cowboykalira Reviews

Child's Play 2 (1990)

Far-fetched but fun

[6/10 · 23 April 2015]

Okay, some people say this movie is a very cheesy sequel to Child's Play, and I can't disagree with them. But in some cases, cheesy is exactly what you want from a movie. Especially if it features a red-haired freckled doll possessed by a serial killer. Come on people, of course this movie was going to be cheesy. The first one just about managed to keep it together with some suspense, but once you've done the big reveal there's not a lot of credible scares you can wring out of this premise.

What's left is having fun with it, and Child's Play 2 does that very well. From the opening scene in which Chucky is reconstructed by the original toy factory (for a nonsensical reason, but who cares?), it has this obvious sequel quality to it. The thing that could not be destroyed, but was, is back, and he's angrier than ever! The cliché of the cynical company bosses is played out and then we're on our way.

That first scene sets the mood really well, you really get everything you need to get an idea what this movie is going to be like. Over the top, campy, set in its own reality. There really was no other way to go after the over the top ending of Child's Play 1, with the melted, barely recognizable Chucky dragging himself to his victims for a final scare. So we get some enjoyable one-liners from old Chuckles, and I definitely got some chuckles out of his killer lines. Literally, because most of his one-liners are accompanied buy an equally funny kill.

About those kills, well, they're maybe not even extremely creative, but they're sure as hell effective. In the beginning of the movie all of the people Chucky kills really deserve to die (in horror-movie terms that is, obviously no one really deserves to die). I'm rooting for Chucky when he kills the underling of the company director who brought old Charles back in the first place and who's just a slimy little weasel. Then Chucky manages to kill Andy's horrible teacher with a ruler, in the classroom where she locked Andy. And even when foster dad Phil is killed on the way to punish little Andy for misbehaving, you're still sort of rooting for the doll.

But no horror movie can thrive on just murdering bad guys, so from that point on the movie takes a more action-driven mood, which is done quite nicely. In the end, we go back to real sequel territory when we return to the good guy doll factory for an ultimate showdown, set to a background of thousands of good guy dolls in various stages of being manufactured. That just works brilliantly.

The acting in this movie never strays into academy award winner territory, but it's sufficient, and especially little Andy and his stepsister Kyle play their parts pretty well. Of course the real star is Brad Dourif who serves his cheesy lines with a side order of ham.

The effects are again nothing mind-blowing (well... one effect is, but that's not a description of its quality, it just literally blows Chucky's mind apart), but they're not bad. Add to that a pretty good score, decent camera work and editing, and you have a nice little brain-snack. I don't think it was anyone's intention to make this a great piece of art. It's pulp, entertainment. Ultimately pointless, but a great watch when you're bored.

I can't rate this higher than a 6 objectively, but in my heart I would have given it a 7 or 8, just because it's so unpretentious. Horror sequels that try to artificially invoke the same terror the original had to offer are usually horrible to watch. Child's Play 2, although it is of course nowhere near as good as the first movie, made the right choice to take a different approach.

Desperation (2006 TV Movie)

Desperation : Total Cop out

[2/10 · 5 December 2012]

Okay, I see many people have reviewed this movie already, and the critical ones seem to either be fans of the book who hate the adaptation, or people who haven't read the book and thought it was boring.

To the first group my question is: You thought the book was any good? I'm sorry, but this book turned me off Stephen King, and I guess I won't quickly read any of his new books anymore. Yes the main theme of his books always was the struggle between good and evil, but in this book he made it so blatantly religious it's simply offensive.

Being critical about the character of God doesn't change anything about that, especially because there are no justifications given for this so- called supreme being whatsoever. The characters ask the question: If there's a God, why is he so cruel, the lame answer comes from David (and is confirmed by the plot). There is a God, best not to ask any more questions about him. Well wow, give the man a Nobel prize, hallelujah. What kind of an answer is that?

Making the hero of a book a teenage boy with a Jesus complex is such a cop-out. How does he know anything? Because God tells him. Why doesn't God tell him important stuff like, best not drive down that road, there's a monster there who's gonna kill your entire family? Unanswered. "God is Cruel". Wow. If I were a Christian, I would be offended by that. Being an atheist it just makes me angry that religion is being presented as the solution, while glossing over all the evil things this God dude is clearly up to.

The movie makes no effort to mask the "praise-the-lord-do-not-ask- difficult-questions" mentality either, the producers must have thought there was a market for a bible-belt evangelist horror flick. Instead of using a God-driven plot to actually discuss the difficulties this imaginary friend brings to the party, it presents the questions and answers them in the lamest possible way. "God is cruel, love him and serve him, or else some sicko-cop from hell is going to suck your soul out through your nose."

That message spoke to me both from the book, and from the film.

It amazes me they got together a halfway decent cast for this one. The cop is played very convincingly. A bit dumb to kill him halfway through the movie. Then there's Tom Skerrit's character. Again : Great actor, wasted on a script full of unrealistic God-fearing bull. The boy is okay as well, but I really pity that little fellow. Anyone having seen him in this movie with half a braincell will forever associate him now with a smart-ass Jesus-freak who claims to be special, but has no real answers to anything.

Pardon my french, but this was one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen in my life, and if you think it spoke to you on some deep spiritual level, please, grow up, let go of your mysterious imaginary friend on a cloud, and understand you were duped. For any atheist, stay away from this film, stay FAR away from it.

Escape from Sobibor (1987 TV Movie)

Somewhat Romanticized

[7/10 · 14 October 2012]

I will pick my words carefully when reviewing this movie, since I do not mean to offend any person who has lived through the horror the death camps of Belzec, Treblinka, and Sobibor. What happened in the east of Poland during World War II was so horrifying it defies reason, understanding or explanation.

So I don't mean to put down the people that lived through these horrors, but examples of heroic Jewish uprisings during the second world war, like the escape from Sobibor, are very rare indeed. That is not to say the Jews were not brave, but simply that they were not given the opportunity for bravery, in a world that turned against them so completely, that even for those who complied to every torturous labor, every outrageous disciplinary measure, each moment could be your last, and fighting against the German oppressors could get your family killed as well.

In that respect, this movie gives us a romanticized take on the role of the Jews in World War II. A common criticism of Schindler's List is that it portrays the Jews as nothing more than meek victims, which I think is a strange criticism, since Schindler's List just realistically shows the predicament the Jews were in during the war. My criticism of this film is that it portrays the Jews as victors over a cruel oppressor. With the greatest respect for the hardships these people had to face, most unfortunately, that portrayal is simply not true, even though this film reenacts a historic event that did happen.

Taking that into account, this movie is quite honest about the fate of most Jews during the war. It hardly could avoid to show the nasty sides of a death camp like Sobibor. Particularly informative, and historically accurate as far as I understand it, were 2 scenes in the movie. One is a scene at the start of the film that shows the way new arrivals are welcomed with music and promised good treatment, and hot showers. Secondly, the scene in which a little boy is sent over to run an errand at the gas chambers, and we get a glimpse of what went on there. This second scene is also the most horrific scene in the movie, and shockingly graphic. I doubt if a scene as harsh and realistic as that one would make it into any "mainstream" movie made these days.

I liked the acting by the main characters, almost all of these are pretty good for a TV movie. Having said that, the portrayal of the SS-officers wasn't very subtle. They were just portrayed as evil beasts feasting on beer, and discussing why it would or would not be okay to sexually abuse Jewish women. Of course those kinds of discussions would have taken place, but there is not one moment showing camaraderie amongst them, or any "pleasant" conversation between them, and this made them little more than cardboard cut-outs.

This is where movies like Der Untergang (Downfall), and Schindler's List really rise above the more generic Word War 2 movies. In showing us the human side of the Germans, they can show us what is most frightening about the atrocities of the holocaust : that it was executed by human beings, who were somehow capable of shutting off their conscience when it came to their orders to kill and torture millions of defenseless and innocent people.

All in all this isn't a bad movie. It gets a lot of things right that other movies didn't. For example it does show the willingness of some Jews to torture and oppress their fellow men to save their own lives, and to gain favour with the Germans. But it fails to ask the truly hard questions, thereby reducing these painful examples of human weakness to nothing more than a plot-point, and that's too bad. They missed a wonderful opportunity to explore the psychological implications of being on the wrong side.

My point is that, on both sides, people behaved as people do. Imperfect, heroic sometimes, but at other times cruel, cowardly, deceiving. It is very rare for a WW2 movie to grasp those nuances, and though this film makes a good effort, in those aspects it didn't succeed.

Dancing Queen (1993 TV Movie)

A Modern Fairytale

[7/10 · 6 September 2012]

Okay, call me a hopeless romantic, but I can't help loving this medium-sized movie.

Rik Mayall departs from his usual over the top persona, and plays a fairly convincing and more serious role here as Neil, who is the victim of a cruel prank by his friends the night before his wedding. Stranded in Scarborough, Neil is desperate to get back to Maidstone in time for his wedding. Julie, the stripper hired for his bachelor party, follows him around, sometimes mocking him, sometimes taking pity on him and helping him out. Slowly the two are drawn closer together.

I remembered seeing this when I was only fifteen, by accident, just zapping from channel to channel, and stumbling on Rik Mayall's face. I was a big fan of Bottom then, so I stuck around. Don't be fooled by Rik Mayall's presence though. This story is far from a plot of a Young Ones or Bottom episode. This is actually quite a sweet story.

The true star of the piece though is without a doubt Helena Bonham-Carter. Her matter of fact portrayal of Julie ("I take me clothes off, 80 quid, I'm not cheap you know") as a tough lower-class girl who's had a rough life is great. Without her, this would have been a very dull short romantic comedy ticking all the cliché boxes. Her performance lifts the movie up to something quite memorable, and touching. She brilliantly delivers the dead-pan dialogue, and slowly she reveals a more vulnerable side of Julie, hidden underneath the tough exterior.

I suppose the filming isn't all that good, nor is the story anything more than average fare. For those reasons, I really can't bring myself to rating this as a great quality production. But even though rationally I can't really defend it, there's something about 'Dancing Queen' that makes it more than just an average TV movie. Watch it if you get a chance.

When the Wind Blows (1986)

Blowing Complacency to Shreds

[9/10 · 14 August 2012]

When the Wind Blows is one of those films that keeps on haunting you long after the end credits have stopped rolling.

It focuses on an elderly couple preparing for and enduring a nuclear attack on great Britain. Both are endearing in their love for each other, and their naive trust that all will be well if they prepare well. Sadly for them, none of the precautions they take protect them from nuclear fall-out. The point of the couple being naive was to emphasize how ludicrous and futile the advise the government offered to its citizens on how to react to a nuclear blast was. The movie rips all the advise given in the brochures and public information films to shreds by showing a couple who did their best to follow all the prescriptions to the letter, and proving that none of the advise they were given is of any use to them.

The writer cleverly chose as his main characters an elderly couple who have survived WW2. It gives him the opportunity to hammer home to the audience that a nuclear war is not going to be even remotely comparable to the hardships of WW2. A lot of people used to say to each other that a nuclear war wouldn't be so bad as the doom-sayers predicted. After all we already survived 2 world wars. Sure many people would die, but most would survive and carry on regardless.

Apart from the obvious political messages the movie has, its just a heartbreaking tale about a couple coping with the aftermath of a disaster. Although they bicker like old couples do, it's their love for each other that gets them through the day. They seem like a good team. He's more aware of the reality of the world outside, she's a practical thinker. When he sometimes gets a bit carried away with his memories of world war 2, she gently corrects him. When she panics, or worries about unimportant things like getting the laundry inside before the bomb falls, he protects her by preventing her from doing anything stupid. In the end their love is as strong as ever, which is very moving.

This movie in part was intended to give people who were too complacent a wake-up call. I remember seeing it when I was only thirteen thinking I was in for a nice animation film. It shook me up alright. Now I'm older, I see the subtler points of the movie, and it still gives me chills.

The opening sequence of the film consisting of news footage doesn't fit in very well with the rest, which is a pity. Personally I would have chosen to let the movie start with the man reading the papers in the library. Other than that, I think the movie made very few mistakes, and the animation styles changing over from sketchy and dreamy sequences, conventional drawn animations, and stop motion techniques work together nicely. As it is it stands out as a great achievement in serious animated movie-history.

DeepStar Six (1989)

A pearl in the ocean of B movies

[7/10 · 10 August 2012]

This movie definitely ranks among the better B movies I've seen over the last couple of months as part of my current infatuation with 80s trashy science fiction movies. It does have some weaknesses, as all B movies do, so I'll try to defend it for what it is, without raising it to a higher standard than it deserves.

The plot, as has been mentioned in other reviews, resembles the plot of "Alien", and adds little to the basic premise, except that the action takes place in the deep sea, instead of deep space. In some ways it's an utterly generic rip-off. Even the characters will remind you of their counterparts in Ridley Scott's classic movie.

So this movie is definitely never going to score very high, and given that the creature effects are somewhat disappointing, it definitely will not please everybody. But I found the acting to be of a very decent standard, with Miguel Ferrer being the absolute star. He plays the pitiable technician Snyder who slowly evolves from a slightly geeky bullied crew member, into a psychotic liability. Matt McCoy also gives a memorable performance as the wisecracking but very likable Richardson, and most of the other actors gave good performances as well. Nothing worthy of an award here, but good enough to keep me entertained throughout the movie.

Apart from the creature, the effects were also quite decent. Again, nothing jawdroppingly good, but at least they made a good effort, and that shows. It's still better than those god awful CGI effects that were to replace these types of special effects only a couple of years after this movie was made. Mind you, I've got nothing against CGI as it is now, but when CGI first made its way into mainstream cinema those effects were so bad they ruined entire movies. Deepstar Six definitely didn't use the best effects available at its time, but it manages quite well with the effects available for its budget.

Just because the story is not particularly original, that doesn't mean it's bad. It's actually quite well written. There's a couple of holes, but nothing too obvious or annoying. It obviously took many of its ideas from "Alien", but who can really blame the writers for that? "Alien" is an all-time classic. If you are going to take your inspiration from somewhere, at least take it from somewhere good. And there's enough new stuff here to stop it from being just a copy.

Putting it all together, I enjoyed this movie a lot. I'm definitely going to watch it again, and I'll recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction, but isn't too religious about it. Liking this movie requires a forgiving attitude to technical and scientific goofs, of which there are many. If you are willing to suspend your disbelief at these details, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Altitude (2010)

Everybody gets one near miss, right? Wrong.

[2/10 · 10 August 2012]

So what do we have here? Well, we have a perfect example of the worst type of movie. Some bad movies are so bad that they're fun to watch. Some bad movies have elements that make you appreciate them more than they deserve. And then there's movies like this, that are just a complete waste of your time.

The movie starts out as a sort of teen movie, with the classic stereotypes in place. The sports hero who's a total bastard, the artistic boy, the slutty girlfriend of the jock who secretly has got this thing going on with the artistic boy. Annoying, but wait, let's turn to the main attractions. The female lead who's a pilot, and whose mother (also a pilot) died in a plane-crash, and her comic book reading nerdy boyfriend who's the only survivor of her mother's final flight. At this point you seriously should want to punch the writers.

After a boring first twenty minutes or so, the movie turns into a small disaster story, about a malfunctioning plane. And to top it all of the final half an hour is devoted to turning this wreck of a movie into a implausible horror story inspired by Twelve Monkeys and HP Lovecraft.

All of this could have worked out okay with proper pacing, believable dialogues, and some b quality acting. Unfortunately the plot is neither here nor there most of the time, all actors were borrowed from a soft-drink commercial, and their characters are about as 3-dimensional as a complementary magazine on a Ryanair flight.

There was simply no point at which I cared about anything going on. One by one characters fight with each other completely at random. The female lead behaves as a control freak who has no control over anything, neither the plane (although she apparently trained to be a pilot), nor her friends, if you could call any of her passengers friends. If any of my friends behaved like these morons for only one minute I'd ditch them forever. But then again the female lead could be excused to have friends like this, because she is a total bitch herself. After watching them for more than half an hour you just wish the plane crashes, and kills all of them, so you can be spared from having to listen to any more of their annoying yapping.

Don't get me wrong. I like B movies, and I like implausible stories, as long as they're made with some conviction. But this entire movie reeks of laziness. Lazy acting, lazy editing, lazy writing, all contributing to this loveless attitude of "that'll do". I'd like to take this opportunity to say no. It won't do. Stop wasting money and resources that could be spent on filmmakers and actors that are actually prepared to make an effort.

Schindler's List (1993)

Only a true cynic will mistake this for sentimentalist crap

[9/10 · 24 June 2012]

Schindler's list to this day stands out for being one of the most impressive movies made about the Holocaust.

Spielberg went the extra mile in every aspect of this movie. Superior cinematography, lots of historical references (which, although not always completely accurate, give a good sense of what the holocaust was like for the Jews), brilliant actors, brilliant score, amazing screenplay.

People have criticized it for being too sentimental, and I can understand their problems with that, but I can't agree with them. The subject matter is still one of the darkest periods in living history.

Now we have a film like "Der Untergang" which shows the story from inside the Nazi high command at the end of the war, and that movie is even more haunting than this one. It doesn't focus however on the victimization of the entire Jewish community, and therefore does not have to deal with the emotional burdens of the people who had to live through these conditions.

Another point is that if you want to show the holocaust in a drama film, you have to think of your audience as well. Although many people still know what it was like, there are also large groups of people who haven't got a clue about the war. They heard the figure, 6 million Jews killed in concentration camps, but know nothing about the ghettos, the slave labour, the slow descent from being deprived of the right to have certain jobs, to being murdered just because you are a Jew.

Schindler's list makes this history accessible to the masses. Spielberg does this expertly, by balancing the sentimental with the downright cynical and horrific.

Where a film like Der Untergang focuses more on the human weaknesses of the Nazis, this film poses the Nazis outright as the pure evil that Jews had to deal with in the war. This is a very different approach, that can be classed as a more conventional narrative. Good versus Evil. Oskar Schindler stands alone as the "good German". In reality there were others like him of course, but in the reality the protagonists of this movie faced, those "others" played no part, so it is not necessary for the movie to work to emphasize this.

What more can be said? Well a criticism has also been that the Jews are being portrayed as little more than meek victims, and that no heroism from them is shown. Unfortunately the war didn't offer many heroic opportunities for the Jewish people. There are exceptions to this rule, but most of them suffered without hope, without a chance to fight back. You can look for the exceptions, and criticize Spielberg for not showing that side. Would that be fair on history? Maybe, but let's face it, the exceptions were far and few between, through no fault of the Jews themselves, but because the Nazis had such a firm grip on the Third Reich that a deed of defiance by one hero, could cost the lives of many bystanders who had nothing to do with it. Most Jews simply had to bear every degrading action undertaken against them, and there was nothing they could do about it.

All in all you have to be quite cynical not to be impressed by this movie. It is just too powerful for that. Yes, in the end much is made of making Schindler into a true hero, especially the scene before he flees, where he cries that he could have saved more. Some people hate this scene, and think it schmaltzy, over-sentimental, sanctimoneous crap. I think that it is a great scene, although this scene is very Hollywood, and most probably not an accurate portrayal of the way Schindler fled the factory. But it ends the development of his character, as he finally realises the mistakes he made. He therefore goes from being a cynical crook at the start of the movie, to a man who reluctantly saved people, to a man who enjoys his role as saviour, to finally coming to terms with what he did, and what more he could have done, if he hadn't been busy showing off.

This movie is a true classic. If you can watch it without shedding a tear, please check your heart's temperature, because it probably is frozen solid.

Downfall (2004)

Just to set the record straight

[10/10 · 21 June 2012]

I feel the praise of this movie has been sung many times already on this site, so I will not go into all that it does right. However, after reading some of the reviews that are rightfully in the back pages here, I do think there is an issue that needs to be addressed here.

Apparently some people think we are all ignorant children, who need to be spoon-fed a message about how "inhuman" the Nazis were. I have even seen reviews that called this movie dangerous, because it sympathized with Hitler.

If you haven't seen this film yet, don't get fooled by these misguided comments. If this movie is dangerous, it is dangerous to people who wish to believe that Adolf Hitler was Satan incarnate, and that all who followed him were bloodthirsty demons who fed on baby corpses. I can hardly believe this fact offends people but: he wasn't, and they weren't. Both Hitler and his followers were human beings, who did things human beings do. They were friendly to each other, they cared for the people close to them, while at the same time plotting to kill millions of innocent people. They enjoyed cake and embraced their lovers, and then decided to send twelve year old boys to sacrifice their lives to keep off the Russian army for a couple of hours more.

This is what Der Untergang shows, and why it was hailed with so much praise. It actually moved beyond the cardboard cut-out cliché of movie Nazis. Just show a man utterly devoid of any humanity, a death machine, and stick him in a nazi uniform, and hey presto, an accurate depiction of a nazi. That has all been done thousands of times, and it makes us feel safe, because we can identify them as bad guys from a mile away, and we can then morally judge the idiots that fell for the whole nazi movement. We would never fall for anyone that evil. This movie chooses selfconsciously not to go for that approach, but instead show us the true insanity of the nazi-regime. That they actually believed that what they were doing was for the good of the German people.

If people see Der Untergang as a campaign to show the Nazis as the good guys, let them explain the scene in which Frau Goebbels killed her own children, the scene in which Hitler condemns the German people for being weaklings who deserve death, or the scene where Joseph Goebbels tells an army officer that the German people brought their destruction on themselves, with a smirk on his face, showing he enjoys this consequence of his decision (or, for that matter, one of the many other scenes which show the cruelty of the Nazis). Do you really believe this movie will make anyone believe the Nazis were just idealistic dreamers who should be sympathized with for not achieving their goals?

Prometheus (I) (2012)

Needlessly complicated mess

[4/10 · 15 June 2012]

I went to see Prometheus today, although even before I saw it, I knew this film was going to disappoint me.

In that respect, I guess I should only blame myself for the loss of two hours in which I could have had more fun, for less money.

Where to start? Well let's start with the original Alien. That movie has made a big impression on almost any Sci-Fi fan I know, and I have been wondering a lot why that is. Watching Prometheus today has answered that question conclusively.

Alien was great because it wasn't complicated. It had a small crew on a spaceship, fighting an alien. One by one the members of the crew get killed, and in the end kick-ass Ripley manages to kill the alien. Simple, self-contained, and claustrophobic. Add to that great acting performances by a cast made up of brilliant actors, and you have the perfect classic.

Now we come to Prometheus. For some reason they decided to take the alien story, and try to turn it into the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Since we already know that that answer is 42, the exercise seems pointless, but okay, I'll try to be nice.

The thing is though, instead of answering any questions scientifically, we get this vague cross-over between Erich von Däniken's paleo-SETI theory and questions about God as our creator. I'm pretty sure the whole Von Däniken thing has been done, and I'm even more sure that a lot of Sci-Fi fans are not exactly into creationism. So why these two premisses are thrown into this movie is beyond me. As the reviews on this site show, if anything, those ideas offended a lot of the audience this type of movie is aimed at. To add insult to injury, the story leaves a lot of the questions it hints at completely unanswered, leaving viewers who do get into the human origin story frustrated.

Moving on, the acting is a mixed bag. Fassbender is great as the android, and Rapace and Theron are quite good as well. Given a better script they could have made this movie great. Unfortunately they're not given a lot to work with in terms of believable dialogue. The rest of the cast play as if they're extras in an episode of Torchwood, and ruin a lot of the scenes they're in. The performance of Logan Marshall-Green was absolutely terrible as Rapaces boyfriend. They're supposed to be scientists. He acts the part as if he is a male underwear model.

The effects are of course top-notch, and the 3d isn't as annoying as it could have been. The styling is esthetically pleasing, and reminiscent enough of the old Alien movie to convince me that in that department, a lot of people cared for the superior original. Why the script writers, and Ridley Scott himself didn't show the same integrity to the original masterpiece is a mystery, they could have made a movie with a lot of suspense and tension. But, as so many remakes, sequels, and prequels do, they went for the false premiss that if bigger is better, much bigger is much better.

I didn't expect a movie as good as Alien, or Aliens. But Prometheus, for all the pompous posturing it does, is nothing but an empty shell, devoid of any lasting impact.

Android (1982)

Nice ideas, but no character to relate to

[4/10 · 15 June 2012]

Here is one of those movies that despite its best efforts fails to really captivate the viewers.

The ideas are quite solid. Dr. Daniel and his quirky assistant, illegally working on a new type of android on a space station. We find out quickly that the assistant, Max, is an android himself, who is trying to find out what it is like to be human. Unfortunately he gets it all just slightly wrong.

When two men, and a woman, escaped prisoners, enter the space station both Max and Dr. Daniel are delighted. Dr. Daniel because he wants to use the woman to complete his latest invention, Max because he's never seen a woman before.

Those ideas could have made for quite a good movie, and it certainly has its moments, but I felt left out for some reason. I think the main problem is that there is no character you can really relate to. Max is endearing enough at first, stumbling through human interactions, and being awkward, but I couldn't really relate to his point of view. The two escaped male prisoners are not likable at all. Brie Howard does her best to give some character to the female prisoner, but her lines in the script are just too bland to work with. Klaus Kinski is quite an enjoyable evil scientist of course, and he obviously made the best out of the mediocre lines he was given. Unfortunately a bad guy only really works when there's actual good guys around. It doesn't really work when there is no one to sympathize with, no one to connect to.

This is an understandable problem when you centre a movie around android characters. When they act human, you don't see them as convincing androids, when they act like robots, you feel detached from them, and can't relate to them as persons. A classic like Blade runner cleverly works around this, by creating androids that act and feel exactly like humans. It can be done the other way round as well, making them far more computer-like, which makes you fear their cold-hearted logic. This movie tries to do something in between, and unfortunately fails to strike the balance right.

This is all too bad, because the movie really had more potential, and I'd love to have seen a movie with the same basic plot, but a better script, and more believable characters. For lack of both, it will be added to the list of films I once saw, but don't need to watch again.

Forbidden World (1982)

What a dingwhopper

[7/10 · 12 June 2012]

Allan Holzman takes us on an unnecessary but highly enjoyable roller-coaster ride in this epically bad film. Everything about it screams B-movie, from the terrible acting of the male actors, the gratuitous full frontal nudity of the actresses, the jumpy and improbable plot, the cheesy lines.

Movies like this are like a tasty cheeseburger in a cheap fast food restaurant. It's unhealthy, and disgustingly greasy, but after finishing it you feel a satisfied customer, and the next time you're in the neighbourhood you might just drop in for more.

Yes, it's an Alien rip-off. Small crew, isolated base on a distant planet, and a monster that is made for killing and feeding only. And yes, they stole that robot design directly from Star Wars' stormtroopers. Are those reasons to dislike "Forbidden World"? Far from it. It steals shamelessly, and if anything the obviously stolen ideas make this movie even more fun to watch. I would have hated it if they tried to hide the fact this is a blatant rip-off.

How could you not like a movie in which the monster is frequently called a "dingwhopper", and which packs these fantastic lines: Barbara : "I hear you're the best troubleshooter in the federation. Want to ehm.. see some trouble?"

Barbara: "If it is intelligent, have you tried communicating with it?" Mike: "That's about the stupidest damn idea I heard all day"

Dr. Timbergen: "Let's see how my wildly mutating cells get along with yours."

"Forbidden World" makes no effort to be classy, it just shoves all the goodies in your face, and says "feast on this." So I did, and it was worth every second.

Damnation Alley (1977)

The nuclear holocaust was never this boring

[2/10 · 7 June 2012]

In Damnation alley we see Jan Michael Vincent (Stringfellow Haweye from Airwolf) and George Peppard (Hannibal from the A team) acting alongside each other. Well, acting... that's such a strong word. They're on screen and read lines, let's be honest about it.

Anyway, in this sorry little screen-filler the US and Russia have destroyed the world with all out nuclear war, which is shown in the first couple of scenes. This is where things already start going terribly wrong. Nuclear war has never been portrayed with less emotion than this. No one on the military base seems to be shocked or even really mind this is happening. We only see a couple of explosions while a bored voice reads out the names of cities that have been hit, and everybody is watching as if they're looking at an episode of "Little house on the prairie".

A couple of years pass, and we join the action again when the world is starting to recover a little bit. We see Jan Michael Vincent ride back to the base on a motorbike with a girl riding on the back, when they get attacked by giant scorpions, a special effects sequence that is one of the most embarrassing I've ever seen in a movie. Some people might say that I shouldn't pick on that because it's an old movie, but when you keep in mind that the 1950s version of War of the Worlds had more convincing special effects than this movie, you can't really defend the quality as a product of its time. It was dated and unconvincing then, it's absolutely terrible to watch now.

So, moving on. The bunker that survived the nuclear holocaust then explodes because of some dude dropping a cigarette on a playboy centerfold poster. I'm not making this up, that's what actually happens. So with no base to live in anymore, the four survivors decide to move out in two heavily armoured trucks that consist of two parts each held together by what seems to be a piece of table linen. Table linen is of course known for its amazing strength and capability of keeping radiation outside. But sure I could have accepted that.

What I find more baffling is that no such expedition has apparently been undertaken before. Everybody just decided to keep hanging round at the base, even though they owned completely functioning anti-radiation vehicles. Those must have been some pretty good issues of Playboy.

So I will try to continue the absurd plot line, which thankfully, but weirdly, didn't involve any more giant scorpions. They move into the nuclear wasteland en route to Albany, when they get hit by a storm that destroys one of the trucks, and kills one of the crew members. No real drama in that scene, it just sort of happens and then we move on. They move out to Vegas and find a woman living there. She offers to explain how she survived, but she never does. Instead we get her telling us about the singing career she was pursuing before the nuclear war. But then we never hear her sing.

Before they meet the woman however there is one slightly well done scene where the three men from the army base play the slot machines like children gone crazy, and in the background we hear people laughing and talking, as if the casino is still as busy as it used to be. Thank god for one decent idea, if not wholly original.

Anyway, at the next village they get attacked by 2 inch long cockroaches, which leads one of the men to say "they are huge", even though he's been living in a desert infested by scorpions as big as alligators. Luckily, and predictably, he then gets eaten by the cockroaches. Although he was best friends with the Jan Michael Vincent character, he is never mentioned again. The three survivors escape, and pick up this young boy who has been living on his own in the desert. He agrees to join them if he can learn to ride the motorcycle Jan Michael Vincent brought with him on the trip. Another thing we never actually see happen in the movie, although later he is offered to drive the armoured vehicle.

We then get the inevitable evil survivors scene, where they run into three hicks who survived the nuclear war as well, and who try to rape the lady they picked up in Vegas. The young boy saves the day and they drive on to Detroit. Las Vegas - Detroit - Albany. Seems like a little strange route to take, but maybe that's because they have to go around "Damnation Alley", I don't know. The whole damnation alley is never explained at all in the film, so it could run from Texas to Iowa or something.

Then of course while in Detroit, they get hit by a tidal wave. What? Yes you heard me, somehow the sea made it all the way over the rocky's and hits Detroit. The vehicle, which is broken then almost gets destroyed by the water, but they survive. And hey presto, they're on dry land, and about a two minute drive by motorbike from Albany, which somehow is the only place in America that has not been affected at all by the nuclear holocaust.

Now, I really like B movies, even when they are absurd. Especially when they are absurd actually. But this one is just inconsistent, incoherent, and boring. The events described above are all presented to the viewer in an utterly unconvincing and unentertaining way. I was surprised I actually made it to the end. If you're considering watching it, don't. It's a waste of time and will just leave you wondering, what the hell was the point of all that?

Repo Man (1984)

First impressions : Sympathetic, but Confused

[6/10 · 5 June 2012]

I've been watching this film as part of a current infatuation with 80s trashy sci-fi movies.

Repo man is one of those cult movies that has acquired a sort of legendary status. People seem to love it or hate it. I can sort of see where that love or hate response comes from, but I just didn't feel either way about it.

First of all, the acting in this movie. It's funny B-movie stuff. Harry Dean Stanton is a classic lowlife bastard, Emilio Estevez plays the dumb punk convincingly, and the rest of the cast are a satisfying bunch of flat stereotypes. So far so good, that's the way it should be in a movie like this.

I also liked the overall styling of the film. Alex Cox clearly wanted to show modern life as grimy, ugly, and sleazy as he could, and I think he did a fairly good job. The generic "food", "drink", and "beer" labels, the general lack of decent people throughout the film, and the wrong-side-of-the-tracks feel of the scenery, all add up to the over the top trashy atmosphere.

Now for the bad news : The plot. It's there somewhere, but it somehow gets lost between all the comedy scenes and the incidents of repo-man life. I found myself forgetting about the Malibu and the aliens several times during the movie. Maybe that isn't so bad, since the idea is a little far-fetched to say the least. It was a bold idea to mix the corrupt repo men story with the science fiction elements, but somehow the "genres" don't seem to really mix, they are just thrown in the same movie without any clear sense of how the two fit together.

That being said, I did enjoy this movie, for the effort it makes. It's a weird idea, which unfortunately doesn't really go anywhere, but it certainly has many entertaining moments. I'd recommend it to anyone willing to waste 90 minutes on a couple of good laughs. If you're looking for more than that, go watch something else.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

Really not worth the fuss

[4/10 · 30 April 2012]

I can understand why there's such a big audience for this film. If I had been six and hadn't seen any other sci-fi movie before it when I first saw it, I might have been impressed too. As it is, I really had high hopes for it, and I really tried to like this movie, but eventually I gave up on it.

What's the story? Well, I tried to watch the movie four times, and I fell asleep about halfway through every time. The first time I saw it, that might have been caused by watching it at 2 AM during a movie night. But the other 3 times I watched it in the early evening, and I just kept falling asleep.

The bits I did see were utterly unconvincing. Mark Hammil is one of the worst actors ever. The story is one of the most far-fetched ever to be put on film.

And then there are people who say this film "started the epic sci-fi genre". Really? You'd have to ignore the original "War of the Worlds" from 1953, "Planet of the Apes" from 1968, and "2001: A space odyssey" also from 1968.

I think I can divide my friends into two camps, the Star Wars aficionados, and the ones who find it as boring as I do. And I know how worked up the fans get, whenever someone dares criticize this movie. The fact remains that I am definitely not alone among fans of Sci-fi to be quite bored by Star Wars. The pages and pages of worshiping reviews therefore, are understandable, but misleading.

I Am Legend (2007)

Promising start turns out to be vague religious nonsense

[3/10 · 2 July 2011]

*** SPOILERS WARNING ***

Okay this is my first review here, so bear with me.

I'll start with saying that i think Will Smith did a great job. Don't listen to people comparing him to Tom Hanks in Castaway, Tom Hanks doesn't hold a candle to Will Smith's performance in this film. He is gradually losing his mind, one twist at a time, and he portrays this in a way that makes it realistic and dramatic at the same time.

Secondly it looks good. Again I don't agree with some of the other critics here, saying the creatures were outdated cgi. Granted they were not realistic, but to me they fitted in somehow. And the scenery is very nicely done.

What I don't get about this film however, is how it's brilliant for 60 odd minutes but then when he meets the other survivors it turns into a weird combination of bad SF/horror and religious twaddle.

Now seriously, where did that come from? It could just be because they couldn't think of a decent way of saving them and because they wanted a happy end they had to come up with a vague religious side story, so they don't have to explain how they end up in Vermont. That would be quite bad, but the other option is even worse : they did intend this ending, and wrote it to tell us that those nasty scientists who are trying to cure diseases are evil, and that we all should just stick to trusting in god. Yeah...right.

This film could have had a great ending if they had been creative. He does find a cure and starts using it to revive the city, ending with the first rays of hope for the first few newly cured people, maybe him returning to the video store and finding a real girl there, voilà. Or he doesn't find a cure, gets crazier and crazier and then infected and dies at the end, not having achieved any of his goals, which would have been a really great scary ending. The options were literally limitless.

Not trying to offend, but people who say the ending of this film is really deep, which i did read in some other reviews here and elsewhere, are not making very much sense to me. It's not. It's blandly religious at best. Sure, this film has some nice ideas and good acting from will smith, but that's it. Rational people, beware of this film, enjoy it for an hour and then just turn the damn thing off.