Reviews

This is sort of a strange movie. It's got an ensemble cast and doesn't make it entirely clear if there's a protagonist and who exactly it will be. But I tell you, once the protagonist emerges this movie gets awesome really quick. If the first couple of acts could just be a bit less annoying, this movie would be awesome.

Basically, the beginning of this is sort of formula. There's a lot of "oh, those pesky kids" as they're trying to kill their parents. Then finally, at some point, the parents figure out: "Hey, maybe not everyone's kids keep trying to stab them with knives." But the moral of the story is, most of the movie is spent with the adults being impossibly dense or incredibly useless in the face of any challenge.

For example, when the first person is seriously injured- nobody seems to call an ambulance. Really? Seriously? That guy looks pretty hurt, maybe you should call somebody? Or drive him to a hospital? Nawwww. That would be too intelligent. Better just all run around trying to corral those pesky kids. Now repeat this level of stupidity about a hundred times. The worst offense occurs when someone is trying to get out of a room and spends forever trying to bash the door open rather than finding a more intelligent way to leave the room (it had natural light, hence had a window, hence BREAK THE WINDOW YOU DUMMY).

But I tell you, when people finally start trying to be useful it is pretty awesome. I'm not going to spoil anything here, but I will say that the last 1/3 of the movie from the "stuck in a room" scene" has some unexpected and awesome twists. Basically, 5 of the stars I am awarding is just for the final act. I think this movie might work best if you just start it somewhere in the middle. You'll still get the general idea of things, but won't have to sit through quite as much repetitive situations before you start seeing where stuff gets interesting.

On a standard scale, I give this a 3. On a bad movie scale, maybe a 7 out of 10, however. It is pretty funny to watch at points. Let's put it this way though. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you mixed Omen, Bless the Child, Godsend, and Bram Stoker's Dracula together? Well, here it is. If the movie is about cloning, the story of the script itself would certainly be Frankenstein. It's a hodgepodge, held only together by the principle characters' abject inability to reason or otherwise engage in active problem solving.

So let's see what's similar to other films in the genre: Omen - Evil children bringing about end of days, random telekinesis, swarms of animals that can kill you despite all reason Rosemary's Baby - Elaborately contrived conspiracy to steal a kid Bless the Child - Stealing a kid to complete a ritual Godsend - Evil clones. Because clones are just somehow EVIL. It just is, don't question it. They don't have souls. Or something. Dracula - Production style and values are similar. Just a very similar feel to it.

Firstly, I want to say I did not like this movie as the logic (or lack of it) made my head want to explode. But there were still some good things: - Main character beats up a cat for no apparent reason - Main character then CRUSHES a mutated-looking rat! - Main character is duped by anyone, in any context - Daughter can't seem to state any dialog unless it's with her father, and in that case she has to just oppose whatever he says. - Main character wanders around lots of places purely to advance the plot, when he should realistically be doing something useful. - Evil magic farmer? Somebody has evil magic omen-like powers, without him otherwise being explained. I assumed he was either an evil farmer or evil welfare recipient. In any case, he doesn't do much except lay about and cause unfortunate accidents.

As you can see, there are some things that can be quite amusing in this movie. If you're willing to watch it in the right way, it's kind of like seeing Inspector Clouseau trying to solve a case. All the guy ever does is bumble about, but somehow he learns everything that is going on. Except what's right in front of his nose.

Of course, there are many things that suck about this movie. These include: - The plot. Ugg. Ugg ugg. I'm willing to put up with a little bit of random senseless rituals in a horror movie of this caliber, but these were ridiculous. - The dialog. Serviceable, but that's all. The father-daughter interactions are pretty funny though, as they sometimes seem to be thinking "Okay, let's just get through this scene and move on now." Also, the evil character just seems to blurt out random things constantly (and amusingly). Fine, that didn't suck so much... - The action sequences. If you want the bad guys to look scary, this movie is a good example of what not to do. - The plot. Seriously. The holes in this plot are all that hold it together. If there were less holes, you might start noticing more of them. Instead, you feel like you're lulled into a dreamlike state of shutting down rational thought. i.e. "Sure, continue inspecting these useless materials while your daughter is missing. Makes about as much sense as how you got here in the first place."

I'm torn on this movie. It's more fun to watch than it should be. Ghosts of Mars is basically an action flick, mixed with a bit of zombie hordes (who are actually aliens in human hosts, so they spread differently, but whatever). The baddies are convincing bad, the good guys have split allegiances, so far so good.

The issue is of course... the plot. The characters just do one thing after another that make you want to put your head in your hands and say "Why? Why would you do that?" I mean, the hordes of bad guys you expect that from. They're the bad guys. They can be dumb. But the good guys! Oh the good guys. Watching them try to plan strategically is like proctoring redo exams for a remedial math class. A bit frustrating and a bit sad. They seem to have just enough intelligence to allow them do choose the wrong action every single time.

There's also an exceptional amount of convenient situations that allow the plot to move forward. It's no good. You can try to ignore it, but you can't. If they could have been just a BIT better at glossing over the plot holes and contrivances, this could be a really fun movie. Instead it's fun, mixed with "GAH! THIS MAKES NO SENSE AND ENRAGES ME!" I think that is why opinion gets so polarized on this. If you can just say "Aww, they're shooting stuff and it's fun." then it's good. If you say "This plot hole makes me sad," then you probably won't like it.

It actually makes a lot of sense. Serial killers are people, and much of people's lives are somewhat boring. If this moving was attempting to capture the abject boredom of having a compulsion to kill, it has succeeded admirably. Two problems: 1. I don't think that was the filmmaker's intent and 2. Even if it was, this would still be completely unentertaining.

The first issue is the pacing of the film. You ever hear how great directors help tell their story with every single frame of film? Now think of the opposite. Vast portions of the film are spent watching cars drive, birds chirp, people doing various things with phones, and people just plain standing around. It's incredible that the film is only 85 minutes, because it looks like they could have shortened it to 30.

The second issue is that they clearly have not mastered "show, don't tell." Having wasted dozens of minutes on people standing around, walking around, and sepia toned near-stills... they narrate. And oh how they narrate. You start feeling like you're watching a series of 15 minute long Twilight Zone episodes with the requisite intro and exit statements. And when they're not flat-out narrating, they're having the actors speak exposition to each other.

And lastly, close to half the film seems to be spent on flashback re-tellings of random real life serial killers. It leads you to wonder: how much new story is actually in this movie? It runs 85 minutes. Subtract off 10 for credits and opening. Maybe 1/3 of the rest is random real stories adapted (poorly). And 1/2 of the whole movie is wasting useful story telling time through slow pacing, in what I can only imagine was an attempt to be "suspenseful." So, if you watch REAL carefully- you might see about 25 minutes of real movie in here.

Though well... the production values were pretty good (despite a deep seeded love of sepia) and the actors were competent. So that's something. And makes it perhaps even sadder that they didn't seem to have that much to say.

Do you sometimes stay up late at night watching John Carpenter's 'The Thing' and think to yourself: "Gee, I really wish this movie had worse actors, no suspense, worse dialog, terrible CGI graphics, and was set in a deep sea ocean base." If you do, seek help. While this movie may be exactly what you're looking for, that is only indicative of problems you have as an individual.

I am genuinely surprised that this movie did not get sued for copy-write infringement. Maybe it did and it was settled quietly. But I don't know how you can take the general premise of The Thing (doppelganger monster) and repackage it as "The Thing Below" and not get sued. Just saying.

There were some enjoyable points: - The CGI is laughably bad. The first times people were killed by tentacles, I literally couldn't stop from laughing. - Traditional horror movie tropes, such as: * No matter how fast a monster seems to be going, it's still slower than a jogging actor * If no reasonable person would fall for a trick, then a person in this movie will fall for it. * A monster than has no obvious need for subterfuge due to is apparent invincibility still hides before striking. * They keep the story moving. Which is good, because if it ever slowed down, you would immediately recognize how much your time is being wasted and you would leave. On second thought, maybe this is a minus.

So... bad movie, and only somewhat a "bad movie" for amusement purposes.

I will admit, I am somewhat of a bad movie buff. I enjoy movies with camp value, or that are so over the top in their plots/staging that you just have to laugh all the way through. Unfortunately, this movie mostly falls into that little niche where a movie is "bad bad" rather than "funny bad." There were a few chuckles here and there, mostly unintentional and a few intentional (maybe). And if you really must be able to see bank robbers be immobilized with a psychedelic-colored oil slick, well it's got that too. But somehow this movie manages to make web guns and slippery rainbow dye be pretty uninteresting. Which is some sort of achievement, but not one I'd be likely to watch again.

I will admit, some people have 80's nostalgia on this movie, but it is PAINFULLY bad, particularly the ending. I mean, I can appreciate it on a different level as being a "bad movie" but this is a laughing-at situation, not a laughing with. If I had to categorize it, it would be right next to Red Dawn- a higher budget ham fisted Soviet flick.

Things to look for: - Soviet spies manage to sneak up on them in an open field, dressed in menacing black outfits - But then shoot and miss, at about 30 paces - But then run after them waving around guns and shooting up the campus! - While the campus is oblivious. Somehow. - But then Jonathan shoots one from behind, and shouts "Gotcha!" - And likes this so much, he does it twice more, in two completely unnecessary scenes. Which would have made a funny running gag, if they had just had 10 guys chasing him instead of 4.

Cringeworth at points, indeed. The suspension of disbelief in this movie is that films this bad simply cannot exist. But, by the end, even that is dispelled.

I loved this movie. I was trying to get some work done, with the TV on as background noise- and then this came on. No work was done until the credits had stopped rolling. I enjoyed this movie that much, just hilarious and also insightful at times. "When Margo left me, I shaved 5 strokes off my score- thanks, Margo!" - Lee Travino

I immediately went to buy the movie on Amazon... and could not. How is it that no one is distributing this? Why don't they just distribute it online even? If people can make money distributing films starring Mario Van Peebles, I can't imagine how this could be a net loss. I really hope someone picks this up, as it is one of the only movies I would actually pay a full 20 dollars to purchase a DVD for.

Firstly, I may well be slightly biased- because I really truly enjoyed this movie. However, seeing it with a score under 5- and then looking at the reviews, there is a notable trend. The good reviews are predominantly well punctuated and articulate, with such things as (gasp) accurate spelling and grammar. Conversely, most of the bad reviews tend to be short blurbs with not a capital letter to be found.

My take on this: Despite being a dumb comedy, Tomcats is to nuanced for the average consumer of dumb comedy. So, it's a smart-dumb comedy. The timing of jokes is impeccable, the pace is excellent, and the actual material is above average- with some of it even fresh! This leaves it in a bad place for reviews though- because it means a small segment of people love it, while big segments of the population (the pretentious smart and the uncultured dumb, we'll call them) will always pan this movie. So, if you're smarter than the average bear- but still appreciate dumb comedy romps, go for it- this one is a keeper.

I don't see why everyone is panning this as a horror movie, when- at face, it really doesn't feel like one. As an earlier commenter stated, the characters don't seem particularly afraid of the creatures- they try to work around them as obstacles. Also, the graphical work on the scenes they used was tremendous. Every part of the cave was beautifully created with sweeping visuals: volcanic caverns, ice caves, underwater scenes, stalagmites. Which were all extremely well worked into the movie. So, to be blunt, this movie's big failure was their marketing. They were selling a horror movie when it's really a fantastical adventure- like an extended, more modern version of Lord of the Ring's underground scene. And heck, I'm fairly picky and I enjoyed watching it through.