Reviews

Wonderful to see the crew finally dealing with the impact of their decision. Disco's fast pace has skimmed over the impact of events in past seasons, but here it was brought to the fore. Add in a welcome trip to Trill and fine performances all around, and it's the highlight of a strong start to the season.

Incidentally, notice how almost every negative review of this episode has an element of bigotry, with veiled complaints about "diversity" and transgender? Hate trolls flail ever more desperately as Disco goes from strength to strength.

This is a "story-driven roguelike".

Unfortunately, the latter is not that strong. It comes with a variety of distinct characters, but funnels you into playing as them even if you don't want to through a combination of bonuses (you have to get each character to a certain level to earn their universal bonus) and cooldowns.

While thematically appropriate, it becomes grindy and frustrating to play a character who is not enjoyable. The cooldowns in particular are irritating, especially against the final boss. Having to wait for a cooldown to play as your preferred character feels like something out of an FTP mobile game.

Then there's the story. It's delivered with such melodramatic gravitas, such ponderous self-importance, that it would serve better as a parody.

There's no nuance to it - as if the baddies being called the Corruption and being frightfully ugly was too subtle, they are also shown picking on animals, a pregnant woman and cute bots. It even spells out the (obvious) moral of the tale at the end.

It's like a pre-teen cartoon, delivered as if it's a literary masterwork. Utterly cringeworthy.

The conference scene alone makes this worthwhile - it made me laugh out loud several times. It serves as a neat origin story for the tribbles (at least in their troublesome form) and features a couple of great performances.

Just as funny are the reviews - never ceases to amaze me how people who bash modern Trek for getting things "wrong" are wrong themselves.

Spock is the only Vulcan in Starfleet? Er...how about the entire crew of the Intrepid for starters.

Trek humour should be restrained "by precedent"? Never seen I, Mudd or Bride of Chaotica, I take it.

Sigh.

"Weird Al" Yankovic is famed for his brilliant song parodies, working in countless clever lines within the restrictions of an existing tune and featuring hilarious videos to accompany them. It is difficult to watch the likes of "Smells Like Nirvana" or "Aamish Paradise" without laughing out loud. Surely, then, having him write his own film, and feature the likes of Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) Fran Drescher (The Nanny) and Victoria Jackson (Saturday Night Live) would be a recipe for comedy gold? Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

UHF is simply an unfunny, formulaic, clichéd and utterly bland experience. It follows an incredibly well-worn path - no-hoper gets big chance, succeeds against all odds by being totally unconventional, is threatened by the powers that be and eventually wins the day and the girl, with the corporate powerhouse enemies getting their just deserts. It offers no parody, no spin, no originality. The film has a total lack of memorable lines, in such stark contrast to Al's songs, and the "humour" comes from either low-grade comedy (kicks in the groin, dogs being thrown out a window, etc) and over-the-top characters. Acting seems to consist of mugging for the camera, with only David Bowe and Kevin McCarthy making any real attempt at being remotely normal.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is the lack of songs in the film. Elvis at least had the sense to do a few numbers in his films. While the film does contain movie parodies, they are certainly not up to the standard of Al's songs. A single Al music video is far more entertaining than the entire film.

Budget problems are blamed repeatedly in the commentary, but it doesn't take a huge budget to come up with a decent plot or funny lines. Indeed, the parodies of films like Rambo and Indiana Jones actually look reasonably good, though far from original, entertaining and anything less than self-indulgent. The few laughs come from the commentary track, and then the best ones are from Al reading out horrible reviews. Jey Levey contributes so little in the commentary that it is perhaps no surprise the film he co-wrote was so unimaginative. Drescher, Richards, Jackson and Emo Phillips make random cameos in it as well.

Perhaps the most startling feature of the DVD is the deleted scenes, which feature so many astonishingly bad, unfunny moments that it is incomprehensible how the original script was ever approved, let alone how they were filmed. At least somebody had the sense to cut them out, though they aren't that much worse than the dross that remains.

The only real entertainment value in looking back at the film is watching several actors in roles before they were stars. Perhaps the most remarkable is David Proval as "head thug", well before he became known as Richie Aprile in The Sopranos. Considering that he plays the roles almost identically, it's very hard to watch season 2 of The Sopranos after watching UHF...

The original Jurassic Park, released in 1993, was a classic. It featured a stellar cast, good writing, groundbreaking special effects and an inspiring theme from John Williams. Which made it all the more surprising that the sequel – The Lost World – could be so poor. Mediocre acting, poor writing, irritating new characters and one of the most ridiculous plot twists in the history of cinema. However, even with all that, it is still far superior to this insipid instalment – hopefully the last of the series.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly where the problem lies. Rarely has a film combined such awful writing, acting and directing. The writing, however, stands out as the worst part of this film. It is astonishingly dull and monotonous – there is an incredibly dull exchange of dialogue, then there are some noises, then everyone runs around for a while. Repeat for two hours. The scenes between Tea Leoni and William H. Macy are particularly insipid, with writing that would be more at place in a particularly bad daytime soap, and acting to match. It's possible to laugh at first, but it becomes very painful after a while. There comes a point where you just hope the dinosaurs are going to eat them all, but you know exactly who will survive from the very beginning. As for the dinosaurs setting traps and so forth – it's almost on a par with a T-Rex wandering through suburbia without attracting any attention.

The acting...pedestrian at best, just plain awful at every other time. Neil at least tries to give some effort, but when most of his scenes consist of grunting ‘Run' (cue a lot of noise and running), there really isn't much he can do. At least Trevor Morgan isn't too awful for a screen kid, and the scene with the son of Laura Dern was pretty amusing. Speaking of which, was that really Dern? Either the makeup department has had a day off, or there was a really weird camera angle there.

The direction, which was poor in the second film (from Spielberg, of all people), has certainly not improved. The long zoom-in for every 'dramatic' line (ie. 'run') may have its place in a TV show, but it is unacceptable for a major film. It's cheesy and simply looks bad. For examples, look at pretty much any shot of Sam Neil. Furthermore, there is very little to distinguish any of the assorted running scenes, so that they just become a dull, indistinguishable lump. Compare this to the very distinct scenes in the original film, and you can see just how far the series has fallen down.

Perhaps the final scene sums up the problems of this film best – an abrupt, meaningless end, with the usual insipid exchange between Leoni and Macy, and a hideous butchering of John Williams's beautiful original theme, which sounds as if it is being played at double speed.

In all, it's dull, predictable and ultimately painful to watch. We can only hope that this is the last of the series, but, as this film demonstrates, the lure of money is often far too powerful. It certainly seems to be more important than producing a quality film.

Farscape is a throwback to the dark, 1950's days of Sci-Fi, the sort of movies that stained the genre for decades. Every cliche and predictable storyline was covered with astonishing efficiency within the first season - I dread the following seasons.

The cast is miserable - indeed, the only members who show any acting talent are the 'muppets'. And really, are we actually supposed to accept a bunch of sock puppets as genuine characters? I can't imagine how the cast keeps a straight face while talking to them. Then again, judging from the performances so far, it is doubtful that any of them could manage a look beyond bland indifference.

Perhaps the only interesting part about this series is finding where all the characters have been ripped off from. I can see at least 3 Star Trek characters and one from Star Wars, and that's just among the main characters!

Really, the only chance Farscape has of being regarded as an even passable show is if it stopped taking itself so seriously. If it played up its storylines and characters a little more, it could be regarded as a fairly decent satire. However, it continues to trundle along with a ridiculous air of self-importance, as if it was actually a decent show. Then again, some of the critics attacks on the show have been so memorably vicious that it is very doubtful it would gain any respect.

Perhaps the worst thing is the hypocrisy of Channel 9, placing the likes of Star Trek and Babylon 5 in late night timeslots, while adopting this trash as its pet show. Those shows are so much better than this it is impossible to describe.

Please, anyone who hasn't seen this show, avoid it like the plague.

The Games is one of the best Australian television series. It managed consistent biting humour, excellent performances and superb writing - and was made all the more amusing when real life mirrored many of the events portrayed in the show. Guest appearances from many of Australia's best known personalities (including John Farnham) contributed to the show's professional look.

If there could be one comment to come out of this show, it would be "Where do all these people go?" There is clearly significant talent around Australia, as evidenced by the likes of The Games and Frontline, yet once these shows are gone we are left with nothing. Nonetheless, The Games is a delightful show, and certainly deserved the strong audience it received.

This is a surprisingly good film. I say film, because that is how it screened here - in a 3-hour clump thanks to some aggressive editing.

Acting: Colm Meaney [The Commitments, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine] is wonderful, throwing himself into his role. Randy Quaid was good at points, but has little charm for a romantic lead. Roger Daltry is amusingly foppish as King Borik, while Michael Williams puts in an amusing, if overdone cameo as Father Daley. Whoopi Goldberg gets minimal screentime, but is good. The only disappointing aspects came from Orla Brady [Wuthering Heights] who was appalling early and Zoe Wanamaker who was annoying. Still, the acting was generally quite good.

Special Effects: Much was said about them, but some were very unconvincing. They would amuse kids, but when compared to Oscar winner 'The Matrix' and Emmie winner Star Trek: Voyager, they fall way short. I could have done without most of the 'little people' fighting scenes, but it was crucial to the plot. The varying scale for characters was done very well - so well that I took it for granted without giving them much credit. The war scenes looked spectacular, but it must be said that it had the effect of watching Braveheart performed by a cast of dwarves. Not too bad all up, but not at the cutting edge.

Dialogue: Some wonderful quotes and generally sharp dialogue from Peter Barnes made this a delight. This was one of the best aspects.

Plot: A bit of a stretch to believe, but that is to be expected with the Fantasy genre. It was a little slow to begin, but the amazing scenery provided plenty of entertainment. We really don't need to see Randy Quaid as a romantic lead, and with the erratic Orla Brady, many scenes fell flat. THe war was quite well done, though. The ending was silly and contrived, but perhaps the producers were worried about paralleling Romeo and Juliet too closely. Still, only kids could enjoy it.

Overall: Quite strong acting, and an generally good movie, although the ending spoiled much of it.

Firstly, I'll point out that I did really like this movie. Great special effects, the lead cast was quite good, and many scenes were very well done. Even in moments of utter silence, with nothing happening, the tension was still obvious. The music as a whole is quite good, but the main title theme is repeated a little too much - after all, it hardly has the impact of something like Alexander Courage's Star Trek theme. Overall, an excellent movie. But there are still many bad points. The movie is rather slow to begin with, and there are plenty of the family scenes that should have been cut. They add nothing to the movie - and in many cases they detract from it. This isn't helped by the acting from the female cast members, which is simply appalling. Surely they could afford at least one person besides a few of the top listed men who could act. Also, there are many cliches in the dialogue, and the heroic nature of these people is hammered into us far too many times. Still, I did enjoy it, but more as escapism than anything meaningful. 7/10

Star Trek is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't type of shows. If the movies are made for Trekkies, then most of the general public won't watch, and Paramount will lose money. A good example of this is Generations. Massive implications if you are a Trek fan, but not important to anyone not familiar with the series. First Contact is slanted toward the general public, and thus many Trekkies claim that Paramount is selling out , and alienating true fans. I'm a Trekkie, but I still love this movie. The acting is great. Nobody ever complains about Patrick Stewart, and with good reason. He puts in a masterful, if overly emotional performance. The only member of the cast to annoy me is Martina Sirtis as Troi, but I have never liked the character. Thankfully, she recieves little air time. Alfre Woodard as Lily is excellent, and James Cromwell puts in a suitably drunken performance as Cochrane. The Queen [Alice Krige] is spooky and seductive enough, and of course the Borg drones are scary. It is interesting to hear Kelsey Grammar back on board the Bozeman, a nice little touch. Also, as always, links are made to other series with Ethan Phillips [Neelix in Voyager] appearing in the holodeck scene. There are rumours that Avery Brooks was supposed to be in it, but I'm not sure. A good cast all up. The special effects from Industrial Light and Magic are great, and did anyone else see that the nebula toward the start of the film looked like a giant cat? A great touch. There are so many memorable quotes and scenes from this film, but the one in Picard's Ready Room with Lily is one I will never forget. Perhaps a little too emotional, but one of the best Trek scenes of all time. The Borg are finally back to their terrifing best, something lacking in their last few episodes. There are few sci-fi villains that are better. The plot is average, but the film is so fast that you don't have time to care. Many people are incensed that this Cochrane is so different to the one in TOS, but I missed that era, so I'm neutral. Overall, a great movie, but still falls behind Star Trek VI.