Reviews

Rob Schneider has never been more than a mediocre comic actor who happened to fall into the right place at the right time with his SNL run. His standup 30 years ago wasn't particularly original or inspired and 30 years of irrelevance hasn't made him any funnier.

All that's to be learned here is that adding low-hanging unoriginal "political jokes" based on right-wing half-baked propaganda fantasies to an unoriginal and juvenile routine doesn't turn garbage into gold... it just highlights how unoriginal and unfunny right-wing propaganda is.

I guess we all have to earn a living and perhaps Schneider is operating off the idea that people stupid enough to rally for a grammatically-impaired loudmouth fraudster may also be stupid enough to find his uninspired retread schoolboy material funny. If so, I have sympathy for a man whose lack of talent has caught up to him, but not admiration or appreciation. Let the forgetting of this unintelligent, irrelevant and unoriginal boor continue.

So what's so Great and Powerful about Oz? Unfortunately, not a whole lot. There's just enough things that are good about Oz to make it worth a rental or even a trip to the theater if you just love to see decent CGI on a huge screen, and plenty of things that are okay enough about Oz to nullify complaints about the competency of those who made the movie. This is obviously a film with a large budget made by people who know a lot about making movies. Technical competency abounds.

But greatness and power are both missing in what is an essentially soulless movie. The predictability is off the charts, and the entire script feels like a conglomeration of standard characters and standard lines from a giant compendium of stock screenplay bits for screenwriters on a deadline.

There are too many nods to the overpowering canon of this movie's heritage, too many times it prods you in the ribs, winks at you, and slyly says, "Heh... remember that? Remember how great it was when (_insert any of 50 great 'Wizard of Oz' moments here_)? Isn't it clever how I fit right in with that?" The problem is that all of this elbowing and winking leaves little room for the movie to stand on it's own and constantly draws the viewer out of what should be an immersive movie experience to think about a different movie. It also just feels forced and awkward, like when a comedian laughs at their own jokes.

Overall, no amount of technical expertise and fantastical special effects can make up for a movie that feels like it was made by a marketing department. There is little organic joy in this script, every moment feels like it came out of the Disney Handbook for Successfully Generating Marketable Characters.

The cast is okay, with particularly decent performances by Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, who manage to breathe some life into rather flat characters. The male leads are a different story, with James Franco falling into the same "elbow and wink" feeling the script has. He's play-acting, not acting. Zach Braff, unfortunately, is just so "Zach Braff" that you can almost see his face instead of Finley's, which basically destroys the entire character and pulls you out of the movie every time he opens his mouth.

All in all, this feels like a children's movie because children don't have the depth of experience to be hit by just how cliché everything is. But a "Great and Powerful" movie feels like it is deep enough for adults without losing children and original enough to be new to everyone, no matter how many times they've sat in a theater.

This Oz is good enough to entertain those with a low bar, but it certainly isn't Great or Powerful.

Not since "CB4" has a movie been so much less than the sum of its parts. "Office Space" is well worth seeing simply because it has so many truly hilarious scenes. If you don't laugh out loud during this movie you are either totally humor-impaired or you have never worked a day in your life.

The Fridays-esque "Tchotchke's" restaurant with it's over-hyped waiter selling "extreme fajitas", mumbling Milton taking endless abuse from a slick-talking do-nothing Porsche-driving Bill Lumbergh, the "Goodfellas"-style destruction of the always uncooperative fax machine, Peter cleaning fish at his desk, being outpaced by an old man with a walker during the impossibly frustrating traffic on the way to work, Michael Bolton's fear of letting a black man hear him pumping gangster rap, the list of truly funny scenes in "Office Space" just goes on and on.

Too bad the plot that ties it all together is trite, boring and stupid. In the end, it really doesn't matter that much as the gaps between funny scenes are so small that you don't really care what moves you from scene to scene anyways, but with a more thought-out plot that was as inspired as its individual scenes, "Office Space" might have been one of the greatest movies ever. As it is, I gave it a solid 8, it will not fail to entertain, just don't bother keeping track of what's going on.

There is some very good footage in "Gods and Generals", and the devotion to portraying the war with a perception towards General Lee is interesting and could have been effective. At least I'm assuming that the movie was supposed to be presenting us a skewed perspective as though we are seeing the war from Lee's point of view, otherwise it's just plain biased in favor of a Confederate nation.

Politics aside, the effort that obviously went into this film is commendable, there are some decent performances, nice cinematography and attention to detail.

But the film has one major flaw. It is excruciatingly dull. At four hours long it needs to be very engaging. I fail to see how this film could be engaging to anyone but devoted fans of the Civil War, of which I am not one. It is my opinion that this movie could have easily been edited down to 2.5 - 3 hours without losing any of its meaning, and perhaps then it would have been a good, if not great, film.

As is, I would say avoid this film, there are much better ways to spend an entire afternoon or evening.

The "Triplets of Belleville" isn't just a good movie. It is a great movie, the kind of great movie that makes you think "I wish the Hollywood Studios would devote some of their resources to producing this kind of art."

I mentioned the word "art", which probably conjures up a lot of images of visually stunning stylistic snooze fests devoid of much beyond their film-making art. This is not that kind of art. Yes, the movie is French, and yes it is visually stunning. But the movie transcends language (there is barely any dialogue in the film and it is better because of it). You could literally drop this film almost anywhere in the world with no translation and viewers would understand the entire story. Whats more, they would be interested in the entire story.

The story is simple and moves along at a good clip. The film is short (1 hr 22 min), beautiful, engaging, wonderfully scored, and terrific characters.

Don't let the fact that the movie is animated and has a simple storyline fool you into thinking this is a children's film (a lot of people reviewing the movie here have made that mistake). This is definitely a film for adults, and any adult with the ability to see, hear and reason should enjoy this film.

If you don't, I suggest you take a good step back and ask yourself "what the hell is wrong with me?" because the "Triplets of Belleville" is a universal and beautiful film.

A note to the idiots that think this movie is "anti-American"... grow up and remove your stupid self-centered myopia glasses. This movie pokes fun at people and stereotypes, not just American people, and if you can't laugh at yourself along with everyone else you are too lame for words.

How sad. You can see the effect that movies like "XXX" and "The Matrix" have had on our beloved Bond series. Apparently the new formula is to abandon all sense of intrigue, make the action scenes even more over the top than in the not-very-good later Roger Moore movies (amazingly, it turns out this is actually possible), and throw in a Bond cliche every other scene.

It's one thing to give a little nod here and there to earlier Bond flicks. It's another to senselessly smash the audience over the head with every Bond cliche in the book. Even the name is an incredibly lame compilation of Bond cliches... "Let's see, you take something about life or death, something about time... put that into the Bond cliche generator..." Come on. We've already had "License to Kill", "The Living Daylights", "You Only Live Twice", "Tomorrow Never Dies", and "Live and Let Die". We get it already, it's a James Bond film.

But the sad thing is, it's not really. It's only a Bond film in name and cliche. Sure Pierce Brosnan fits the part well, and sure the girls swoon appropriately, the cars are fast, the music is Bondian and I'm sure the Martinis were shaken, not stirred. But James Bond is not Xander Cage, and I don't want to see him snowboarding his way through 94 minutes of action sequences. There used to be some plot and character building to Bond movies, sure it was tongue-in-cheek but it was there and it wasn't just plain stupid.

The only thing that comes close at all in this movie is the scenes where Bond spends what seems to be a couple of years in a North Korean prison, and who wants to see that? The Sean Connery Bond would have escaped from that prison in the first day, and if he couldn't pull that off he would have found a hot North Korean chick to let him go in exchange for some James Bond sex and an empty promise.

I think this may finally spell the beginning of the end for this venerable franchise. They have finally lost the actual Bond flavor and are stupidly attempting to replace it with "XXX"/"Matrix"-style action. To which I am sure audiences will eventually say "Who cares? I'm going to see XXX6 because my brain has been shrunk below the point required to understand something as simple as a James Bond movie."

First and foremost, let me say this: If you have not seen this movie and are still fortunate enough to have no idea what it is about, do not read this review. Do not read any review or any description of this film. Just go see it. Save the reading for afterwards.

"Audition" has provoked a lot of response here, which should indicate what this film is all about. A lot of people claim "it's not scary enough" or "the beginning is too slow", but I think those people have suffered from the unfortunate truth that this movie is spoiled if you go into knowing it is a "Horror" film. The American DVD/VHS cover is an unfortunate choice as well.

The real strength of this movie lies in the disparity between its two parts. It starts out as a Japanese charmer, vaguely reminiscent of "Shall We Dansu?", "Tampopo" or "A Taxing Woman" in its cutesy ability to charm in a way that only the ultra-serious Japanese can charm... sort of a straight-man humor with no comedian. This is the part of the film that people claim is "too slow" for a horror film. Of course, if you go into it without expectations, this part of the film is highly enjoyable as a sort of innocuous romantic comedy and is well-crafted in this sense.

Once the horror starts, it is painful to watch. The antagonist is psychologically interesting, but perhaps a bit shallowly portrayed. However, she is certainly much deeper than your standard horror-flick dreck and the movie does a fairly good job of building suspense and being just plain excruciating in its horror half.

Is this a great film? No, not quite, but it is a good film, one that most people unfortunately do not get to truly enjoy because of the expectations given to it by the fact that we must ruin every film by genre-classification, previews, reviews, and advertising art.

I saw this film with no idea what it was or what it was about, and I think that gave me a startling and enjoyable experience that most people cannot get from this film. If you went into it with "Horror" expectations or "Thriller" expectations, I suggest you go back and bitch out whoever ruined the movie for you.

I gave this movie 8/10

Quite simply, if you like "The Matrix Reloaded", you like crap. This film is a high-cost version of a flying kung-fu movie with none of the humor and a stale plot. This is not a movie, it's a marketing ploy. How many times can we watch the same fight scene with the same (now cliche) slow-mo stop n' rotate camera effect? How can anyone feel any sense of urgency or interest when all physics and reality have no meaning anymore? How can we ever feel that any character is in danger when we it is impossible to tell if anything is actually dangerous? Neo's essentially become a ridiculous black dress-wearing Superman, and I would assume the third movie will end with something as brilliant as Keanu Reeves flying around the world to reverse time.

By the tenth or twelfth meaningless repeat of the same flying kung-fu scene any sane person above the age of 12 will be thinking about getting up and watching something more intellectually stimulating, like wrestling. If you stripped all the meaningless scenes out of this movie and left nothing but the scenes that actually advance the plot or build characters you would probably have about 20 minutes of footage.

"The Matrix" was a decent movie. It was not great, because it was anti-climatic. It starts out with its best scene and is a slow slide from greatness to mediocrity throughout the rest of the film. The idea of machines using humans for power is ridiculous and anyone with even the most basic understanding of physics can explain to you why it cannot possibly work. However, the movie was at least somewhat fresh, entertaining, and self-contained. "The Matrix Reloaded" is none of these things. It is stale, dull, and a meaningless prelude to what promises to be more of the same.

I no more believe that this was the planned middle chapter in a trilogy than I believe in the tooth fairy. It is an obvious attempt to cash in on the first film two more times. I, for one, will not be suckered into paying to see the next film We should have learned our lesson about what film geniuses these guys are from their other masterpieces, "Bound" and "Assassins" -- more cliche crap.

I haven't seen a movie that pleased me as much as this one since "The Usual Suspects". The story is engaging and the presentation masterful. The reverse-sequence story order is used to terrific effect, forcing the viewer into the same mindset as our anti-hero Leonard... "How did I get here? I don't know...." It's great to see a somewhat tired cinematic effect actually used to bolster the meaning and feeling of the film rather than just to be "artsy."

Don't bother with the film if you're not prepared to concentrate, this is a film that doesn't assume all film-goers are morons. Your effort will be rewarded with a story that leaves you thinking for days about the relativity of truth, what actually defines a "fact", and the power of the human mind to create it's own reality.

On the downside, I found a bit of the dialogue hoaky. Also, after reflecting for a while about Leonard, I decided that I don't think a person in his situation would really have the ability to accomplish as much as he does, but these are just a very minor dents in a terrific film.

When did the advances made in special effects technology erase the need for a coherent plot and interesting characters in modern film? Can't a huge budget production like this find money for at least one decent script writer? Is it really that hard to write a decent screenplay?

This movie is entertaining only for it's special effects, and somehow manages to be even more muddled, cliched, and trite than the first one. 10 years from now this film will be about as memorable as "Starship Troopers". This is tailor-made for people who thought "The Patriot" was a good historical drama.

"The Patriot" stands as further testament to the fact that with today's Hollywood money, technology, and years of filmmaking experience, producing a well-made movie is a well-understood process that the major studios can execute time and time again.

Unfortunately, finding a good script and preserving it throughout the filmmaking process seems relegated to those smaller productions that cannot afford to cover the lack of intellectual entertainment with visual stimulation.

"The Patriot" is well-designed, well-shot, competently (occasionally even excellently) acted, visually exciting, and never really boring. It's also unbelievable, formulaic, trite, unoriginal, and basically stupid. This film is "Gladiator" without the intelligence (which is pretty bad, since "Gladiator" certainly didn't shine in the original story line department).

I loved the recreation of Revolutionary war combat in the earlier battles. It may not have been historically precise, but a very good job was done depicting the bloody ruthlessness and insanity of line warfare (although I don't think that many people actually had their heads cleanly removed by cannon balls).

I hated the completely one-dimensional, totally unoriginal and ridiculously evil bad guy and detested the acutely predictable "exciting" climaxes. Mel Gibson stabbing the horse with the American Flag was SO STUPID it actually had me laughing out loud as I remembered the Simpsons episode in which Homer rewrites the script for a Mel Gibson version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" to include a scene in which Mel Gibson spears a Supreme Court Justice with an American flag. I find it hard to think of another scene which so completely illustrates the total contempt with which the Hollywood machine regards the intelligence of the American audience.

If there's a script-writing equivalent to a paint-by-numbers project, it was used for this film. Too bad all the good production value couldn't have been used to make an intellectually stimulating story. The entire cast and crew of "The Patriot" ought to knock Mr. Roland Rodat's head off with one of those cannon balls, he's obviously not using it anyways.

"Gladiator" is not an original film. There's tons of comparisons to "Braveheart" floating around, but there's dozens of movies that came before, and dozens more will come that have this same basic story. Sympathetic powerful man is wronged by those around him, loses everything, comes back to attempt vengeance against the forces that destroyed him. Frankly, there's much better comparisons than "Braveheart". "High Plains Drifter", "Rob Roy", even films like "Payback" just to name a few of many.

But this is unimportant. A film like "Gladiator" is not about originality. It's about sweeping vision, high production value, and engrossing entertainment. And "Gladiator" achieves all this extremely well. You'll hardly believe 2 1/2 hours have gone by when you reach the end of this film. The portrayal of ancient Rome is exciting and believable, the story is predictable yet gratifying, and the directing is interesting without being distracting. I particularly enjoyed the rapid cutting of fight scenes, which Ridley Scott has managed to make both exciting and excruciating without showing excessive gore, and without highlighting fake swordplay.

While I think the cries of "Oscar!" only serve to illustrate how haphazardly Oscars are handed out, the performances are very good. Joaquin Phoenix is particularly effective as the despicable, creepy, yet pitiful Commodus. Russell Crowe is an excellent fit for our grimy hero, and Connie Nielsen lights up the screen with her refined beauty and presence.

Ridley Scott has demonstrated his slick professionalism as a director in a way that has not been seen since "Blade Runner". "Gladiator" is a big movie, and it deserves to be seen on a big screen. Go to the theater before it's too late, there hasn't been a movie as deserving of a big screen and big sound since "Titanic".

I rated this movie 9/10.

Magnolia is a really interesting movie. People are going to love it, and people are going to hate it. I loved it and hated it.

The Good Stuff:

The cast (and casting) is fantastic, with stellar performances across the board. I particularly enjoyed the performances of Jeremy Blackman (Stanley Spector, Boy Genius) and John C. Reilly (Jim Kurring, Dorky Cop), although there isn't a weak performance to be found in the movie.

The characters were all really enjoyable, albeit often slightly over the top, particularly "Frank T.J. Mackey" (Tom Cruise), "Phil" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and "Claudia Wilson" (Melora Walters).

The incidental nature of the separate plots is interesting and the individual plots are often compelling. The centralization of the plots around "Earl Partridge" (Jason Robards) works well, and I particularly liked the use of the opening sequences to explain the nature of coincidence and make the entire movie seem more plausible.

The Bad Stuff:

Many people are going to tell you this film is directed incredibly well, which, in my opinion, is only partially true. There are a great many interesting sequences and film techniques used, many of which often work quite well. However, I found the overall nature of the direction to often be so heavy-handed with the use of bizarre camera movement that I think it somewhat detracted from the emotional content of the film. Granted, it doesn't compare to the all-time offender in this respect, Oliver Stone's directorial farce in "Natural Born Killers".

There were a few sequences in the film that were so awkward and out of place that they seemed merely put in for bizarre effect. I refer particularly, of course, to the singing interlude with all the characters, and the rain of frogs. No one will ever convince me that these two ridiculous occurences enhanced this film.

This movie is really just too long. As interesting as it was, I started to lose interest after the singing sequence. This is a particular problem because the pacing of the film starts out so intense and then continously slows as the film progresses. This is an interesting (and pretty effective) device, but it hurts in a 3 1/2 hour movie.

I personally think some of the "Frank T.J. Mackey" character sequences and a lot of the interaction between "Claudia Wilson" and "Officer Jim Kurring" could have been removed to shorten this movie by about 45 minutes, and maintain interest throughout the film. And my god it would have been wonderful to remove that damn singing sequence.

My Conclusion:

Overall, "Magnolia" was a very interesting movie, but mostly just because it was filled with such wonderfully portrayed and wholely unique characters. I felt more like I was watching a set of virtuouso vignettes than an actual movie. While I thought the acting and casting were some of the best I've ever seen, in the end I didn't really like this movie as much as Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier (and really great) work on "Boogie Nights".

I gave it a solid 8. If you're easily put to sleep in a movie theater, skip it. And you may want to wait for videotape anyways, to give yourself some quite possibly needed pauses during a 3 1/2 hour long set of truly great audition reels.

"CB4" is worth seeing if you are a fan of rap music, Chris Rock, or lowball cultural humor. It has some extremely funny scenes, some great satirical rap songs, and a really stupid plot line.

Unfortunately, "CB4" could have been a lot more than it is. It doesn't come close to the humor or intelligence of the similarly-themed "This is Spinal Tap". The idea of making a spoof "rapumentary" is a good one, with a lot of humor potential, and the central casting of "CB4" (particularly Chris Rock and Allen Payne) is adequate. However, the movie is ruined by a particularly lame (and completely unnecessary) plot-line involving a real gangster trying to kill the self-styled "gangster rap" band members who have stolen his name and history.

Had "CB4" contained itself to a satirical "rapumentary" about a band of middle-class black guys posing as "gangster rappers", it might have been a truly excellent film on par with "This is Spinal Tap". Its lame plot reduces it to a sub-par comedy which is much less than the sum of its parts, some of which are truly inspired (The scene with Euripides working as a gay phone sex operator, "Straight Outta Locash" and "Sweat of my Balls" are particulary funny).

This film, which I believe marked Clint Eastwood's directorial debut, also happens to be his finest work as a director (with the possible exception of the outstanding "Unforgiven"). The later remake as "Pale Rider" falls far short of this film, which is truly a cinematic masterpiece.

"High Plains Drifter" contains all the elements that any great film should: a thought-provoking central theme, a unique and consistent visual style, an intelligent script, great casting, and excellent performances by all the central characters.

The choices made with the detachment of the set from the rest of the world, and the bleak, simplistic view of every element of this movie are inspired and serve to very effectively highlight the central theme of the film without losing the viewer in details.

A note to anybody who watches this film without using their brain: The high-plains drifter is NOT just another super-powered gunslinger, he represents the physical incarnation of spiritual vengeance and karma. "High Plains Drifter" has only one message and delivers it relentlessly: Everybody is responsible for their actions (or inactions) and everyone will get their just desserts.

If you have a sense of humor, and any appreciation for offbeat films, you will definitely enjoy this film. This may be Bill Murray's best performance ever, and there's not a sore spot in the cast. It's wonderful to see a wide commercial release of a film that strays from the standard Hollywood genre films.

Let's clear up one thing: "Shall We Dance?" is NOT "Strictly Ballroom". It's what "Strictly Ballroom" wishes it were. The creators of this movie absolutely and perfectly accomplish everything they set out to do in making this movie. It is charming, likeable, and funny in a way that I think only Asian cultures can produce. The only defect in this film is that its story is ultimately cliche and somewhat trite (of course, this applies to 95% of all movies made).

The incredible awkwardness and discomfort of the main character as he enters the world of ballroom dancing in order to appease mid-life crisis is classic. The incidental characters in the dance class are appropriately humorous, and the focus is never really on the world of ballroom competition, but on the much more interesting and accessible world of human emotion and interaction.

If you don't enjoy this movie, you haven't got a sentimental bone in your body. And if you don't end up thinking about taking ballroom dance lessons, you must have been sleeping.

This film is an insult to both the viewing audience and the technical crew who worked on this unfortunate dungpile. I say this because this is not your typical bad film. It is full of wonderful sets, excellent costumes, and all around really slick film-making. Unfortunately, this is all wasted effort put towards shooting what may be the worst script ever written fleshed out by truly awful performances by both Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle McLachlan.

The slick film-making and obvious high-cost of this film only serve to point out that nothing can save a script this awful. I gave film a 1, but it really deserves a negative rating since it actually used the resources and talents of people who could have been out making a decent film.

Some people would have you believe this film is a satire. That's just wishful thinking. I don't believe for a second that the horrible, stilted dialogue and incredibly wooden performances in this movie are intentionally funny, and once the initial shock of how bad this movie actually is wears off, only anger at how much money Joe Esterhazs is paid to write this garbage will remain.

This movie is excellent. Why? Most importantly it is original. It can be said, quite accurately, that many elements of this film have been stolen from other films. No one can ever accuse Quentin Tarantino of not doing his homework ("Repo Man", or "La Femme Nikita" as obvious examples). He even rips off much of his own material from "Reservoir Dogs". But the manner in which these elements are chosen and assembled is both inspired and original.

Many people have stated that "Pulp Fiction" has been proven great by the amount of imitation that it spawned. Frankly, I don't think imitation proves anything, AND I don't think "Pulp Fiction" was imitated significantly more than many other highly successful films. However, to my mind, "Pulp Fiction" is great because it manages to recycle a multitude of pop culture icons that were seemingly over-used to death and somehow put them all together into something fresh and interesting.

"Pulp Fiction" also has a few truly original moments. Christopher Walken's wonderfully dry delivery of the "Your father kept this watch in his ass for years" story is hilarious.

There is only one serious flaw in this film: Quentin Tarantino is a very poor actor. Thank god he confined himself to a small role. If he really feels the need to be onscreen, he should just go ahead and pull a Hitchcockian cameo in his films. Sure it's derivative, but at least his screen presence will be minimized.

The thing about Oliver Stone is, he doesn't seem to know when to stop. "Natural Born Killers" is a movie with a timely message, a strong script, a very gifted cast, and some really remarkable moments, but ultimately it undermines itself by using so many intense visual effects and such bizarre camera work that the film-making itself becomes more attention-absorbing than all other elements of the film combined.

This is not to say that the frenetic visual style is inappropriate, just over-used. In some scenes, the camera work is incredibly appropriate and indeed, it could be said that because this film is about media, you should be forced to examine the media of this film itself. This is undoubtedly true, but Stone simply loses sight of any other aspects of the film, and in his heavy-handed fashion, satisfies his need to make an "art" film and draw attention to himself as director rather than what could have been a truly great film.

That said, this is still a film well worth seeing. The casting of Rodney Dangerfield is inspired, and he gives what is certainly the greatest performance of his life in a role that is unlike anything else he's ever done. The script is intelligent and displays the Quentin Tarantino talent of "Pulp Fiction", "Reservoir Dogs", and "Jackie Brown".

So watch "Natural Born Killers" and enjoy, but just remember to bring your barf bag, and give a big "what if..." for how great this movie might have been if Tarantino had directed it himself.

This movie may be the funniest I've ever seen. Nicholas Cage is absolutely perfect, and the entire cast really shines. Raising Arizona is the Coen brothers' best film to date. Sharp writing and appropriately bizarre camera work make this movie a must see for all but the most seriously humor-impaired.

Thank God a movie like "Blade Runner" comes along once every decade or so and proves that science fiction movies can actually be about something other than special effects. This film is not just a great science fiction movie, it's a GREAT FILM. It has a message which transcends genre and makes this movie stand out against all movies.

It features riveting performances by Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, and also sports a really wonderful soundtrack. Technically, the film is a masterpiece. "Blade Runner" received an Oscar nomination for best Art Direction, which it ultimately lost out to "Gandhi" in what may have been the most obvious example of Academy idiocy ever. History proves the excellence of the art direction in this movie as 17 years have gone by and the vision of futuristic LA still holds strong.

The one unfortunate aspect of this film is illustrated by the Director's cut. Just prior to release, after screening by focus groups (it's always an excellent idea to let the general public alter a film director's artistic vision), the final studio version had narration overlaid and the ending changed in order to appease the mass public. While this had the benefit of allowing viewers to follow the film without really having to pay attention, it ultimately detracts from what is actually a very subtle film with a lot of unanswered implications.