empathielabs/imbd_dataset_v0 huggingface dataset:
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Essentially this is a dreadful film with a few features that may or may not redeem it for you, depending on how much you want them to. In "opening up" "The Red Green Show" for the big screen, the filmmakers jettisoned the rustic charm carefully honed over a decade's worth of episodes set in and around Possum Lodge in favor of a blandly-photographed "road movie" with a ghastly faux-Hollywood "big" musical score and profoundly boring storyline that's not embellished with enough good gags to make it as entertaining as even the most mediocre episode of the TV series.
Having devised a plotline that keeps most of the members of Possum Lodge offscreen for most of the film and requires virtually everyone concerned to be despicably mean to the loveable Harold (who's the hero of the film, the usually affably crusty Red being relegated in this incarnation to nothing more than the role of head Harold abuser), the only performers who really get to shine are Patrick McKenna and Peter Keleghan as Harold and Ranger Gord, who deliver satisfyingly large-screen versions of their small-screen characters.


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Steve Smith has finally run a fairly weak series right into the ground with this movie. Poor actors thrashing a horrible script pretty much sums this one up. Two hours of your life you'll never get back! Go get a root canal instead - you'll enjoy it more.


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The Hell's Angels did come out the losers in this movie. Sonny stated to the director that NOBODY does this to the Angles and gets away with it. His version was the two dudes were to be shotgunned to death, but his suggestion was ignored. They were stoops to even appear, much less be "technical advisers" in a stink-bomb of a movie like this. Hell's Angles on JAP bikes? C'mon! (although in Sonny's autobiography he says, "F$#K Harley Davidson!" and that if they was smart, they would be riding Hondas. (ST1100) Read his auto...he HATES Harleys. Can you imagine the Angels whispering into town on their sewing-machine sounding Jap bikes? Not too intimidating. They would get laughed out of town.


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Tom Stern and Jeremy Slate are swing bachelor's planning to hijack a casino, ala "Ocean's 11", and pin it on the Hell's Angels. Bad move. For a film with the words Hell's Angels AND the number 69 AND featuring actual Hell's Angels, this movie is surprisingly tame. The Hell's Angels truly deserve a better film to be centered around them. Not this snoorefest. Luckily this is one of the DVDs that features commentary by Joe Bob Briggs so the pain of having to sit through it is greatly alleviated. If you watch it any other way, let me recommend something to you. DON'T!!
My Grade: D
DVD Extras: Joe Bob Brigg's commentary; Conny Van Dyke's message to her fans (she has more than one?); Photo gallery; Theatrical Trailer; and Trailers for "Blood Shack", "Hell High", "Samurai Cop", and "The Hollywood Strangler"


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Something of a disappointment. Lee J. Cobb is the anti-union head of Roxton Garments in New York. His partner in the business is killed when an elevator is unleashed and plunges twenty-seven floors to the bottom of the shaft, in the scariest scene in the film.
Cobb doesn't know it, or doesn't let himself realize it, but the man behind the killing is Richard Boone, who protects the business from union organizers.
Then Cobb's son, Kerwin Mathews, returns from Europe determined to learn the business and join his father in running a clean shop. He's shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that Boone has been clobbering the union members and killing a few who have become irretrievably irritating.
Robert Loggia is one of the organizers who is killed by a couple of Boone's goons, led by Wesley Addy. Loggia leaves behind a widow, Gia Scala, with whom Mathews, understandably and decorously, takes up.
In the end, Cobb pays for his self deception, Addy and Boone get their just desserts, and Mathews winds up with the succulent Scala, after whom an opera house is named.
There isn't a sparkle in any line of dialog. A couple of lines are stolen verbatim from "On the Waterfront" -- "pistoleros", "you'll talk yourself right into the grave." The plot is schematic and holds absolutely no surprises. Vincent Sherman's direction is pedestrian. The photography is flat an uninspired, though there are a couple of nice shots of New York streets.
Lee J. Cobb can act. In this case, it must have been easy for him because he replays Johnny Friendly from "On the Waterfront," only this time with a soft heart. Richard Boone can act too. Joseph Wiseman, in a minor part, does a good job. Gia Scala hits her marks, says what the script demands, and does what the director tells her to. A stunning woman, her life soured early on. The director and photographer do a good job on Wesley Addy. He has white hair, a blanched face, eyes the color of a glacial lake, and he's sometimes shot through a wide-angle lens than turns his surprisingly fleshy lips into those of some kind of parasitic fish. I don't see him as a low-tier muscle man though. He and Boone should have switched roles. Harold J. Stone is his reliable self, although he's forced to be more "Italian", as Tony, than comes naturally to him. Nobody else in anything resembling a major part is more than mediocre, and some performers don't clear even that bar. Kerwin Mathews may be a nice guy in real life, but he's blandly sterile and belongs in domestic dramas on afternoon television.
Great title, suggestive of intrigue and shadows. Some good people in the cast. A potentially explosive expose of a business nobody knows much about but which deals in megabucks.
And it all comes out like this.


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I went into this movie with semi-high expectations after loving the cartoon series in my childhood, and this nearly wrecked that love for me. Jason Lee, David Seville in the film, is horrifying. I understand it can't be easy to act with CGI characters who aren't actually there, but I really found his performance atrocious, along with all the other non-animated characters. The chipmunks were adorable, yet sometimes blatantly obvious at moving the plot of the story along, and therefore did not tempt me to stay in the theater for longer than half an hour into the film. If you feel you must see this film, rent it, at the most. It is NOT worth eight bucks to see it in theaters, unless you'd like a good laugh at the horrible acting.


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As cute and adorable as they are, the story of three singing chipmunks just doesn't seem to have enough meat to it to sustain it for an hour and a half. I thought that the first half hour or so of this movie was well worth watching. It was fun, it had a few laughs in it, it was full of energy. Then it somehow just lost that. I wouldn't even say it faded away, because it seemed quite abrupt to me. The fun was gone; the laughter disappeared. My daughter noticed it, too. She's 4 - she laughed uproariously several times in that first part of the movie, then her laughter stopped. Perhaps it took on too serious a tone - the evil movie producer working the chipmunks to death. Something happened, anyway, and it wasn't for the better.
Of course, the movie is trying to tell the story of how the chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore) began. Everyone knows the Christmas song. Here we discover how they met Dave and got their start. The movie is updated to the present time, although their real origin is noted by Dave's street address of 1958, which was the year when the animated singing rodents were first created. Jason Lee did a pretty good job as Dave and the chipmunk voices were also pretty good. David Cross as the evil Ian irritated me to be blunt, and I couldn't figure out the point of the character of Claire, played by Cameron Richardson. She added little to the movie. It's a movie you can watch with the kids - it's probably a movie you'd only want to watch with the kids, in fact. It gets a 4/10 from me.


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When I finally got around to seeing this film recently, it turned out to be exactly what it looked like to me at first glance... yet another Hollywood CG/live-action rehash of an established cartoon franchise. Nothing special or memorable whatsoever. Designed in every way possible to appeal to very young children and very immature adults, making heavy use of comedic devices such as farts, poo-eating, and the size of Theodore's butt.
This film would bother me a lot less if it weren't such an obvious step down for the Chipmunks. Even their characters I found were changed for the worse for this movie. While in the past each one of them had a very distinct personality, here they all behaved like immature, smart-alecky children with ADD, constantly bouncing erratically off the walls. It especially bothered me to see Simon portrayed in this way... He's supposed to be the smart, serious nerd who acts as the "straight man" to Alvin's crazy antics. But here he's pretty much a carbon copy of Alvin. One joke in the film even implies that Simon only *thinks* he's smart but really isn't... and honestly if I had never heard of the Chipmunks before seeing this film, I would have agreed.
In my opinion, this film is just another obvious cash-grab, and I'm more than a little sorry it was even made. The fact that it's a "kid's" movie doesn't excuse its flaws... To excuse a stupid movie that degrades a classic franchise just because it's for children is insulting to children, and any kid would deserve something more intelligent than this film.


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You know the old saw about a train wreck? The one about how you can't look away? This movie isn't that good. The only reason you're still there is because you brought your kids and you can't leave them alone in the theater. You might catch a nap.
Tim Hill should never work in film again after delivering this awful piece of junk. He manages to take a decent comic actor in Jason Lee and turn him into a robotic, unsure actor in this production.
I didn't have much hope for this movie in the first place, I admit. If it weren't basically the only family film I could take my son to around Christmas, my wife and I wouldn't have gone. God, I wish we could go back in time and stop ourselves. I leaned over to my wife about 10 minutes in to tell her what a stinker I thought it was, but she beat me to the punch.
I'm not kidding. It's putrid. Only David Cross's terrific-as-usual work saves this review from being only 1 star.
The story is cloying, insulting and stupid, as might be expected for a movie in this genre (although the recent "Curious George" was blissfully intelligent and enjoyable). The acting is mostly poor. The decision to "update" the Chipmunks songs for today's audience was inadvisable at best and boneheaded at worst. It does not work.
The chipmunks of old were clever, mischievous and sly. These chipmunks are dumb, somewhat mean-spirited, obnoxious, and in a surprise, needy to the point of uselessness.
Either as a retrospect, a tribute, or as a completely new production, this film totally fails. The final straw? My son couldn't wait to leave. Spend your money renting Curious George instead.


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I'm surprised to read all the positive comments on this movie. Even my 4 and 6 year old were bored. The chipmunks are cute...but the storyline is overly obvious. Not recommended for young ones with the least sophisticated tastes.
We did hear a few laughs from the audience while we were in attendance; but I wondered why.
I don't admit to ever being a 'chipmunks' fan, but I expected to be entertained. It's not even an 'escapist' movie as far as I can tell. Simply a heavy handed view of 'success too young spoils'. We've seen more than enough of that with Britney Spears, et al, haven't we?
Don't bother.


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The writers missed so many opportunities and created so many plot holes.
Example: When Dave retrieved his keyboard from the rain, I was eagerly anticipating the funny sounds that were going to come out of it. Nothing! Are you kidding me? A truly witty writer would have not only had a field day with that, but it would have eliminated the major problem of the entire audience wondering how a digital keyboard can become completely soaked but then work perfectly.
There were at least 10 other similar situations. Overall, small children will enjoy this, parents will endure it without too much complaining.


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I honestly thought this movie was going to be cheesy, even though I've liked Alvin and the Chipmunks for a LONG TIME! I was was very wrong. IT WAS GREAT!!! It has been the best movie I have seen since October! In my opinion, it's the movie everyone should see this holiday season! Enchanted (I thought anyway...)was awful, The Golden Compass was alright, but the ending was pretty crappy to His Dark Materials fans, and I Am Legend, well I haven't seen that yet (or National Treasures 2) but it looks alright.
I'm not about to give anything away, but this movie is great for anyone, especially kids!


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This is a below average "whodunit" with the cliche everyone in the living room routine. Charlie Chan is a Secret Service Agent doing government work, and he must find who killed a scientist working on a bomb to defeat German U-boats in World War Two. There is little to recommend with this movie, since the neither the bomb nor the scientist nor the war have much to do with the plot. Charlie Chan fans will most likely find this movie disappointing. Who dunit? Who cares?


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A true yawner and a bad film even for the Chan series. I like a good Charlie Chan film or even a reasonably good one, but this one falls way short of the mark. Charlie is enlisted to help figure out the murder of a scientist working for our government when someone in the house has stolen the plans for another power. The mystery is very pedestrian and the acting doesn't fare much better. The only saving grace for me in the film was the presence of Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown. He gives the film a little comedy and has some good scared faces, but after that the pickings are rather slim. Benson Fong is here as Tommy Chan and pairs up with Chan's daughter of all things. What about Sidney Toler? He is pretty decent but looks like he is straining to carry the film. What I noticed most was the way the film was shot. Chan director Phil Rosen, of whom I generally like most of his entries, uses lots of long shots with no action(like Charlie's initial walk into the house from outside). Why? The film is only 64 minutes long for crying out loud! Shots like that tell me the director had to fill time up because the script was even weaker than he was accustomed to. This probably isn't the worst Chan film ever made, but up to now it is the worst I have sat through unfortunately.


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This was the first Chan film made by Monogram. What a come down from Fox values and standards! I was shocked when I saw my first Monogram after seeing the great Fox films. This is boring and uninspired with wild music playing as Chan calmly walks across the street. Chan is now working for the US Secret Service rather than the Honolulu Police Department. He is assisted by Benson Fong, who plays No. 3 Son Tommy for the first time. He also has a daughter along, Iris Chan, played by Marianne Quon. Mantan Moreland also makes his debut as Birmingham Brown. He is a cab driver in Washington, DC, here, rather than the later chauffeur to Chan in the later films.


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Great book, poorly done movie. Cheesy performances and contrived situations make this movie a sentimental bore-fest. Flat and uninspired work from most of the actors leaves this film in the After School Special category. No doubt there is a lot of talent to be tapped in this cast and crew but something went horribly wrong The very talented Gretchen Mol attempts to pull this film out of the mire but even she can't seem to rise above the silly dialogue. Feels like everyone just phoned it in. Even the makeup (Mulrooney ages 20 years over the course of the film) looks amateurish and crude. Don't waste your time on this clunker.... go read the book.


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Who is minding the store here? How could any producer/network executive/director let a crew stick the skeeziest fakest plastic palm trees in film history in the sands of a wintry Canadian beach and try to fob it off on us as the tropics? Those trees were to real palm trees what a pink tinsel K-Mart Christmas tree is to real fir. And who let Dermot Mulroney go in front of the camera with painted-on grey hair that wouldn't have passed muster in a high school play? And didn't any of the geniuses doing quality control on this thing think to correct the (excellent) Canadian actor when he said gaz instead of gas? Everybody involved with this plodding slug of a "movie"--writer, director, actors--has done not just good but brilliant work elsewhere. Paced way too fast between events and deadly slow within them, devoid of any emotion except the obvious, expository and contrived--maybe this only seems like one of Lifetime's worst movie because of all the Red Carpet hype with which it was presented. And I'm saying this as somebody who love Lifetime. What gives, folks?
All of that said, a certain actress's work at a certain critical turn in the movie (and if you've seen it you'll know exactly what I'm talking about) was so brilliant that the movie would have gotten a 10 from me if that was the whole movie. Unfortunately it was only about five seconds of it.


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Based on a fairly bland "best seller," this film - like most other Lifetime movies - played out more like a reenactment than an actual movie. The only difference here was that Meredith Baxter wasn't in it. The women in this don't age even over a span of like 20 years and the acting in general is pretty bad.
The characters in this were all cliché and one-dimensional. The story was of the cheesy nature. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's the kind of thing that people who loved the book and people who watch that network all the time will think is great. I only watched it because my girlfriend wanted to see it so she wouldn't have to read the book her sister loaned to her. It wasn't made for someone like me - my girlfriend cried a little at the end though, so she didn't think it was as terrible as I did.


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I just saw a terrible film called The Sleeping Dictionary. One reviewer on Four Word Film Review (www.fwfr.com) got it right right when he wrote, "From A to Zzzzzzzzz." The story is about an English colonialist jerk that comes to Malaysia to "civilize the savages" so to speak and ends up falling in love with his sleeping dictionary. A sleeping dictionary is a native Malaysian prostitute fluent in English that services Englishmen colonialists and teaches them her native language in return for ... well the movie never really makes that clear, but I can only assume he gives her money or something. Needless to say, the movie focuses a lot more on the "sleeping" part than on the "dictionary" part of the job description. Things get complicated for our young hero when the forbidden love affair gets compounded by her culture, his soap opera domestic situation, and his own boundless stupidity in every major decision he makes throughout the film.
So yes, the movie has some major flaws, but on the other hand, it delivered exactly the two things I rented it for in the first place: a beautifully photographed exotic location, and an even more beautifully photographed and exotic woman that plays the sleeping dictionary, Jessica Alba. My friend told me that this crappy movie was her at her most beautiful and damn was he right. She's not a great actress, and doesn't quite pass for Malaysian, and its pretty obvious that they use a body double for the nudity, but who cares? Jessica Alba has that rare face and figure that's more than just sexy, but also beautiful in the way that a Vivaldi violin concerto or a Rembrandt painting is.
(P.S. Sorry to all you feminists out there who discourage objectifying women, the "male gaze," etc. etc., but I hope you can understand that I mean no disrespect.)


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Yes, it's true that it was Jessica Alba who leads me to this movie, because without her, I should have never pick it.
But, I find it long, dull and above all, unoriginal. All along, I thought that the story was full of clichés and the directing very boring. So it was a surprise to see that the director and writer are the one and same person. I take notice to remember to avoid all his next movies.
It's a pity because all good things were at hand: Malaysia is a beautiful jungle, it was the British Empire and the cast is wonderful: Jessica knows how to open her soul and for one time, she has found an appropriate movie for this. Bob Hoskins shows a great experience and he should have won an award for this role.
The only positive thing is that it makes me open a world-map to locate this island because if you guess it happens in south Asia, you don't know where exactly! Ah, the little plane flight with red lines in the Indiana Jones movie!!!


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Like the beauty of the jungle, Jessica Alba's gorgeous smile and sultry looks loom over the film, but alas they are the only two things worth watching this film for. When in theory we should be watching for the narrative.
The plot is thin on the ground, and hard to believe. As beautiful as Jessica Alba is, she doesn't add any of the spark that she injected into the credible 'Dark Angel' series. Since Dark Angel it seems that Alba has been reduced to mere eye candy(but what eye candy!), and is the sole reason for putting her into films.
The concept of the sleeping dictionary is daft and implausible, with little character development (or character for that matter) to make us want to undertake the 109 minutes run time with this world. Despite the films short running time, it still manages to feel to long and too laboured.
It seems a shame that such talent such as Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer, Bob Hoskins are wasted on a threadbare narrative which barely raises a pulse. This film seriously misses a trick, an exotic setting, a more than capable cast, with lovely cinematography, and a chance to utilise the themes and the dualistic concepts of 'civilisation'. But there is little narrative to speak of, no drama, no sense we are watching a story of love, more a story of lust and woman happy to please men without question. Lets be honest, if Jessica Alba was freely allowing you to sleep with her, do you seriously think you'd be able to concentrate on learning a tribal language? Therein lies the great problem, both in suspension of disbelief, and also what the female characters are limited and reduced to. Take for example the fact that Jessica alba's character undergoes the mental and physical tribulation of pregnancy and birth to her forbidden love, yet all we see is her looking lovely and curvy one minute, then lovely and curvy, with a baby, the next.
It's a sorry state of affairs to see a film with promise not live up to anything near it's potential. I could write endlessly of the films flaws, but it pains me to do so. The film looks good, the premise could have been made into a lovely film, but sadly it wasn't to be.


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The positives: It's shot pretty well. Has some interesting peripheral characters. Likable main character (albeit weak).
The bad: Plot/story. Editing. Characters wasted. Jessica Alba.
I'm a fan of sappy movies, but this movie is cringe-inducingly bad. I don't understand how anyone can hand over $12M to this Guy Jenkin. And before I go any further, I just want to say that I don't dislike Jessica Alba--I really wanted to like her in this film. However, Jessica Alba in her fake accent and her model poses made me miserable. She has absolutely no screen presence in this movie, and she ruins every scene she's in. Needless to say, the romance does not come off as believable(not even a tiny bit).
All I saw throughout was the actors flapping their wings, trying to get this thing off the ground with what little they were given--but sadly, all this movie does is sink. There is no emotional connection, no emotional conflict, and nothing is gained. It's a pretty empty movie.


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This version of "The Magic Flute" is not only the worst production of Mozart's great opera that I have ever seen, it is also the worst video production I have seen of any opera.
I'm a big opera fan and I have more opera on DVD than movies. The sets are cheap and cheesy. Papageno doesn't even have a bird costume. He is just dressed like some guy. The sound is in mono. The color is really bad. It is saturated in orange. Most DVD's from this period have the color digitally restored, but they did not bother with this one. Also, the language has been changed to Swedish instead of the original German.
This is not a movie version of "The Magic Flute." It is a filmed performance and it is not a good performance and it was not filmed very well. You can pick any other available DVD of this opera and I guarantee it will be better than this one. My preference is for the version conducted by James Levine with sets by David Hockney.


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A tedious effort from not-yet great director Budd Boetticher and pretty but not-yet un-bland actress Nina Foch, this movie is, as one of the other reviewers notes, is the quintessence of a certain kind of B movie. It's just not the good kind. And a promising premise and an overactive fog machine is wasted.
Basic plot -- Nina, a nurse on leave from wartime duties on account of her nerves, has a nightmare. She meets a dashing fellow at the resort where she's giving her nerves a breather, and realizes he's in the dream, even though she's never met him before. Meanwhile, it turns out our dashing guy is working as a spy, and is about to go on an-extra secret, hush-hush mission that must not fail.
Of course, there are Nazis. And plot holes. And smart people acting in a fashion most likely to get them into entirely unnecessary scrapes, so that the running time can be spun out past an hour. At the end, the movie becomes a contest between which group of spies can act more foolishly. If the FBI and OSS had acted like this crew, we'd have lost the war in '42.
The movie itself is rather flatly shot (despite the best efforts of the fog machine) and the acting -- as it seems to be in many of the Columbia Bs TCM has been showing lately -- is curiously unengaged. It's less stylized than what one might find from a similarly budgeted Warner Bros movie, but also less fun to watch.
Boetticher's strength, of course, is a rather matter of fact style which allows the strong stories and acting in his Randolph Scott westerns to come to the fore. Maybe the problem here is that such a style is not going to work when the script is lousy and the actors tired from their five film a year schedule.


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We've all got to start somewhere, it was in films like Escape In The Fog that somebody like Budd Boetticher could learn his trade before turning out good films. In fact the film was dated before it even hit the movie going public on June 25, 1945.
The war on Europe was over for almost two months, of course not even Harry Cohn could control the events of history. So I'm wondering why even back then the public didn't question why a Nazi spy ring was helping out the Japanese. Another very bad historical inaccuracy was that the FBI had nothing to do with the Pacific or Asian theater. The cloak and dagger stuff was the territory of the OSS in that part of the world.
When you're an FBI man like William Wright it sure good to have a psychic girl friend like Nina Foch. He's about to go on a mission to the Orient to deliver the names of key underground leaders to start a general uprising in China against the Japanese occupation. Germans who've been bugging Otto Kruger's house learn of this and the whole movie is spent with these guys who've already lost the war trying to help their allies. Who, by the way, they refer to as 'Japs'. When Foch is sideswiped by a speeding car and knocked unconscious she dreams about Wright's danger and sees what is about to happen to him on the Golden Gate Bridge. She goes there and foils the plot.
All the stuff you'd expect from a nice noir film is there, the foggy atmosphere of San Francisco, the dimly lit sets, Budd Boetticher tried his best as did the cast. But they just weren't convincing, probably because they didn't believe this claptrap themselves.
It's possible, but not likely that Nina Foch's dream and its psychic consequences might have been more developed and the developments were left on the cutting room floor. I think it was just a lousy screenplay.
And Budd and Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures had the fast moving events of history going against them here.


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That is the answer. The question is: What is the single reason to watch this movie? I loved her in "My Name Is Julia Ross." That is one of the best films noir of all time. Noir or whatever one may call it, it's a very unsettling movie.
She is fun in one of the worst major studio releases of all time, too. That would be "The Guilt Of Janet Ames." This one has a spooky, promising title. It has a good cast. It has a fine director. I was expecting something dark. Maybe something a little tawdry. Instead, it's an uninspired, routine espionage movie. It's pretty much is a total bore. At least it was to me. Ms. Foch is captivating. And that is about it.


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If any movie ever made Italians look bad, this is it.
Duke Mitchell - what an A--HOLE. Duke Mitchell, I s--t on your grave. Seeing as practically every person gunned down in this film by the cowardly Mimi is either black or of some other racial or ethnic minority, it's hard not to become convinced that the guy ultimately owes his allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan or skinheads. Awww, but he doesn't shoot the little black kid in the elevator in the opening sequence, so that means he can't be all bad, right? WRONG. Typical softheaded sentimental tripe.
While I do understand why some people might be struck by and even, to a certain extent, admire the film's audacious, totally un-PC verve (it's certainly unashamed of its own hatefulness and sense of self-involvement), but this doesn't change the fact that the main character, Mimi (and, by extension, Duke Mitchell), is thoroughly loathsome human being who earns not one iota of empathy or interest, especially given that Duke Mitchell is such a COMPLETE BORE as a performer. But what do you expect from a guy whose main claim to fame (apart from this dog t--d of a movie) was being a second rate Dean Martin imitator?


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What a disappointment! I've enjoyed the Jon Cleary books about Scobie Malone, but there's little resemblance between him and the cinematic Malone. In the books he's a city detective, who is devoted to his wife and doesn't get involved in fisticuffs. For the film the character has been spiced up, into an outback copper who uses his fists and isn't averse to jumping into bed with a gorgeous girl, though quite what she and the film's other sex interest see in him I don't know; Taylor was 39 at the time and his face was getting puffy.
But his character's stamina is remarkable; he flies in from Australia, apparently goes straight to the Commissioner's house (rather unwisely seeking to arrest him during a black-tie reception), saves him from assassination (getting into a fight in the process), goes to a casino with one girl, leaves with another and takes her to bed. So much for jet lag! On the way back to the Commissioner's house (showing a good knowledge of London back streets), he gets beaten up by the baddies, but is still first down to breakfast! It's also remarkable that the commissioner's limo has its windscreen and headlights miraculously repaired within minutes of the assassination attempt and that one character has a touching faith in the precise timekeeping of a clock-activated bomb.
The best thing is Joseph the Butler's disdain for the uncouth Malone. And at least the film avoids being a London travelogue, though some scenes take place during the Wimbledon tennis week.


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This is a failure so complete as to make me angry.
All of the subtlety and structure of Reggio's early films is gone, leaving nothing but a hash of digitally smeared images whose sole purpose seems to be Whining About Bad Things Humans Do. Just how do Star Trek-like wormhole graphics, slo-mo colorized seascapes, mutiplicities of obviously fake computer icons, and shots of athletic competition that, incidentally, show that no one has ever been able to top (or even match) Leni Riefenstahl for filming bodies in motion, edited together with an overlay of video colorization that a 1980s "Dr. Who" producer would have rejected as "too cheesy," add up to a polemic against "civilized violence"? There is no intellectual, emotional, or visceral connection between these images as assembled and mutated by Reggio and way too many digital effects artistes, and the cautionary tale I assume he wanted to produce. With all of the "dramaturgical consultants" involved, no one seems to have pulled his head out the his own feeling of Saying Something Important and considered that they might all be failing to say something new.
Only people who watch too much television could make such a film and believe that it's meaningful; this is kindergarten Stan Brakhage, and ultimately gutless in its relentless obviousness. The only irony and tension evident here (unlike in "Koyaanisqatsi" where the relentless beauty and strangeness of time-altered ordinary images forced you to consider their meaning) was when the DVD I was watching jammed and skipped. This is MTV for the Noam Chomsky crowd, based on reflex rather than reflection and signifying nothing. Two stars for the music, which is in Glass's best pomo-Cesar Franck style and features some passionate cello from Yo-Yo Ma. (I hope for his sake that he didn't have to record his parts to a playback of the film; there are some things you shouldn't have to do even for a paycheck.)


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I am a gigantic fan of both Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi, but this movie is just not good. The reviewer below is entirely correct that the stunning imagery of the Detroit station is the first and last memorable scene in the film. I really, really wish I had left after that, instead of continuing to hold out hope throughout the film. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I felt let down.
The score is almost completely a rehash of the previous two - not necessarily a bad thing if you're a fan, but there's only one piece that stood out to me as being fresh. It was good enough, though, that I'll still probably check out the soundtrack.
But just keep this in mind if you see this film: if you come to realize at any point that you're not enjoying it, go ahead and split - you won't miss a thing, because it won't get any better.
I'll even give the executive summary here (warning! spoilers!): lots of shots of athletes that look almost good enough for a Nike commercial, shots of smiling people, inexplicably dull frontal head shots of famous people's wax dummies (WTF were they thinking here?!?), some giggling babies (cuuuuute), some "bitchin'" Photoshop effects, some imagery that's meant to suggest a comparison between the flows of water, information, money and people (I think)... and then a bunch of quick unrelated scenes of mass violence... and then a bunch of stock space footage.
I could remake this movie in 10 seconds. Here's my pitch:
2 seconds of a happy daddy with a shaved head and lycra biking shorts playing with a toddler playing with a kitten playing with string; 5 seconds of that scene in "Network" where the guy talks about messing with the "elemental forces of nature" and how "money flows in, money flows out;" 1 second of Reginald Denny getting brained with a brick, and then 3 seconds of Alan Bean bouncing around on the moon.
There you go - that's 88 minutes and 50 seconds of your life I just saved. Of course, I'd get a copy of After Effects and apply a filter or two, so it wouldn't look as blatantly stock as it is. If Steven Soderbergh's reading this, hey, I won't even need much money for this project...
If you insist upon watching a movie about "Life as War," I suggest "Bowling for Columbine" instead. It may not have the pseudo-intellectual veneer so fashionable among the black turtleneck crowd, but at least it's funny.


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Having enjoyed Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqatsi I was looking forward to this third part of the Qatsi trilogy and seeing what direction it had taken. Rarely has a film so spectacularly failed to live up to its predecessors and lost its way. Although it tries to represent "civilised warfare" in the form of sport, science, trade and other forms of competition, it lacks the global scope and even the coherently developed themes of its predecessors. War is chaos, but even wars have an aim in mind and this film had little structure and unclear goals.
Naqoyqatsi is flawed by being a chaotic melange of images that does little to develop its theme. On the plus side, it wisely avoided using some of the iconic images of last century's wars.
Naqoyqatsi is also so insular that several times I had to remind myself that I was not watching an advertisement promoting the American way of life. Perhaps this insularity reflects the ongoing "War on Terror". When representing "sport as war" the prominent team logos ensured that the USA was depicted as the winner. Hence it missed the opportunity to depict some of the many sports around the world and showing that humanity is united in its use of sport as a form of civilised warfare.
Apart from newsreel, the footage seemed to have been shot on a budget in the confines of New York and there was little recognition of "life as war" in the rest of the world. The gallery of faces (waxworks) gave only a nod to the existence of important personages outside of the USA. The makers missed the point that globalisation does not mean Americanisation.
The Philip Glass soundtrack sounded much like every other Philip Glass score I've heard (with the possible exception of Koyaanisqatsi) and at best can be described as "inoffensive" neither adding to, nor detracting from, the chaotic imagery.


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I've seen all 3 now. I just can't believe how bad Naqoyqatsi is. Not in comparison to the others, but simply on it's own merit, or lack of.
I can't understand how the average rating for this movie is over 6 out of 10. I gave the first 2 movies 8 out of 10. They were thought provoking and beautifully done. I gave this movie a rating of 1. If a 0 or negative number was available, I would have given it that rating instead. What a total waste of time it was watching this movie. I thought after the first 30 minutes that I should turn it off, but then I figured that it was just a (very) slow starting movie. I thought the same thing after 45 minutes, then 1 hour, etc. Then I realized that it wasn't going to get any better.
It's very tedious to watch and without any redeeming qualities. Don't take my word for it, watch it yourself. Be sure to see the first two movies before this one. If you see this one first, I can just about guarantee that you'll never want to see the first two, but they are definitely much, much better than this "piece of work".
The best part of the movie is when the credits role at the end. That's when your penance on this earth is complete and you can foregoe 89 minutes in purgatory, for the suffering that you've endured watching this "film". If God is truely merciful, he'll be more generous.


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The director Godfrey Reggio must be a very charming and persuasive man for this dreadfully botched project to have seen the light of day. Reggio's message, so powerful and resonant in his previous two Qatsi films, is hopelessly jumbled here. Athletes, equations, oceans, keypads, laughing heads, etc, mingle without purpose. The parade of banal imagery is mostly generic stock from Getty Images et al, and the heavy-handed digital manipulations are amateurish in the worst way imaginable. Surely someone involved (Steven Soderbergh, executive producer?) could have pointed out that applying a solarizing filter to nearly every frame was a VERY BAD idea? The crude looping, layering, and distorting of images recalls a freshman Photoshop class. And to make matters worse, the computer animation sequences are more artless than a 1980's Wall Street pie-chart. This is not to say that improved aesthetics alone would have salvaged this film, but some meager effort in this direction may have made it tolerable as visual fodder for the accompanying music. I feel compelled to point out that the score by Philip Glass will certainly satisfy his fans. Not a radical departure, but rather a refinement of what Glass does best with lovely violin contributions by Yo Yo Ma. If you decide to see this film be certain to focus your attention on the brief opening sequence. While you may already be familiar with Detroit's once majestic but long abandoned Michigan Central Railroad Station 89 minutes later you will find yourself remembering this image of 20th century decay as the critical point when you should have headed for the EXIT sign/hit the STOP button, etc. You've been warned.


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PLEASE?! If this is about technology and what man does to kill others and ourselves, I think I missed his entire point. Because I walked out feeling like Reggio relied on cold-war-era footage of space exploration, and had NOTHING new to add to the dialogue about fears of technology. Trails of 1 and 0, denoting technology and math and science -- DONE that. Anyone out there see The Matrix? And motion studies of people in motion? Ever heard of Edward Muybridge? At least he uses exact clips of Muybridge's photographs of human motion studies.
This film was derivative, and the score is just enough Philip Glass to sound like EVERYTHING he's done in the past 10 years... Avoid this film at ALL costs!!


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The first two movies of this series excelled for their footage of the natural world and ordinary people stuck in the midst of society. This movie doesn't have any of that natural footage, which I understand is part of the point, but it really makes the entire video component of the film seem like random images stuck together-- ones and zeroes flying around, computer models of human skeletons, and so forth. Occasionally the stock footage is put to good effect (the nationalism/finance segment around 35:00), but usually it makes the video appear to lack any meaningful content, and demands you accept the context of the stock photographers rather than the context of the director. It's no better than the video displayed on a karaoke machine. Three stars added for the Philip Glass soundtrack.


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Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi are both Beautiful films, but this final installment of the trilogy is a major let down. They got too carried away with stock footage and photography, so little content. The executive producer puts his own image in the film... Its just pretentious. Maybe if they had more than $3 million to spend maybe it would have been something. I actually thought Steven Soderbergh directed it because it was so bad, but Godfrey Reggio the director of Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi directed this. I'll have to assume that they just didn't have the budget to make a decent film. You would think that Francis Ford Coppola would have wanted to be a part of this film and help get more money together.


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The peace and beauty of Koyaanisqatsi was a powerful affirmation of the natural world. In Naqoyqatsi, we are assaulted by images of the synthetic, the competitive, the violent, and the digital -- the destructive constructs of our culture.
Some liberties are taken with the images, with posterization, distressing, and much slow motion. The connections between the sequences are inscrutable, if there are any. Naqoyqatsi is defined at the film's end, a missed opportunity to place the images in context.
The film is difficult to watch, the quality of the archival footage uneven, and it's most redeeming qualities are its theme and the hypnotic score of Philip Glass.


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