Bill-625 Reviews

Hybrid (2007 TV Movie)

It's Bad!

[30 July 2007]

The plot sounds vaguely interesting ... a scientist (Bateman) discovers how to transplant animal eyes and optic nerves into other animals, like humans. A young man (Monteith) is blinded saving a coworker at work - the scientist gets a call from a doctor that the young man is a good candidate to be the first human recipient. The recipient starts becoming more and wolf-like, but the effect is nothing more than "weird eyes" and running at night with dogs! (for the whole movie) The budget is too low, the dialogue too stilted (I laughed out loud at some of the ridiculous talk), and the acting too inept. Long portions of the movie are nothing more than dreamy looks, eerie music and interspersed clips of wolves in the wild. Way too long even at 90 minutes, boring, and devoid of ideas.

The military want to use the eye transplants to give wounded soldiers back their eyesight, and presumably want to militarize the technology. There's a silly subplot about a beautiful Indian girl (Korey) who thinks she can help, using Indian wisdom about the wolves. They make love while music heavy on drums and Indian chanting is heard - crazy, man! The love making takes place immediately after a gruesome murder - who edited this turkey?! A grouchy "medicine man" who spouts platitudes seems to do little, except for adding atmosphere.

Here's two ridiculous scenes. A worker at the research lab goes into the animal room to discover the monkeys have been let out of their cages. She gets scared, looks left at the monkeys, turns right, turns left, turns right, turns left .. this goes on for a while (who edited this??). RUN OUT OF THE DAMN LAB! It was so stupid I started laughing. Another ridiculous scene - our hero is at home, escapes out a window as the heavily armed military arrive - he leaves the window open, the military guys go to the open window, look out the window, they say "looks like he was here", and LEAVE! He went out the open window, guys!! Crazy.

Near the end of the movie, military guys are firing machine guns over and over at trees, when obviously nothing is there - easier to place the squibs I guess. They have 6 machine guns which have cut down trees, but decide to fight our hero with 1 knife!!! Shoot the guy!! Who wrote this trash?? There's a pointless confrontation at the end, and believe me I'm not spoiling anything for you - there's not enough plot to spoil.

I figure the whole thing was a tax write-off or a rush job to make use of unused budget money left over from some better movie.

Dwarfs: Not a Fairy Tale (2001 TV Movie)

Response re limb lengthening

[24 January 2007]

I was shocked to see the message criticizing Emily Sanford's decision (with her family) to undergo limb lengthening - obviously that choice belongs to her and her family, and much thought must have gone into weighing the benefits and drawbacks. The technology exists, and as Emily pointed out in her reply, she has received its benefits. In my opinion it would be more appropriate to respond with sympathy and understanding than to criticize from the sidelines.

Where I live there has been a campaign underway to raise funds for a young man who is enduring limb lengthening now - he has rightly received a great deal of support from the community, fiscal and otherwise.

The documentary was wonderful - the presentation makes the point that we are all striving to be OK in this world, by presenting the subjects of the film as the normal people that they are. Frankly, the film focuses more on "abilities" than "disabilities", and that's a good thing.

**UPDATE** - the original posting by GhostMint from May 2006 appears to be missing. It was withdrawn?

Bill-625 [e-mail]

Journey to the Center of Time (1967)

Awful, but not awful enough to be fun

[6 December 2006]

Wow, this is a bad movie. The sets are non-existent (instead of scenery, black backgrounds for almost every set!), the lines are preposterous, the effects are laughable, and the acting swings wildly from over-acting to expressionless when there is supposed to be mortal danger. The paradoxes from time travel are barely dealt with.

This is the worst kind of bad movie: it is earnest about its story, but the execution is lacking. Therefore the movie can't be enjoyed for camp value. The budget must have been about $50. Catch the control panels in the time vault which are randomly numbered ... with house numbers from the hardware store! See the alien from 5000 years in the future who is obviously wearing a shower cap! 5000 years in the future, aliens from OUTSIDE our galaxy speak perfect English - why? They stand on pedestals of various heights - why? Why can't the aliens afford backgrounds either, if they are so advanced they can travel between galaxies? Why are the caves of 1 million years ago brightly lit inside?

The only thing that gives it two stars instead of one is the "plot twist", it's actually a good idea (that would have been told 10 times better by The Twilight Zone).

Code Red (2001 TV Movie)

With a better director, and more $$$ ...

[9 August 2002]

I won't disagree with the prior comments - it's a cheesy film with bad acting and so-so special effects. The macho attitude crap poisons the storytelling throughout. The story is kind of interesting, however. What would have happened with a better director, and more money in the budget? Oh wait ... that would be Predator!