Reviews

I have heard about the TV show Veronica Mars, and heard it was a good one. Never had the time to see it. But heard about the show's rabid fans and the kick-starter campaign to get the movie done. Am a Star Trek fan and understand the desire for more.

I was very happy to find that the movie is really worth seeing. Kudos to those kick-starter fans. The show must have been great. The characters are appealing and there are some nice cameos. The movie holds up for people who do not know the show, since it worked for me and I have never seen a episode.

The movie starts off with the now older more mature Veronica Mars about to ascend the corporate ladder. At job interview she asked describe the old her, and ends the description with saying it is not her any more. Like Michael she sucked back in. I do not want to put in any spoilers, but let's just say she takes an interesting trip down memory-lane.

I am a huge Batman fan and love the other two movies. But this one sucks. The only good thing about it is Ann Hathaway. First most people see this for the action scenes, but they are too few. In between them are long boring useless talking scenes. This movie could have been an hour shorter. Second the plot does not make sense, but who sees Batman for the plot. Third everyone seems to know he is batman.

*** spoiler alert ***

Even worse everyone seems to be able to outsmart batman. He is supposed to be a super hero with no superpowers, but he is supposed to be able out smart the villains. He can be self destructive. He has bad moods, but he is supposed to out smart the bad guys. It seems to me that after the success of the last movie, Christopher Nolan got to do anything he wanted to do, and every one needs an editor. The actions scenes are good, but there are not enough of them. Instead it is filled with mind numbing talk about batman's feelings. This is not a very good movie. No wonder the website rottentomatos took down early comments.

This is probably the second best of the movies, but it is a long way down from the original. All Highlander stories are best when they interweave stories from the past and the current day. This movie does not do this well. Also, spoiler alert!!! Do not read further if you do not want to read the spoilers.

The plot lines set in the present day in this movie are almost the same as the present day section of the first movie. In both movies, The evil immortal hires a prostitute, terrifies somebody by driving wildly, Connor falls in love, Connor warns the woman to stay away, etc Also this movie lacks enough action scenes. Mario Van Peebles does a nice job of the playing the bad guy, but he is not nearly as scary as the Kurgan. Christopher Lambert seems to be doing this for paycheck and looks like he is just going through the motions. The script has many holes in it and does not seem to make much sense even in the Highlander world much less the real world.

This as a TV movie of the week held was really not bad. How bad can it be with Lew Ayers? Glenn Corbett, Star Trek's TOS Zefrem Cochran, makes a good leading man. Sharon Archer is appealing as well. Cameron Mitchel make a great bad guy. The problem is that you can not see how this would make an interesting weekly TV show. Such a show would be set in a make believe police state that does not seem to have much of an philosophy. There are only two people out there to help him. And he does not want to end the police state. He just wants to get home. He does not seem to have any compassion for the people with the exception of Sharon Archer.

I did not see this theaters, but just saw on DVD. Before seeing it I have heard all the negative things about it. I think they are mostly wrong. The original movies are all based on "B" movies of the 1930's. This more modern Indy is based on the "B" movies of the 1950's. It has everything, Indy fighting Russian spies, shots of F-86 fights, giant ants, nuclear tests, rebels without a cause, drag racing, the red scare, and more. All this is great, and it is all in the first half of the movie. Tieing up the Indy loose end are great as well. Bringing back Karen Allan as Marion is a master stroke. However, not enough it explained about the greater mystery. Who are the beings with the crystal skulls. In most "B" movies of the 1950's they were aliens trying to take over the Earth. Some were comments on the Red Scare like the thing. We know that Indy Jones thinks the aliens might be alien Indys. It would have been nice he was able to use that knowledge to save everyone or gain some insight. Also Indy does not really find the temple. He just knows how to follow his crazy friend played by John Hurt. Indiana Jones in the other movies is not just a thug. He solves mysteries. He just does not stand on the work of crazy friends. The critics who say this movie is not as realistic as the earlier one, clearly do not remember them very well. The creatures coming out of the Arc, pulling beating hearts out of people with just your hand, 800 year old knights, these are all in the more realistic Indy movies. But this movie takes you to another place, and it is fun. Maybe not as much fun as some of the earlier movies, but it is fun. Therefore it succeeds.

Mel Brooks wrote this based on his experiences working as a junior comedy writer on Sid Caesar's "Your show of shows." The first time I saw this movie I laughed from beginning to end. Mark Lynn Baker plays the Benji Stone (the young Brooks) whose real name is Stoneberg. He has the right innocence for role. He gives a great performance. But this movie is Peter O'Toole's. He plays a larger then life Earol Flynn character. He is drunk and about to be thrown out of the country by the IRS. He teaches young Stone the difference between the man and the star, and how stardom sometimes overtakes the man's own identity. One of high point of the movie is when Baker takes O'toole have dinner in his mother's apartment in Brooklyn. O'toole also coaches Baker on getting the girl of his dreams, played by Jessica Harper. One of the great scenes has Mark Lynn Baker trying to teach Harper how to tell a joke. All this takes place with the backdrop of late 1950's television. A time where TV was still a novelty. Every scene makes you at least smile, and most make you laugh out loud. Richard Benjiman show great skill as a director even though this one of his earliest films. I guess all those years as an actor paid off behind the camera as well.

Because it is Disney, this is not in least bloody, but it is a good martial arts film. There is good action, and the cast is surprisingly strong. The story revolves around a young high school student who is valley girl. This character shows that Brenda Song can act beyond the suite life of Zack and Cody. There is a strong supporting cast. This valley girl is destined to become a kung fu warrior. Her guild is Chinese monk, who she transforms into an American teenager. Is the played by the same actor who played the warlords son in Tom Cruise's samurai movie. The story is all about find yourself and benefits of hard work. But all this is intermingled with really pretty good fight scenes. I hope there is another.

**** This has spoilers **** This is a great film, and has been a victim of it's own success. The 1968 film is first a great story. Second it is a great allegory about our society. Third it is a great drama. Fourth is a great example of story telling. You are first introduced to main character on board an futuristic spaceship that can travel near light speed. Then you are led to think they crashed landed on a desert planet on the way home. At this point you find out the main character hates human society. He became an astronaut to find something better than man. Then you find that the primitive humans seem to populate the planet, and the astronauts think they will be running the place in six months. Then you find out apes run the planet and treat humans as we treat apes. As the astronaut learns about the ape society, he begins to yearn for the human society he hates. We also see parallels that comment on our own. You can see Rod Serling's hand in the script. The twist at the end - that the planet is Earth in the distant future makes the astronaut hate human society, that he has just begun to want, even more.

If you follow the story of this film, all the sequels are impossible. The people who launched the space mission would never had sent the rescue mission of the second movie, because they would have know the spaceship would return in the future when they all were long dead. In this film they hint that the human society destroys itself, and then their trained ape servants took over.

This movie is full of frat house humor, which works for me most of the time. I love classics like American Pie, Something about Mary, etc. I also can enjoy a great many movies that my wife things are stupid. But this movie is so unbelievable it hurts. I know that you are supposed to suspend belief, but this movie asks too much of the audience. I can believe that a hot chick can end up in a one night stand with a loser. But why would she want to have his kid? Is she some anti-abortion nut, or does she just love kids. We don't know, because the movie never explains it. What does this career woman have in common with a crude guy who never has had a job? Don't know because it is not in the movie. The movie does have some funny moments. The actors are all good, but the script sucks. The story is not well told. Also, all the guys in this movie smoke pot and other drugs, and the ome woman gets drunk once. I know guy act like this, but so do women.

Considering Disney won the first Oscar for special effects for the Science Fiction classic "Forbidden Planet," this movie put Disney out of the space adventure movie business. Special Effects: First you have to consider that this movie came out two years after "Star Wars," and the special effects of "Black Hole" look like something just ahead of "Lost in Space." The cute robots Vincent and Bob would look more at home on a Saturday morning cartoon. The other robots look like guys in robot suits that could learn something from "Lost in Space." The Cast: The cast is wonderful, and I have enjoyed watching them for years before this movie came out. Howeer they look like their jobs would be in their retirement home play. They are old enough to Luke Skywalker's parents. Maximillion Schell was the only person who looked the part. The Plot: I would put spoilers in here, but the plot in so lame there is no point. There is a robot gone wrong a la HAL 9000. There is a long "lost" ship with a crazy leader. Have you heard that before? Also why is the old space ship more advanced then the new one?

I love Science Fiction. I can sit through and enjoy what most consider bad Science Ficton. One of the things I love about it is that it stretches the imagination. This movie is just insulting.

This is a case of the film makers trying to hard to avoid critics saying there is not enough plot. The kind of person who would see this movie, like myself one other doom fans, wants one thing - action and not too much plot. This has too much plot and character development. We are do not care who these marines are. We want to see them killing monsters or get killed by monsters. Now this movie does have that, but there are too many talk-filled plot scenes in between. There are also too many scenes where they are looking for the monsters. In doom we to find the monsters, and we want to find lots and lots of them. We also want to see lots of different weapons used. We only get to see the energy blaster used twice, and we never see to kill a room full of monsters. What is with that. This movie would have been a whole lot better with more of that and less stuff about how many genes we have.