Reviews

Virus never decides what kind of movie it wants to be. Thriller, Sci-fi, horror, action, farce, comedy? Which is it? You can have Thriller, but you can't have dead-pan one liners and hysterical over acting Russians. OR can you? The only way to make this movie watchable is to make a drinking game out of it: Every time someone says a terrible cliché like "If we play our cards right." or "Get your asses up here." or "We gotta get off this ship." or "I need medical attention." then you drink. Believe me, you will be plastered by the beginning of the second act. At one point a character learns they are all in imminent peril and she says, "We need to get off this ship." Wow!

And another line that will haunt me is when William Baldwin says, "You point that gun at me one more time..."

and Sutherland says, "Or what?"

And William Baldwin pauses. Sweat drips from his forehead. All eyes are upon him. Tension is palpable. Baldwin says, "Think about it." and walks away.

That, my friends, is some damn fine writing.

But the production design and animatronics are very very good, which makes me wonder how this script was left in tact. This is what happens when there is enough money for a tug boat and a government ship, but not enough for a script rewrite. One or the other. So the producers chose the tug boat and the ship and prayed the translation into Hungarian for the European DVD release would make up for the fact every other line makes you think the writer learned English from watching Streets of San Francisco reruns. But the writer also produced, so maybe he is a little in love with his craptastic writing. It wouldn't be the first case of vanity screen writing.

I watched it all despite commercials but I wouldn't hesitate to turn it off the next time.

This has to be the only female lead time travel movie in history. Men and boys have dominated this premise since H.G Wells, but Kathleen Turner takes it back following the success of 1985's Back to the Future. Turner looks like a hot mom and then a hot high school senior. How is that possible? Casting and probably some fairly rigorous exercising. Nick Cage really is a youngster who looks more 18 than 40. But the story is all about Peggy Sue and the strange situation she finds herself in as she relives her 1960 senior year and gets the benefit of perfect hindsight. I think all will agree that the scenes with Peggy Sue's grandparents (who are of course long dead to the 40 year old Peggy Sue) are very touching. It's inconceivable that a film marketed for a teen audience would include these scenes. Just the mention of grandparents to a 15 year old is enough to get them heading the other direction. But even when I watched this as a 15 year old I was moved. Only an adult would truly appreciate the wisdom of their elders. But by the time we are adults our grandparents are gone. It's as true as the sky is blue. But Peggy Sue gets to take advantage of her time travel and seeks her grandparents out. The brilliance of the writing is apparent as the grandparents end up playing an important role in the plot and general moral of the story. Imagine that! There are a few gimmicks in the script such as the Beatles song and Hemingway references and the Edsel car, but these are minor. The bulk of the story is firmly planted in Peggy Sue's ability to change her 17 year old decisions based on 25 years of disappointments.

So she isn't actually going back in time (occupying the same space as her 18 year old self) as actually RELIVING the past with the memories of her adult self. There is a big difference. She's got the experiences of a 43 year old woman but is now in the body of her 18 year old self.

But Francis Ford Coppola gets the credit for absolutely brilliant directing. From the opening mirror shot to the closing mirror shot his framing and editing choices are superlative. They are miles apart from what most directors were doing in 1986. This guy is a genius with the camera. There are so many cinematic references in here I can't begin to name them all. Charlie's spooky shadow a'la Lon Chaney as he sneaks up to Peggy Sue's bedroom is one that stands out. And check out the shadows in the Physics Lab. That's no accident.

Make no mistake about this movie, it is a real work of art. The premise is not as serious as Apocalypse Now but the execution is just as direct and effortless. That's what strikes me about this movie every time I watch it: Much effort went into the execution of these scenes even though the scenes themselves don't merit much effort. We're talking about kids at a party singing Doo Wop songs. Why go through the bother of blocking and multiple takes and multiple angles? This is marketed for children and Coppola is spending production dollars. But I'll be darned if Turner didn't get nominated for an Oscar for this role. Give Coppola the credit for not making a disposable movie.

The score is employed well and the attention to details pays off on an emotional level. Turner isn't weak because she ultimately can't go through with her radical changes, she basically surrenders to a destiny that she can't escape from. Her children will only exist through her decision to stay with Charlie. Her surrender is what ultimately sets her free. But did she actually relive her life? Or was it a dream? You can speculate either way. The important thing is the lessons she learned from her experience. It can be summed up in one word: Strudel. This is one of the few movies that is guaranteed to make me cry.

Terrible, sloppy, foolish waste of money. The only good decision was getting Piper Perabo in a tasty two piece bathing suit. The rest was a mish-mash of Aliens (monster that slowly possess the host) Anaconda (snakes that kill) and Jaws (hunt for the monster). The obligatory evil team leader saw a slight variation as the leader who is slowly becoming a monster somehow stays loyal to the humans. Why is he immune to the evil? Who knows. I was surprised that the lead scientist was not privy to the evil he was leading the crew toward. He was just an idiot who died a quick death. Subtext was nonexistent. But if all you want are some good creatures chasing humans in a fantastic setting then I recommend Aliens or Lord of The Rings, because The Cave fails on both accounts. The monsters are 80% CGI and 20% puppetry. The sets appear borrowed from the set of a Guns And Roses video where Axl Rose gets sent to hell for doing too much cocaine. Burning water. Stalactites and stalagmites. Prehistoric creatures that possess humans in a few hours and transform them into more prehistoric creatures. How? Germs. Super germs. Moral of the story: Germs win.

And I didn't feel too good myself. I'm surprised other reviewers weren't insulted by the voice-over that literally spoon fed the plot, themes and conclusions to the audience as they happened. Talk about a spoiler? Why not just have a voice-over that spoils the whole movie and then I wouldn't have to watch it? God help us if we are required to think for ourselves! I've never heard a play-by-play announcement in a movie before and now I know why. Just awful. It appeared to me that someone loved the stereotypes found in the Haggis trash "Crash" and decided to make a "Crash for Stupid people" If that isn't redundant. God help me if I'm interpreting this film incorrectly, but I believe the moral "as spelled out by the narrator" is that pedophiles are just flawed people like the rest of us and we have all done bad things and act childishly at times in our lives. Are you kidding? Let me think...when was the last time I exposed myself to a child? Uh, NEVER! When was the last time I cheated on my wife? Uh, NEVER! When was the last time I decided to go skateboarding off a flight of stairs when, in fact, I can't skateboard. Uh, NEVER! When was the last time I shot a kid dead who was carrying an air pistol? Uh, NEVER! When was the last time I locked my kids in the bedroom so I could have a shag in the basement? Uh, NEVER! So exactly how is a pedophile the same as me? Very disappointed in the execution of this short story. At some point it became a very bad episode of Desperate Housewives. Perhaps the screenwriter had a spec script for that series and then decided to adapt it to the short story. Regardless, this is an awful film with questionable ethics and the classic "Adults acting stupid" answer to any drama. If you don't have a problem with inexplicable behavior then you might like this. If you actually like to think for yourself and interpret a movie ON YOUR OWN then avoid this like you would avoid the creepy psycho-sexual pedophile who is covered in blood and hanging around the swing set in the middle of the night. Whoever decided to have the beauties Winslet and Connelly in a movie but have scenes in which two middle aged MEN are playing with themselves really should have their head examined. Did it occur to them that the money shot is Connelly in a string bikini or tight dress? No? How many people want to watch a gross pedophile play with himself? I guess we do get to see Winslet in the buff but, jeez, to cast Jennifer Connelly and then not give me even a glimpse of her in the nude was insane. It's like letting Emmitt Smith block while Brett Farve tries to plow ahead for a three yard gain.

I started out this review giving it a four star rating because Kate Winslet and Jen Connelly are exceptional, but have talked myself down to two stars. Better quit now before I erase the whole thing.

an hour after watching this nearly three hour affair, my girlfriend and I are still trying to puzzle it out. Unfortunately, we would have to see the film at least three times to solve the puzzle. Is that what Disney wants? See this movie three times and eventually you will understand how Calypso, a heart, a monkey, a branded "P", a key, a storm, a map, Davy Jones, A boat, a first mate, a fake eye, bad teeth, dead people, living people, and everything else fit together. Because I can not understand what happened. By no means is this a finale. Nope. I expect at least one more sequel and definitely a prequel. They will drain this cash cow until it evaporates in the Caribbean sun. A spectacle? Oh, yes. Not since King Kong has there been such a spectacle. Visually it is jaw dropping. Just kindly forget that as a terrific battle takes place inside a hurricane the two armies just hang out and watch. What are they doing? Why did they show up? My head was spinning. I sympathize with the children in the audience who were the actual demo Disney targeted. There is not a chance in the world that those kids understood even 1/4 of the many different plots and sub plots. There were incredibly subtle touches of betrayal and back story that are neither resolved nor justified. They involve events that can only be explained in a flashback or in a 2.5 hour flashback called a prequel. If you take a ten minute conversation and set it in an exotic jail cell aboard a ship...you still have a ten minute conversation. I sensed the writers had modeled their approach after Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Arc. There is humor and a brazen attitude, heroics are matched by cowardice. Etc. But never in the three Indy films did two characters prattle on for ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes about minute details of their past. In fact, one conversation that takes place in Pirates includes more dialog than THE ENTIRE INDY series! I love dialog, but when that dialog actually contains tiny clues and subtle hints of emotion and past sins, then it lifts me out of an "action adventure" film and plants me in...a "drama". Note to Jerry Bruckheimer: don't mix genres. I just don't know what market he was aiming for. No 13 year old is going to catch a sexual organ metaphor and no 30 year old is going to laugh at a monkey getting shot from a canon (though I did chuckle). I'll see the fourth and the fifth film when they arrive, but these writers need to learn the value of the delete button. If there were notes to this film then I want them. Maybe I'll understand what happened then.

I started fast forwarding about 9 minutes into this dreadful flick. OK, how many times do I have to see Will Smith chasing his bone density scanner? It wasn't funny the first time. It's called life. And anyone who has spent a day in San Francisco probably has better anecdotes to tell than this looong and redundant extended anecdote about how one guy made good. Note that I do NOT say this film demonstrates how WE ALL CAN DO GOOD. No. Maybe that was in the book since they left it out of the movie. This movie is an anecdote, a boring one, a petty one, that involves a child. Money leads to happiness: is the moral. Uh, what? Not just any money...Stock trading! Stock trading in the Reagan era '80s. Gee, why not make him invent bell bottom jeans in 1972? A monkey dressed like an astronaut could have traded stocks in the '80s.

If these filmmakers are ever chosen to make a movie about my life then kill me first. I was more interested in the homeless people than in Gardner's "gotta survive" attitude. Jeez. It was like someone said, "How can we make a movie about Seabiscuit, except make it be a guy in the 1980's San Francisco?" I know it was "inspired by a true story" but what isn't? There was not a single sentence that Smith could narrate without sounding hopelessly artificial. Narrating, chasing a bus, shaking hands, talking on phones. Useless, useless, useless. I'm sure on paper the thing smelled like an Oscar, but on the screen it was a yawn fest except maybe for some weepy single moms or depressed stock brokers. The end postlogue might as well have read "Chris Gardner got really rich and bought all the nice stuff that he never had as a kid. He did this because he sold stocks while raising his own child after basically taking him from his mother." Can you hear the applause? I give it one point because Smith and his kid are competent with the material. The material, however, belongs in readers digest "Inspirational Anecdotes that are Nevertheless Forgettable" edition.