately we cannot answer the question because under such monstrous stress and surrounded by so much inhumanity, we do not know if we would do everything to destroy the destroyers or do all in our powers to survive at all costs. We do not know.

A deeply disturbing, powerful film, taking a very hard look at this unusual event. It was in some ways not an isolated one. All of the Jewish Capo's acted out of a deep sense of self preservation, even if they had to turn their own eyes blind to their participation in brutalizing their own people. There are other films that this compares well to and the most obvious is "Schindler's List". Very different films but both a must see. The script, actors and the fully re-created sets give the look and feel of the events as they were. A film not forgotten.

One of the tests of a good film is to watch it many years later and see if the material has aged well. After not seeing it for a very long time I sat down last night and played it. I can gladly say that the film has aged very well and is every bit as solid and moving as when I first saw it. Barbara is as beautiful as she ever was in any film. Redford made legions of ladies swoon with his natural, rugged, non-tampered handsome blondness.

The story is quite believable and borrows from the historical record that it is placed in. There were lots of Jewish people who got caught up in the anti-Fascist, anti-war and anti-bomb movements. But the actual beliefs or disinterested lifestyles, although well articulated in the film are secondary throughout, helping to craft the tensions that underscore the real theme: romantic but inevitably doomed love.

Streisand and Redford threw themselves into this work and their on screen chemistry is wonderful. Barbara's singing of the theme music pulls at the heart strings as it is meant to. This is a beautiful and adult drama that reminds anyone who has lived through disappointment and heartbreak in love what it was all about. One of the best films for both actors. For me only "Yentl" eclipses Barbara's success on screen. Watch for a very young James Woods early in the film. Keep the Kleenex box close by. Still one of my favourites.

I sat through just over an hour of this film until I just had to turn it off. I don't know, but it kept occurring to me that this film was what you get when you put Monty Python and Braveheart into a blender and give the slurry to a hack director with second rate special effects. Everything about this film was awful. The impossibly bland, wooden and hopelessly second rate acting of Christopher Lambert. The utterly wasted talents of Sean Connery. The unimpressive sword fighting (why is it that every time they have a sword fight they manage to hit something that emits loud hissing gases?) The special effects that (others here have commented) as being so great, I am sorry they are not; they are cheesy, third rate and laughable. The soundtrack by Queen is the worst music they made.

There are lots of very fine movies made out of legends but this one lacks a solid script, good actors, direction that has a direction, a soundtrack that has left the 1980's behind, etc. I better stop now because I can't believe I actually put myself through an hour of wasted time. Beware: there be stinks yonder that yea best avoid.

At my age I can attest to having watched the first series, Shatner/Kirk and Nimoy/Spock, etc. I loved the first series and I grew up watching all the rest. Looking back at the original series now, seen in the current context of powerful computer CGI and mock-up modeling at a high level, the first series is almost painfully amateur to watch. Having said all that, it was the first and it dealt with its story, its special effects as a made for television show that the networks killed off just as it was capturing an audience. Now, in mid 2009 we see a terrific depiction as a prequel to the first series.

There are several really big problems for this film and I'll give them now. The first series had the most minimal computer graphics that the cameras showed. This prequel shows off computer chops that look to be about 100 years more advanced than they should. That was a choice the director took and although it makes no sense to those of us who knew what the original looked like, I suppose the alternative of showing an even more crude and undeveloped technology in this film would have looked, well, boring to the eyes of a current audience who use computers much more complicated than the original show; if you follow me....

Second, the twists in the plot (I won't spoil it) are so ridiculous and utterly impossible, that all one can do is say, well, this is a movie and it's all made up and fictional, so why not just throw rational thought out the window? The saving grace to this film is the depiction of the original cast as younger men and woman, who now all appear like gleaming, young, revved up hot rods, ready to kick some serious ass as they boldly go. You get the picture. The script is not the winner here nor are the predictable badder than bad bad guys. The real kick that this film has in spades is a relentless plot that does not rest for more than a minute or two at best. The blistering pace this film achieves just moves you along, never letting you think too long about what people just said or how preposterous the plot just got. It is just more go, go, go, and then more. That is what an action picture fantasy like this demands and the cast and director deliver. Don't bother trying to make sense of the plot; not even Spock's vaunted logic could deal with that. A really fun time at the movies and a very plausible, if over horse-powered, prequel crew. Terrific fun and a keeper once the DVD comes out. What a hoot.