I watched this again today with the hope of seeing a better print of the movie. Nope. It was the same washed-out, fuzzy version as every other time I've seen it. So, I'm convinced there are no good copies of this in existence.
I'm not curious as to whether the lack of print quality has an overly negative impact on the movie anymore because I can't force myself to watch this pretty bad movie again.
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@diorm Thanks. Yeah, I did buy that Media Blasters blu-ray after I wrote this review. You are right, it's much better.
The opening scene of this movie the "Dawn" when the little girl attacks and the neighborhood erupts in chaos bordered on amazing. Once that's done though the movie predictably turns up the gore and turns down the scares. The next best thing is the home video-like shots of the survivors landing on an island that are mixed in with the closing credits. This movie is better than most current horror fare but it's mostly just a lot of blood and guts.
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@mr-sackamano Huh? I've been married for 30 years and have adult children.
I see from your reviews you think jump scares suck, and you like monster movies and cartoons. Looks like the same shit that I like. In fact, we like a lot of the same stuff...Barbarian, Smile, Possum, Aliens, Godzilla, Whiplash and others. Hell, I'm going to follow you even after your dig.
Sorry, zombies aren't scary. The first 15 minutes were good and after that, people get attacked and bitten and then those people turn into zombies and bite other people, etc. I still gave it a '6', though, which is the way I rate a Good movie. Better not read my review of "28 Days Later".
This is quite a piece of propaganda. Evil corporations, a malevolent government, nuclear weapons, ignorant insensitive humans...it's all here.
Bruce Dern and crew blast off on a gigantic spaceship loaded with the last remaining forest of a doomed Earth. Dern, as the main character, actually murders his crew mates, but that's okay because he's saving a forest. Later in the movie, he notices that the forest is dying and he can't figure out why. After he killed everyone and faked a ship malfunction, he flew out into deep space. Gee whiz! Turns out the Sun isn't as strong in deep space. Duh! I thought this guy was a scientist.
I managed to stay with this movie until Dern is laying in bed then reaches his hand out to gently caress the "Conservation Pledge" hanging on his wall. I understand the importance of the Earth's ecosystem but this movie's "man is bad" message was more than I could watch.
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@the_argentinian Maybe...or maybe not. I do remember at the time, I just thought the whole movie got very carried away with its message. I originally wrote the review YEARS ago on Letterboxd, and then I got sick of Letterboxd and imported all my reviews (including this one) to Trakt, so it looks like I wrote in on Jan 15,2022. In reality, I probably wrote it like a decade ago, and I was a lot crabbier then.
Although, I just spent 4 days tent camping and can confirm that I hate mosquitos and the environmentalists that love them.
Holey shmoley.. You mean the AD killed Doggett's son?!?!?!
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@d-sel Actually, I think Bob Harvey (a pedophile) abducted Doggett's son and then took him to mob boss Regali's home. But the boy saw Regali and he had the boy killed to silence him. I think AD Follmer, who took bribes from Regali in the past, killed him because he was so dismayed by Regali's association with Harvey and Doggett's son's death.
"The Relic" is a tough one to grade. On the one hand it's a decent story about a creature brought back from an expedition to Brazil. I won't give away the coolest part of the movie, but when Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) says "I know ___ you are...", it makes a lot of the not so good moments a little more tolerable.
Let's spend a second or two on the characters. Dr. Green, played by Miller, is about as unsympathetic as they come through the first half of the movie. She finally started to win me over once she warmed up to Lt. D'Agosta. Lt. D'Agosta is a hard-as-nails cop with a heart of gold played by the always entertaining Tom Sizemore. The rest of the cast are the typical hackneyed gritty cops, snooty rich elite, or insufferable know-it-all scientists. I mostly hated all of them which is good because most of them were killed with significant gore by the ancient beast.
The monster itself is original and is probably the best thing about the movie. That is, when you can actually see it. There either wasn't enough of a budget to light this movie or they were purposely trying to hide shoddy effects. I actually didn't think the effects were too bad, so I'll just state that the whole movie was darker than it needed to be. The characters were constantly using flashlights. You can't see much of anything for the last third of the movie. I suppose it could have been the Netflix streaming copy that I was watching but I doubt it.
With a few more lights and a little more monster this could have been a very good Horror flick.
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@yveske Okay, thanks! I do read and I like the idea of the story, so I'll add it to the TBR list.
Review by whitsbrain
VIP6You'd think that setting this in a city would make the greater potential kills of the Predator even more threatening, but that would be wrong. There's never really a sense of the Predator stalking victims, it just drops in and kills drug dealers, because they have weapons.
Every character in this movie is on speed AND caffeine. Why are they all spastic? Is it the L.A. heat? Everyone is sweating profusely, too. It's really annoying. The shootout between the police and the drug gang is way over the top and impossible to determine why there aren't dead bodies lying three deep with all the shots being fired.
Danny Glover is no Arnold Schwarzeneggar. He's tough but not a badass like Arnold's character "Dutch" was in the original. The Predator that Glover battles must have just gotten his hunting license. In fact, Los Angeles is like a game farm compared to the jungle where the first Predator battled Dutch. It would be pretty simple to hunt animals in a game farm, so the Predator of this movie isn't making his safari much of an adventure.
There are two things that really save this movie. The practical effects associated with look of the Predator. It remains an iconic alien creation. And the final battle on the rooftops between Glover and the alien is entertaining.
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@the_argentinian Because I exported reviews from Letterboxd and imported them to Trakt and some of them were accidentally duplicated. I clean them up when I can. Thanks for noticing.
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[8.6/10] It’s amazing what a difference one actor can make in an episode of Star Trek. Matt Decker is a brief but potent shot in the arm for “The Doomsday Machine,” one whose appearance in the first act immediately sells everything else he does that helps spur the plot for the rest of the episode.
Much of that owes to the actor, William Windom, who breathes life into decker. The scene where Kirk and company rouse him, and relays the terrible events that befell him and his crew is arresting from the word go. The disorientation, the distress, the regret in his voice, quickly tell the audience how harrowing what Decker experienced was, without needing to see the scope of the battle. It sells the terror of “that thing” out there better than all the dry “but there used to be three planets in this system” remarks from stoic crewmen and shots of rubble ever could.
It also sells the sense of survivor’s guilt that motivates Decker. It’s hard to make a character both terribly misguided – to the point that he makes foolish decisions that put hundreds of other lives at risk – but also sympathetic. “The Doomsday Machine” pulls that trick off by showing Decker as clearly rattled and a little unhinged, throwing the weight of his rank around and sending the crew on dumb maneuvers, but by having the reason for that be that he’s haunted by the mistakes he made that got his entire crew killed.
That fact clearly weighs on Decker at every moment. Windom plays his single-minded obsession – to either avenge his fallen crewmates or assuage his guilt by joining them – with just the right combination of insanity and capability. He’s not thinking clearly, and he’s disturbed, but he knows enough to take command and order sweeps and attacks. It creates a magnetic, unpredictable presence at the center of the episode that spurs more than a little of “Doomsday Machine”’s action, both inside and outside the Enterprise.
It also pays dividends for the main cast. For one thing, it helps Kirk, who often works best as a side dish rather than a main course. He’s definitely at his peak here – encouraging of his subordinates, but particularly with Scotty, maintaining that wry edge that makes him more than just another stuffed shirt. Too many of his sarcastic asides or too much of his too-cool-for-school wit and he starts to come off as smug and self-satisfied, but when those moments are sprinkled in like this, it presents Kirk as someone who tries to take the edge off of the severity of the situation everyone’s facing with humor rather than someone who doesn’t take those situations seriously.
It also gives him the chance to provide a nice counterpoint to Decker. Kirk is willing to sacrifice himself to save the galaxy as well, but he’s unwilling to endanger his whole crew to do so when it’s unnecessary. The use of the jerry-rigged U.S.S. Constellation to blow up the Doomsday device lacks a bit of intrigue given that, once you realize how far into the episode we are, it’s pretty much a fait accompli that it will work.
Still, the countdown to beam Kirk off of the ship before it explodes actually caught my attention despite the fact that Kirk obviously doesn’t die here. Credit where it’s due, much of that belongs to Shatner, who plays Kirk as remaining stoic with just enough concern in his voice to sell the moment when telling his crewmen to beam him over. Much of it is the score and the editing, which cuts nicely between the various panic points of the effort, but Shatner does his part and it’s worth lauding.
It is also, as usual, worth lauding Leonard Nimoy and Spock. For all the epic white whale-chasing drama going on with the titular Doomsday Machine outside the ships, one of the most compelling parts of the episode is the struggle for command within the Enterprise. Episode writer Norman Spinrad writes Spock particularly well as someone who is by the book, but willing to use every page of that book against Decker when he thinks it’s putting the crew at risk.
Nimoy, understated as usual, communicates Spock’s conflicting desires to follow the regulations he agreed to by becoming a Starfleet officer, and also working within those regulations and that system to protect his crew and his ship. One of the best scenes in the hot-tempered Bones imploring his frenemy Spock to “do something” and Spock grinning and bearing it (so to speak). A by-the-book guy like Spock is unwilling to break the rules, but also is looking out for the best interests of The Enterprise, and that creates both an interesting internal conflict for him and an interesting tet-a-tet between him and Decker for much of the episode. (Decker, meanwhile, continues the proud Star Trek tradition of every officer above the rank of captain being evil, insane, incompetent, or all three.)
But that power struggle is still in service of how to address the giant, Eye of Sauron-containing cornucopia that is attacking the two Federation ships and chewing through planets. It may simple stem from the fact that this is one of those episode where the “remastering” of the old footage is most evident, but “Doomsday Machine” has more of an epic, even cinematic feel than many episodes of The Original Series. The shots of the Enterprise and the Constellation firing on the machine, or careening into its fiery maw, offer the sort of thrilling space battle that are understandably few and far between in the Star Trek of the sixties.
The machine itself provides a great deal of the tension, even apart from the good character work being done all around. This massive, destructive device, that cannot be reasoned with, that prevents warning, and that is difficult to escape presents a real challenge to our heroes that mandates some creative thinking and desperation maneuvers. Sure, the thematic elements are laid on a little thick – “Can you tell we’re offering a cautionary tale about nuclear weapons?! Can ya!?” – but the titular machine serves its narrative purposes as well or better as it serves its thematic one.
That machine is the object of Decker’s Ahab-like fixation in this Moby Dick-esque tale. “The Doomsday Machine” is an episode centered around individuals who are devoted to their crew, and wondering which rules they can break, what principles are inviolable, and what parts of themselves they’re willing to sacrifice in order to save their ships or avenge their people. That’s the sort of character and narrative stakes that produces many of Star Trek’s best episodes, and “The Doomsday Machine” is no exception.
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@andrewbloom This is a great review! Terrific insights.
A funny comedy that generates a good many laughs from it's quirky characters. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is very funny as a washed-up former child actor who won't admit to that fact. I liked the scenes when he was shooting hoops. Just like his acting he sucks at it but won't admit it. Ben Stiller is very good as a neurotic play-it-safe insurance man who really gets himself into embarrassing situations. Jennifer Aniston plays the perfect opposite of Stiller's character; she's a live-for-the-moment free spirited goofball who has consistently scared potential suitors away.
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@rsrzal Hoffman died in 2014. I actually wrote this review like 10 years ago when he was still alive, but my review date shows this year because I imported all my reviews into Trakt from Letterboxd on that day.
Review by whitsbrain
VIP6The penguins were the best thing about the first Madagascar movie and they are once again the stars of this sequel. While the main characters Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe, and Gloria the Hippo go searching for themselves, the Penguins are all business. They salvage and rebuild the plane that they crashed in Africa and have hired a crew of monkeys to work for them. The Penguins' special forces personas and their rapid-fire dialogue and joke delivery make them the funniest thing in Black & White since The Three Stooges. They totally outshine the other characters, especially the main character Alex, who's unfunny and conceited in an uninteresting way.
Now, the self-centered character of King Julien the Lemur, he's a different story. He's the source of many laughs; hilariously voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen.
Twilight Zone fans will find another tribute gag, this time "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is parodied with a little lemur being spotted hanging off the flaming engine of the wing of the plane (remember the first movie had a panicked lemur yelling "It's a cookbook!" while the cover read, "To Serve Lemur").
I haven't been overly impressed with DreamWorks animation's offerings but have enjoyed the "Madagascar" movies. Their light-hearted approach and funny gags are enjoyable, especially compared to Pixar's recent efforts, which have been beautiful to look at but I've found to be a little preachy and aloof in their execution.
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@denisgonzalez Yeah...I exported my old reviews from Letterboxd and uploaded them to Trakt. Problem is, the review dates changed to the date that I did the upload. I'm too lazy to change the old reviews. Turns out, they're not timeless :expressionless:
This is awful. When this was released in 1980, I was crushing on Farrah Fawcett like every other teenage boy. Wait...wasn't she Farrah Fawcett-Majors? It doesn't matter. The only reason this movie exists is because of her. And that's too bad really, because the sets used for the interior of the space ship look terrific. Kirk Douglas naked, however, does not. Harvey Keitel was awful but he was playing a pervert for the most part so tough assignment, I guess. I did like his little fly-shaped shuttlecraft.
Robot Hector is a cool looking creation from the neck down. I assume they couldn't get the head right so they just went with what looks like a pair of binoculars. The opening sequence of the ship approaching Saturn is a total Star Wars ripoff. Actually, it felt a lot like "Alien" at times, only not atmospheric, not scary, and not good.
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@ragnar-danneskjold I'm 58. I looked at some of your lists and recommendations and we seem to have a lot in common in our Movie and TV preferences. I just disliked Saturn 3.
Review by whitsbrain
VIP6I've seen this movie so many times, but I think the first time was back in the mid-70s as "Attack of the Monsters". Gamera is a big monster turtle. He started out as a baddie in his early flicks but soon became a protector of children. These 60's and 70's giant monster movies (Gamera and Godzilla included) worked pretty hard to lure children into the theaters as their adult audiences sank. This is noticeable in the Godzilla movies but is without question what the makers of Gamera movies were after.
This is a terrible movie. The acting is horrid, the plot is simplistic and disjointed, and the effects, even for a 60's movie, aren't very good. The giant monster costumes are cheap and stiff, and the child actors are sometimes painful to watch. But defying all odds, this thing is a lot of fun!
Obviously, the monster action is the most enjoyable part. It's utterly ridiculous, but I ate it up. And for a kids' movie, it's really violent. In one fight between a winged giant (Gyaos) and Guiron (who has a knife blade for a head), the flying beast loses its right leg. Since it can't walk anymore, it takes to the air. When it swoops down to attack Guiron, Guiron jumps into the sky and slices off one of its wings. Gyaos then crashes to the ground and rolls around in pain while its severed wing spasms nearby. Then Guiron lumbers over and cuts off its other wing. The carnage continues with Guiron chopping off its head! Then ignoring all sense of remaining sympathy for what must have been traumatized children everywhere, Guiron saws Gyaos's remaining torso into slices!
Later, a couple of alien women feed two boys some donuts laced with knockout drops, shaves one of the boy's head bald, and slowly lowers a spinning Dremel to his freshly shorn dome. She is interrupted before boy blood is shed, but still that had to be scarier than Hell to the wee ones in the theaters back in the day.
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@ragnar-danneskjold Oops! My mistake. Thank you for the correction!
Shout by whitsbrain
VIP6I enjoy an evil computer as much as the next guy, but I hate the way tech gets portrayed in the movies and TV. This is another example of technology silliness.
Secondary characters in this episode: Deep Throat
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@odetospot Yeah, he was. Thanks!
Shout by whitsbrain
VIP6An alien craft crashes in Wisconsin. Mulder investigates on his own and gets caught. He meets a UFO chaser named Max Fenig. There's an invisible alien running around and the military is trying to catch it. A mothership picks up the alien (I think) and picks up Max (I think) because Max had been abducted before (I think). Mulder gets in trouble with the FBI but Deep Throat, who had told Mulder that the space ship had crashed in the first place, gets him out of the jam.
Secondary characters in this episode: Max Fenig, Deep Throat
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@ajperez81 I'm sorry! I usually do. I'll check the rest of them. Thanks for the heads up.
Only a plane can stop a Chevy Caprice lol, I enjoyed the plane scene
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@tcb86 Thanks for mentioning the plane scene. I was laughing through the whole scene because I used to have that model of car. And not to be that guy, but it was a Chevy Lumina. It was not capable of eluding anything.
