Reviews

"Curse of the Bigfoot: Or So You Want to Reconsider Becoming an Archaeologist" The Rifftrax comedians put it very succinctly: "This movie has more padding than a middle school locker room." The soundtrack has a very heavy responsibility, trying to create cinematic tension out of scenes of mind-numbing tedium; namely extended footage of people walking at a snail's pace, flatbed vehicles meandering through the countryside slower than a one-legged man hopping backwards, and people failing to make climbing rocks at a shallow incline look like a Herculean task. The only time anybody gets mauled in what is supposedly a horror movie, it all happens off-screen. This movie is punctuated by scenes of a teacher desperately trying to make cryptozoology sound fascinating to an uninterested high school class, and a guest speaker trying to pad his monotonous speech by using so many theatrical dramatic pauses, it would make William Shatner and Christopher Walken fall asleep. Also, it seems all B-rated monster movies portray experienced scientists as grizzled war veterans who snap at naive people like they have PTSD from their years gazing through microscopes and staring at mummies. Do all archaeologists carbon date the age of artifacts by simply looking at them, or just this dude? And the wooden acting? Rifftrax told it better here, too: "Sounds like a bunch of people being forced to act while their families are being held hostage." Oh, and there's an extended documentary of the logging industry for some barely-related reason. And was buying bottled soda back in the '50s seriously THAT complicated?

This movie is a classic example where Hollywood wants to make a hard-science movie but the director decides to put all the money into the movie without using some to consult any actual scientists. For instance, one character walks into an electrically-powered modern-day laboratory on an uncharted island, takes a look at ONE WHOLE GAUGE and basically says, "WOOOOOOOWWW!!! Your science is the most advanced science in the whole scientific history of sciencey science!!!" (What the guy actually said makes even less sense.) And at the beginning of the movie, he was just a hot-air balloon operator, but later on, he's spearheading the project like he pulled a Tony Stark and mastered it all overnight. And what's more visually sciencey than Jacob's Ladders and Tesla coils shooting electricity into the air for no discernible reason than to channel ridiculous old B-movies that wanted to be sciencey, but also didn't hire consulting scientists? And they invoke the OH SO PUBLIC DOMAIN names of Victor Frankenstein and the Van Helsing family to draw people in, even though all they do is just drop their names in one scene. Well, except for the titular monster, can't have a Frankenstein movie without him, and they make the actor portray the monster too energetically as if it were hopped up on amphetamines. (And the role is essentially a cameo.) And what is the deal with the hologram of an old man whinging on about some nebulous golden thread and some unspecified power, The Power, THE POWER!!! Is he a scientist or is he having a stroke? And, of course, can't have a movie this close to the '70s without hot chicks in leopard-print bikinis Baywatch-running around and distracting you from the movie not not having any plot, but also not having any comprehensible story at all. I don't think they even hired stuntmen, because what is supposed to be a huge fight scene just looks like so much ugly dad-dancing...

Let me start out by saying that Leonardo da Vinci is one of my heroes, and that I hate reality TV. I've only seen one episode(the siege ladder), and I'm not watching any more.

Reality TV always follows the same formula. Get a bunch of narcissistic type-A personalities together, give them a project, then while the project progresses, do one-on-one interviews with them to let them snipe at each other while they state the blindingly obvious. Every once in a while, throw in a curve ball, like in this case, a man named Flash who has done more drugs than Robert Downey Jr. and Keith Richards combined, has a counterproductive seat-of-the-pants ethic toward carpentry, and when he doesn't get his way, complains loudly and annoyingly. That is why I hate reality TV. Plus, this isn't even reality. In reality, Flash would have been fired within an hour.

Personally, I have no idea why this show has to be an hour long. I wish they would cut out the backbiting and just show the carpentry in 30 minutes. I also wish they'd show more of the history of da Vinci, because that's who the show is ultimately about, not a bunch of knuckleheads who need rehab and anger management.