Everyonce in a while,4kids brings new shows to it's company. For the past few years, they brought pure gold like Kirby: Right Back at Ya! or Mew Mew Power. But Recenetly, 4kids has been off. CatDog is one of the examples.

It's hard to write a negative comment without bashing the show, but in truth, Weekenders is pure garbage. It revolves around A group who with an over active Brain. The catch though is anything he thinks up comes bad. It may sound good on paper, but after watching it, you'll realize how far from good this show is.

The Pizza Guy is an extremely dumb character. He's very 1-dimensional, there's really not much to him. He's hyper-active, end of story. Though many feel all the character are a rip off of the South Park, I think just the contrary. Mechazawa from cromartie High-School is an interesting character, and he's able to make me laugh. Tino fail to do either of the two.

The cast for the show isn't any better. Like Tino's Mom they suffer from lack of character. They only stick to one characteristic and thats it. The only redeeming quality is the fact that the show can cause you to smirk. Whether it's that the scene may actually be funny, or you may just smirk because how stupid it is.

Thje Weekenders is a very crappy show from Disney/4kids. Though it does seem to love some fans, it should really be left to the kids.


Final Draft - A screenwriter (James Van Der Beek) locks himself into his apartment and succumbs to psychosis in an attempt to write a horror script. Not a terrible premise, but the execution is awful. This feels like a first year direction and writing job, and probably is. The director jump cuts the hell out of everything. It's meant to be disorienting. What it IS is annoying. So much so that small chunks of film are incoherent. The writing is predictable, and doesn't use follow through on most of the ideas it offers (bag of oranges). It's like they ran out of time and slap-dashed it together for the Toronto Film Festival.

This film is not jaw-droppingly "oh my god it's so bad it's good" bad. It's boring bad, and irritates you for a long time afterward. James Van Der Beek is not a terrible actor, and keeps the ship barely above water. But he's too normal for the kind of psychosis the film tries to offer. He is merely a withdrawn guy who one day sees people and hallucinates things, then decides to act mildly deranged. Cause follows effect. Maybe there's something in the water. Now Darryn Lucio, who plays his "friend", is a terrible actor. He shares the likeness of Chris O'Donald and is even more annoying, a superhuman achievement.

The atmosphere the film provides is good (dull gray and somber), but as it's the only thing the film achieves it means nothing. This film wants to be Jacob's Ladder or The Machinist. It isn't even Secret Window. It's the preppy girl in class deciding to turn goth.

Not irksomely terrible, but the sheer stupidity of it will ebb at you. I've already put more thought into this critique than the filmmakers did for this.

D


Very silly high school/teen flick about geeks trying to prove themselves better than the rich brats. Sound familiar? This television movie from director Rod Amateau ("Uncommon Valour" and some "Dukes of Hazaard" episodes believe it or not) says nothing, does nothing, and surely will entertain very few.

Notable for its "who's who" of television cast, including Michael J. Fox, Bob Denver ("Gilligan"), and Todd Bridges ("Different Strokes"). This lame effort barely limps over the line. Also stars Anthony Edwards ("E.R.").

Saturday, September 5, 1998 - Video


All in all, this is a movie for kids. We saw it tonight and my child loved it. At one point my kid's excitement was so great that sitting was impossible. However, I am a great fan of A.A. Milne's books which are very subtle and hide a wry intelligence behind the childlike quality of its leading characters. This film was not subtle. It seems a shame that Disney cannot see the benefit of making movies from more of the stories contained in those pages, although perhaps, it doesn't have the permission to use them. I found myself wishing the theater was replaying "Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger too", instead. The characters voices were very good. I was only really bothered by Kanga. The music, however, was twice as loud in parts than the dialog, and incongruous to the film.

As for the story, it was a bit preachy and militant in tone. Overall, I was disappointed, but I would go again just to see the same excitement on my child's face.

I liked Lumpy's laugh....


I saw Winnie's Heffalump a couple of days ago. A nice story based on well known characters created by A.A.Milne. Although Winnie, Piglet, Tigger and Rabbit are all present in this animated feature, the main character is Roo this time. He befriends with scary Heffalump who proves to be not scary at all and shows everybody that friendship knows no boundaries and everybody wants and deserves to be happy. I love this film and I would love it even more were I 10 or 15 years younger. Alas, I would like to become a kid again to enjoy this Heffalump story much more but all I am left with is a sense of sadness at the loss of a sort of childishness and innocence of which this movie is full I was glad to hear Carly Simon sing, Joel McNeely provided great score.


First of I should point out that I used to love Winnie The Pooh as a child and I really enjoyed The Tigger Movie even though I am in my 20's.

But this movie was so bad I was ashamed to have been a fan in my youth.

OK, OK I know this is a movie for kids and isn't aimed at people like me anyway but this is my thoughts on the movie for other people of my age.

The main downfall in this film is the heffalump itself, it has to be the most annoying character I have seen in a child's movie (possibly even more annoying then the young child in Monsters Inc). It has the most annoying voice and prattles around singing stupid things and making even more stupid comments, I know Pooh movies aren't exactly high brow but this was insulting to even a 2 year old's intelligence!

Secondly - where was the story? Previous Pooh outings had a least a point to the story- yes I can see this was about accepting people who are different to you into your hearts - but really it ended and I felt like I had watched a 5 minute cartoon on kids TV.

I don't have children of my own but when I do I fully intend to show them quality children's movies like The Tigger Movie, Toy Story and Finding Nemo (even though they are too childish for me these days I can see how they would be of great appeal to young children). Not so with this appalling attempt at a movie.

Oh and one more thing - NOT ENOUGH Eeyore! He should have his own movie!


I don't understand the many good reviews, here. I found the photography and scenery beautiful, and the two lead actors appealing, but there's little else here to recommend this movie. Most annoying are the fake Southern accents and badly written dialog. These do not sound like real people to me. Although it's refreshing to show men exploring various forms of sexuality without the usual labeling and stereotypical character traits, most of the story is without motivation or logic. The only thing that makes very much sense is the responsibility Griffith feels toward his mentally ill Aunt, grossly over-acted by Karen Black. Lee is an interesting character who would have been more compelling had the dialog he was made to speak been more natural and his motivations more clear. Yes, I understand that he's a drifter, but his actions as the movie draws to a rushed conclusion make no sense at all. This movie is worth a look, chiefly because it has a nice atmosphere about it, but it's slow moving and deeply flawed. A serious rewrite and better editing might have saved it, as the premise and story outline are promising.


I think Purvis starts out to do a gay "Gone With The Wind" If so, sorry, Tag, it didn't happen. It also didn't happen as a gay "sexploitation" flick. I guess I'm confused; what are we trying to do here? Much as I'd like to, I simply can't get to where I care even a little about these characters. This movie is effective in capturing a taste of the decadence that lives in the South; it does nothing to explain, enlighten or advance my understanding of a gay relationship, or the conflict the protagonist seems to be grappling with.


Close but no cigar! - that's what my opinion of this film is! TAG PURVIS both wrote and directed this script which should have gone through a re write before shooting. At times, laughable because or a corny script, this film's shining star is Dan Mongomery Jr and the Director of Photography. Both of these talents are ones to watch out for in the future. My recommendation is to wait until it hits your local cable station and use the rental money on a classic!


Terrible direction from an awful script. Even the DVD looked muddy and out of focus. Laughable accents all over the map. Unlike most of the other commenters I had no idea this was about boys in love in the mud, but that fact became immediately obvious from the opening scene and all the lovingly drawn-out shots of nude or scantily-clad young men, usually wet or glistening with sweat, looking longingly at each other.


I saw this film at our crossroads film festival, and was looking forward to it because it was filmed in mississippi and starred karen black. I was severely disappointed by the clumsy script which never flowed and the apparent lack on the effort of the actors and director to understand anything about the culture they endeavored to portray. How did lee and griffin become such deep friends in five minutes? Which of the two were f***ing the girl under the tree? It was unclear. And, There seems to be some law in hollywood about southern accents, and rarely do you hear anything remotely approaching the everyday sounds of the south., despite the awful, "this must be how they sound, just soften the "r"" approach to dialogue, so many times the actors lapse out of it altogether. Aleksa especially sounded like a new york street tough during "emotional" scenes, and nobody sounded mississippian at all. Walt Goggins' character was supposed to have been from Morgan city, Louisiana yet sounded nothing like that city's blend of new orleans and cajun accents. The other bothersome point seemed to be an urge by the writer to make us all feel that every man must have homosexual urges inside him. Before I start a firestorm here and am accused of homophobia, I've enjoyed many films with gay love themes, notably "punks" "when love comes" and "b monkey". But this seemed to be some man's wish about all young men. Well, Tennessee williams has already covered this ground, and did a far better job of it. So, I wonder, if the coen brothers can get regional accents and culture dead on in films set in Minnesota and in Mississippi, why can't anyone else? What a waste of my time.


Thank God this has not been renewed by ITV.

This series, while popular (God knows why) has a very simple - 'Look I've found another body behind the flowers/bushes/trees/wherever they are working - for the sixteenth time this series' plot. The dialogue is so simple it's as though this has been written for children - talking down to the viewer and explaining every plot point.

They just 'happen' to be around when someone does something out the ordinary - and no-one notices them.

Every time they look into and investigate someone's murder, they get in the way of everyone else - messing up the lives of all - including those completely innocent.

They break and enter into people's homes, stealing items and evidence (even firearms) being nosey and getting into people's lives, spying on them and going through their stuff. They never apologise, never get caught or arrested (and if they do they can talk their way out of it, even though another character who does the same gets put in prison!!!).

They always come up trumps. Now I know that this is an easy going series, but I think that realistically this should not have made it past the first few episodes! Put simply, it's unrealistic.

I think that they have found enough bodies in the undergrowth both here and on the Continent (where they are every other week), so I do hope it never comes back.

ITV should get some action on the screen instead of all the years of humdrum - 'someone's been murdered at the village fair - again' type series.


This show makes absolutely no sense. Every week, two ladies go to an estate to do some gardening, and every week without fail, they somehow stumble upon a murder. Because everyone who owns a big house with a large garden is involved in a murder, right? But even if they did somehow happen to stumble upon murder after murder, wouldn't the smart thing to do be to tell the police? You know, the people who can actually do something about it... But every week, these two fools go around, polluting evidence, committing crimes of their own, and, in some cases, causing more murders. Once they do miraculously solve the murders, there is no way the murderer could ever be convicted. All the evidence has been sabotaged. And you'd think people who are covering up murders would think not to hire these two, wouldn't you? Yay! We've solved the murder! Now like every other week, let's go and confront the murderer ourselves and, with no back-up, tell them that we know about it. There is no way we could get ourselves into any danger, is there? Rosemary and Thyme is one of the worst shows on television, and certainly the most ridiculous.


This is the story of a news investigator who hates his job - which prove why actors - even as weak as Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington - are on the big screen and your neighbors are not!

I'll say this though - the better moments show some basis for being really funny (not just wacky), to keep trying, maybe taking some classes, and using the time to keep learning how to make a good movie. ("Dude, Where's My Car" and the "Scary Movie" sequence have it all over this ... college attempt.)

The lighting wasn't; the production wasn't; and the script had moments (the conversation from space - very nice try unconvincingly executed). (This reminded me of "Dark Star" - which is about being "lost in space" - but this movie is just lost.)

The talent was the bartender (he said 'dog' so annoyingly that I knew he had to be acting... wasn't he? ... now THAT's acting!), the Mark Hammond guy, and Marty. I guess I gave the movie a point for each one of them... 3/10.

-LD

______________________________________________

my faith: http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/jbc33/


I'm a huge lover of really bad B movies. And I especially love alien/scifi movies. I say the cheaper, cheesier, and campier the better. A low budget and a hokey idea are fun enough for most bad B movies, but this movie is so bad that I really felt embarrassed for the people who made the movie and for the schlocky ad-lib actors. First off, there's no real plot, it's all sort of situation "comedy" (if it can be called that). The "comedy" in this movie is more about characters saying, in essence, "look at me, I'm in this crazy situation! Isn't this funny?", but it's only pathetic because nothing anyone's doing is that funny. There's no comedic acting skill, nor any kooky plot to carry all the very un-imaginative scenarios through this dreary turd.

The bad comedy and lack of anything remotely comical is only worsened by the bad ad-lib acting, actors saying really stupid things over and over again (perhaps trying to ape for catch phrases, perhaps just b/c everyone in this is so bad), really unattractive women being played off as hot chicks, and people barfing and passing out in bathrooms.

There was one middle aged actor toward the end of the movie who I could tell had some acting chops and was kinda' convincing in his role. He was as out of place as a solid BM in a weekend detox unit's bathroom. Corey Feldman was filmed for about 3 minutes in total (thankfully we didn't have to put up with him any longer), and he was filmed off site -- probably outside his apartment on the way out somewhere. He said a few really un-funny things about aliens and having sex with aliens and that was the extent of his appearance.

If you value your life and the 90 minutes (and years of pain in remembering) you'll lose by watching this garbage, avoid it. If you do a lot of drugs, like Adam Sandler's comedy stylings (and thus have no standards whatsoever), and are considered mentally slow you might like this movie.

P.S. I think the people who raved about this must work for Troma or something, b/c I can't believe people can be so lame as to actually enjoy this movie. (Do drugs really ruin your judgment that much?)


If you are looking for a movie with beautiful shots of Mount Everest, then you may enjoy this movie. Just skip ahead to the views of the mountain.

(Spoiler Alert) However, if you, like me, believe that lives are precious and not to be wasted then this movie will leave a bad taste in your mouth. 6 people died, 5 Sherpas and a member of the Japanese party just so that one man could attempt to ski down Mount Everest.

The question is raised in the movie about whether the continuation of the expedition to meet his personal goal was still worth the cost in lives, and he answers an emphatic "Yes".

The part about skiing is in the last 15 minutes. He skis for a short time, then falls the rest of the way until he comes to a stop in the snow.


I saw this film when it came out. Let me see now--this guy who had earlier skied down Mount Fuji manages to accumulate the funding and hire personnel to document what sounds on the surface like a bold and daring act---to ski down the world's highest peak. Well--AND HERE COMES THE SPOILER--what happens, see, after a large crew of people manage to help him get near the top--and a life is lost in the bargain--he gets on his skis, manages to make it down a very very short way, at which point his PARACHUTE OPENS...and that's that. And instead of burning the footage to hide this amazingly anticlimactic ending to an embarrassing debacle, the guy goes ahead and releases it. SPOILER ENDS I do admire the amazing courage and effort it must have taken the film crew to get some of the stunning shots they got. ANOTHER SPOILER--Oh yes, one of the Sherpas is killed by falling into a crevasse. The narrator, who is quoting the "daredevil skier, casually remarks that, according to the Sherpa religion, since this man's body cannot be recovered his soul will roam the world forever and never know rest. Is it worth it, the narrator muses. YES he answers--because it served the purpose of letting this clown "ski down Everest." I can't remember ever seeing a more meretricious piece of celluloid. This is one to miss at all costs.


I found this gem in a rack the local video rental store had of tapes which are exchanged among various rental outlets. 'The Man who Skied Down Everest'. Hmm... never heard about it. The box reads of some Japanese fellow who always wanted to ski down Everest and actually did it. Sounds interesting. I rented it. As expected it was documentary style. The first part can be summarized so: "I always wanted to ski down mount Everest". This is followed by some footage of preparation for the event. LOTS of preparation footage. OK, I suppose it takes a lot of preparation. Then we are treated to a protracted piece on the skier, Yuichiro Miura's philosophy on life etc. More filler follows and I begin to wonder where the skiing fits in to this show. More preparation is shown and they begin to make the trip to the mountain. More philosophy is shown. At last they arrive at the mountain and maybe perhaps he will get around to skiing down the friggin' thing. Lots of climbing footage later there is a description of the parachute device intended to slow Miuras' speed on the steep slope. Finally he straps on the skis and gets ready to go.

He's off... He skis about twenty feet and his skis shoot out from under him, he deploys the parachute and tumbles in an inglorious bundle for some distance down the mountain and that's that. End of story. What the heck was that?

OK I can buy that he always wanted to ski down Everest, made extensive preparations and actually tried it with camera crew in tow. It didn't work and he ended up tumbling down and almost killing himself, so what egregious hubris would inspire the man to release a film of it and call it skiing down Everest? Perhaps the title,"The Man Who's Feet Shot Out From Under Him and He Slid On His Ass Down Everest" was just too long for the tape box.


I adore Hedy Lamarr. I think she was vastly underrated as an actress during the 40s. She was the Nastassja Kinski of that era, and critics didn't take her seriously. Having said all that...this film is a BORE. When I watched it for the first time, I was shocked at the lack of continuity, not only in story, but in makeup and costumes. Hedy's makeup changes from shot to shot. So does hair length and style. Reason: This thing had so many writers and underwent so many stops and starts it's amazing they ever released it at all. Her "Lady of the Tropics" began filming AFTER this one began, yet it was released before "I Take This Woman." In fact, at the time, it was known in Hollywood as "I Re-Take This Woman." That should tell you something. I'm a Spencer Tracy fan as well, but he is AWFUL here. I've read in various film histories that he absolutely despised Hedy Lamarr, and that looks perfectly obvious on film. NO chemisty whatsoever. The story wanders around for reel after reel and finally just rolls to an end very strangely. I can't recommend this one at all.


Hedy Lamarr who may have been kept by more men on screen than any other actress, is again the kept mistress of Kent Taylor, society playboy and general all around rat. On a boat from the Yucatan after Taylor's given her the brush she tries suicide. But Doctor Spencer Tracy saves her from drowning in the Caribbean.

Tracy's quite the all around medical fellow. I guess he never heard the word specialist. He runs a clinic in Manhattan for the poor and his trip was a sideline into medical research. Lamarr and he marry and she tries to introduce him into her world and he even becomes a partner of society doctor Louis Calhern. Of course Kent Taylor reenters the picture and the Hollywood inevitable happens.

Watching I Take This Woman it seemed to me that the writers were very much influenced by Tracy's Oscar winning Boys Town. Unfortunately his role as Doctor Karl Decker ain't a patch on what he did as Father Flanagan. Maybe they were trying to give Father Flanagan a little romance in his life in this film so to speak.

Tracy and Lamarr did not get along too well. In fact this film was dubbed I Retake This Woman because the original director Joseph Von Sternberg walked off the film, presumably because Lamarr was not working out for him the way Marlene Dietrich did. She did Lady of the Tropics and then MGM went back to filming this with their contract director Woody Van Dyke who was known for the speed of his productions. And a whole new supporting cast was brought in.

Fortunately both Spence and Hedy had better roles in store for both of them.


I fully agree with the previous reviewer. There's no chemistry between Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr, and the focus of the film is on their relationship. Hedy Lamarr isn't at her best, and Spencer Tracy appears to be naive, simple and overly-hopeful -- both in love and life; an idealist role that played out best in 'Boys Town'. If you can make it through the ridiculous crowd scene by the train station...whoa...it's rather slapstick and not worthy of any actor in the cast. Not the best acting on anybody's part. Miscast and mismatched. Story is empty and various and disenfranchised input is apparent. Hedy Lamarr is her absolutely stunning herself, which is truly the best part of the film. Spencer Tracy can't match the sophistication of her beauty and wardrobe, and the film doesn't come off as believable for at least that reason.


It's hard to know exactly what to say about this ever so bland and dull little film. The story is predictable when not completely laughable. It's all a matter of "dutiful gestures" which, as presented here, carry absolutely no conviction. Yes, the MGM "production values" are gorgeous, and yes, Ms. Lamarr was exquisitely beautiful, but she and the great Spencer Tracy have absolutely no "chemistry" together - and that's the only thing that would have made this parade of cliches at all effective... It's my understanding that this movie received poor reviews when it was originally released; the passage of time has not improved it.


This movie is on the level with "Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael" for biggest pieces of garbage that have ever hit the silver screen. If these guys weren't Adam Sandler's gay friends, this script would have ended up where it should have: as some big time movie exec's toilet paper. I hate this movie, it makes me want to injure people. I will admit that I have high standards, but honestly I'd rather watch Step Up 2. The ultra sad part was when I logged onto IMDb and read that you pieces of trash actually gave this movie a 6.9 rating. This is a testament to all of the retards in our society that will go watch terrible movies that are just hour and a half long dick, fart, and weed jokes with little to no originality. After seeing this rating, I would like to suggest "Tyler Perry's House of Pain" to all of you guys who enjoyed this film; you'll see some high quality humor there on about the same level of this abhorrent abomination.


Creating a comedy is like walking a pretty thin tight-rope. It either works, or it does not. Grandma's Boy is one of those movies that does not work. It may have a few very funny parts, but for the majority, it's just a terribly unfunny comedy from the usual supporting characters in Adam Sandler films (sans Sandler himself, he's just a producer).

Alex (Allen Covert) is a game tester. He's 35, and is the best tester and game player at his otherwise kid-filled workplace. He ends up getting his apartment and his stuff taken from him for not paying the bills (as it turns out, his roommate had just been spending the rent money on Philipino hookers and not paying the landlord). Desperate, he moves in with his grandmother, Lilly (Doris Roberts of Everybody Loves Raymond) and her two roommates.

That's the basic plot of the film, thrown in with subplots about a hot new girl named Samantha (Linda Cardelli, unrecognizable from her days as Velma in Scooby Doo) trying to get the testers to complete a new game as fast as they can, a robot-like game creating prodigy J.P. (Joel Moore) who works with Alex and wears much of the same clothes as Neo in The Matrix, and of course, all sorts of sex and drug related jokes. That's it.

The problem with the film, besides the fact that the real conflict in the film occurs and is resolved within the last fifteen minutes of the film, is that it just is not funny. It is totally mind-numbingly boring, and only sparingly funny. Nothing really happens at all. No emotion, no real sense of direction, and a whole ton of intense swearing. You find yourself maybe laughing at a few funny quips that the actors say, but otherwise sit in complete boredom, wishing you had not even bothered with the film. How this film was greenlit and how Fox thought it could make money will always remain a mystery to me.

There's just no entertainment value to come from it. None of the actors are actually putting in good performances, they are just acting like idiots for the camera, and hoping for the best. Stoner comedy has been done before multiple times, and on occasion, actually works (Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and Dazed and Confused come to mind). Here, it just makes for making the film even less funny than it is already. The random inclusion of a monkey and a pair of bare breasts really does not make the film any better either.

Other than a few funny one-liners, this movie should just be out-right missed altogether. It's not very funny, the entire plot is silly, it's boring, and it just makes for one horrendous film. Avoid it like the plague.

1.5/10.


Honestly, this may be the worst movie I've ever seen. And I've seen Spider Baby, and Not of This Earth. Heck I've even seen 200 Motels. Having just discovered the Freaks and Geeks series and being surprised at the acting ability of Linda Cardellini I checked out the reviews here and decided this was worth a try. That is the LAST time I will ever rely on a review at IMDb. I didn't realize that MORONS were writing IMDb reviews while they were waiting for their calls to be answered on AM radio.

This movie is so far beyond bad that mere words cannot express the wretchedness of its vomitous state. Seriously.

Watch this movie if you think Will Farrel is really really really funny, if you think Adam Sandler is a comedic genius. Watch this movie but PLEASE DON'T BREED!


What could be expected from any Adam Sandler-produced comedy, Grandma's Boy is predictable and so dumb it is sickening. Allen Covert stars as Alex in the film, a 35 year old pothead who works as a video game tester and has had to move in with his grandma and her two roommates after losing his apartment. Some usual plot turns occur: he has trouble adjusting to his new living situation, which in turn makes him have trouble at work, which is particularly bad because he is trying to nail one of the office's new consultants. Throw a weird boss, almost alien company star, really nerdy best friend, a few scenes at burnt-out pot dealer's place, a really big party scene, and an original video game Alex is trying to finish by himself into the mix you have Grandma's Boy in its entirety. Allen Covert does make a marginally good lead, Linda Cardellini is cute enough for her role as the just-one-of-the-nerds office consultant Samantha, and a few scenes do manage to squirt out a chuckle or two but none of that makes Grandma's boy worth much of anyone's time. Most of the supposed funny "jokes" or "gags" or whatever you want to call them are nothing but "humor" that would make anyone at National Lampoons embarrassed to watch, Joel Moore is incredibly unfunny in his role as video game mastermind J.P., and the entire film actually manages to be boring on top of not funny or substantial. Well, at least Grandma's Boy did something for someone: Adam Sandler was able to get a few paychecks to his out-of-work friends David Spade, Kevin Nealon, and Rob Schneider.


Positively ridiculous film.

If Doris Roberts, Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight persist in these kinds of films, they can submit their retirement papers and collect social security full-time.

While the idea that a 35 year old swinger, who works on video games, loses his apartment and his forced to move in with Grandma Roberts and borders Jones and Knight, this is foolishly dealt with. Imagine the 3 bags getting high on stuff that grandson Alex has left in their home and Jones going to bed with someone who may qualify as her grandson!

The video game sequences are as foolish as the rest of the film. The assortment of characters that Alex works with is beyond belief as he enjoys his weed habit along with the others.

Terrible best describes this miserable film.


There's an underlying current in all the positive reviews of this movie - it's just a brainless comedy, don't take it seriously. Chillax dude!!! Well that's one point of view. The other would be - why are we accepting exactly the same script, the same formula and the same unfunny people in all these "comedies".

What you get is a slacker who, through some totally unreal circumstances, has to change his life (always a he), overcome a set of circumstances which would only pose a problem to a raccoon or a teenager, beat the equally stupid bad guy who is trying to steal the gal he met two days earlier and triumph by remaining a slacker but with more money/self-esteem. On the way somebody does something gross but very illogical. This means you the viewer can call someone after the movie and say something like "you won't believe it maaann. This guy finds the otter drowned in the bucket of diarrhoea the other guy left after he ate laxative brownies. Then he shines his shoes with it". Hilarious.

Most of the usual names turn up. David Spade and Rob Schneider do unfunny shtick but they're crrrazzeee characters - a Russian and, I'm holding my sides, a waiter in a vegan restaurant. Adam Sandler, the king of the brainless unfunny, illogical comedy co-produces and some talentless nobody called Dante shows up, yet again. The US will have to explain to the rest of the world what this guy Dante is famous for cos we are clueless. Allen Covert plays a 36 year old which got the biggest laugh of the night from me. He was 42 and looked years older.

Did I laugh? Yes, but no more than I would at a TV sit-com and I don't have to pay a penny to watch them. Please stop making these movies.


Call me old fashioned, but I like movies with plots. I thought "stoner comedy" was just a way to more specifically describe a comedy in which lots of weed is smoked and the people watching it are more apt to enjoy it high. "Grandma's Boy," however, has decided this is a full-blown niche and that stoners represent a piece of the comedy pie that need to be reached. Apparently, Allen Covert (star and producer) and the Happy Madison gang were right, but that doesn't make "Grandma's Boy" any less boring and unfunny. They might be completely stoned -- but the characters are mostly half-baked.

Alex (Covert, a longtime supporting player for Adam Sandler, first-time star) is a mid-30s professional video game tester whose roommate has gotten them evicted. He could look for a new apartment, but then we don't have a movie. After trying a couple friends, he ends up living with good ole Grandma Lilly (Doris Roberts of "Everybody Loves Raymond"). She wakes him up a 6 am and has him do chores and soon he's falling asleep on the job and so the new video game sequel might not get done on deadline.

Like most people, Alex deals with his frustration and eradicates boredom by either playing video games or getting high or both. His friends/co-workers all do the same thing. Most of them are virgins that live at home in addition to loving video games. They're all awkward and all with the exception of Nick Swardson and Joel Moore (only at times) their characters aren't funny. Funny if you're blazed ... sure, i suppose, but I can't say from experience.

Maybe all we loser guys like is getting high, playing video games and awkwardly ogling women with specific attention on their breasts, but even so, it shouldn't be the driving force of an entire film. Neither should old women getting high on accident (saw that one coming) or being the but of gross-out sex jokes -- but that's what happens when a film isn't about anything. No conflict occurs until the last 20 minutes outside of the slight problems of being out of pot, Alex trying to get the hot girl (Linda Cardellini) to like him and the guys scrambling to finish their levels for the video game deadline.

Characters can be the saving grace for these meandering stoner flicks, but aside from a lovable Doris Roberts, the aforementioned Swardson as the virgin friend who lives with his parents and calls them his roommates and Joel Moore's skill at making robot noises, there's little character ingenuity. Covert is a run-of-the-mill main character with no comedic dimensions, his dealer friend Dante is an inept actor and waste of screen time and Jonah Hill and Kevin Nealon are written so far into the periphery it doesn't matter.

If you like movies about nothing and watching them in a state of mind and body that enhance that nothingness, "Grandma's Boy" will likely be just what you're looking for. Those who need a little more talent and wit to get on board with a comedy will be left unaffected. The most I can say for "Grandma's Boy" is that it's watchable despite its pointlessness. It won't feel like a total waste of time but you'll wish you did do drugs so you could at least have made the most of the hour and a half.

~Steven C

Visit my site at www.moviemusereviews.com


First of all, I'd like to say that I really enjoyed this movie. However, that said, I can't say that it was a "good" movie. I went into the theatre with pretty low expectations (something I've learned to do). I'm glad I did, because the plot and development wasn't stellar. The jokes were low-grade humor. But, I was in the right mindset to enjoy them.

I wasn't the only one. In fact, the entire theatre was laughing out loud. I didn't hear anyone complain after the movie came to a close. I even saw one guy fall out of his chair laughing! But again, I have to warn you, Grandma's Boy is NOT a top-quality film. It is a funny (albeit low-brow) movie, and if you go with the right mindset, you'll really enjoy it. Oh, and don't take kids to it.


Alright, how someone can actually think this movie is awesome, is so beyond me... I can't even comprehend how someone can find this movie remotely funny, the only character it has going for it, is the evil super nerd game designer, and that gets old after a while. This movie is so predictable, the punchlines are not funny they're forced, you see better acting at the red light district, and the story sucks it's so predictable, you know EXACTLY what's going to happen. Even the characters do not react like they should, try going to the hot chick that is your boss at work and telling her that you're banging 2 crazy chicks that you live with at the same time, her response wouldn't be (smile) "ok let's get back to work". I didn't laugh once during this movie, and I wish I had never seen it or spent 3$ to rent it because that's not even worth it. Adam Sandler produced this movie, I have lost all respect for him. All his movies are the same, his comedy style got old ever since The Waterboy came out, if I knew Adam Sandler had produced this before I rented it...there's no way I would have wasted my time on it. This movie is as bad as it can possibly get from every aspect... ace ventura wasn't a smart comedy movie, it didn't have a killer plot...but it was original and it was hilarious. I'm not knocking the movie because it has 'low-level' humor, i'm knocking it because it sucks, it's a piece of Hollywood crap. If this movie was presented to a production company and din't have "ADAM SANDLER" behind it, it would be thrown in the garbage quicker than a used condom. If you want a good movie about pot-culture watch Cheech and Chong, or Whitecastle. If you rent this movie all you will get is a generic comedy that targets 14-17 year olds, with loud rock music at every possible cut, acting that will make your eyes squint and your stomach turn, and comedy that is equivalent to watching your stoned friend eating mcdonalds for an hour and a half. Don't do it.... for the love of God...this movie sucks, treat it for what it is and look past all the Hollywood glory behind it.....Hercules in New York used to be the worst movie I had ever seen, but it's actually so bad it's good. This instead was a very expensive movie that sucked just as much, if not more.


this movie has NO plot. it was SUPPOSED to be that a guy moves in with his grandma, and everyone thinks hes a loser and he has to redeem himself. but what happens after everyone finds out who he's living with? they have a big pot party at grandma's house. the climax of the movie didn't even relate to the rest of it. that whole plot was introduced within minutes of the movie's end. i can see how it COULD have related to the supposed story - that Grandma's VG skills redeem him - but that just wasn't there.

However, the movie was funny as hell and clearly relied heavily on the jokes.

"Her pussy smells like the great depression" "He just sucked his first titty...yeah for 13 hours" "It's for you...i think it's the Devil"


I must say I was really excited about this film before renting it as it was an Adam Sandler "Happy Madison" production and I am usually attracted to that type of silly humour.

There were a few funny moments at the beginning of the film, but this film lacked everything that makes a good movie. I realize that many filmsthat are not realistic can still be quite funny, but this film was unrealistic and not funny at all. The acting was horrible, the cinematography was very poor, the plot made no sense at all. I cannot get over the fact that 3 classy older ladies would even work for such poor writing. Overall I was very unimpressed with this film and I do not recommend wasting 5 bucks on renting it.


I can laugh at just about anything, but unfortunately there is not a single one to be found in this stink bomb!!!!I honestly watched this movie from beginning to end, and did not even crack a smile. I am shocked that Sandler, Schneider, Spade etc., would put their names on this piece of crap. Worse than the worst that ever came out of the worst that ever came out of former SNL players. What more can I say? How could such tasteless, extremely unfunny drivel come from such a pool of apparent talent!! Maybe I have lost my sense of humor, (not likely), but I cannot remember a movie that I have disliked this much in a long time. What a waste of 2 hours I will never get back.


If a movie has an unimaginative, hackneyed story and bland characters it needs to make up for it by being really, really funny. You can get away with a lot if you're funny. But while there are a few amusing moments scattered here and there in Grandma's Boy, they are so far and few between that they cannot begin to make up for the hack work the film displays in such abundance.

The movie certainly doesn't aim to surprise anyone. When Alex hides marijuana in his grandma's house in a tea tin you know what's going to happen later on and it does. The movie appears to have been written by a committee who did a study of mediocre comedies and grabbed any gag that appeared in more than one of them.

The most interesting thing about the movie is its somewhat unusual setting. The game takes place in a video game development company, which should be an interesting source for some clever comedy. But don't be fooled, this is not a movie about video game developers. This is basically a college frat house movie in which all the frat boys have been shoved into a big room to play video games.

The way the movie completely fails to think through its setting and use it for original laughs can be seen in the character of J.P. J.P. is I think more-or-less conspired by the creator of Doom, John Carmack. At least inspired to the extent that he's an odd genius who makes games.

In the movie, J.P. is a weird, obnoxious geek who is despised and jeered by the company game testers. That makes no sense at all. If you are one of the most significant people in the history of video games (as J.P. is supposed to be) then even if you're quirky and obnoxious, people will still admire and respect you on some level. If Stephen Hawking is obnoxious his associates still aren't going to make jun of him to his face.

Also, game testers are just as likely to be geeks as J.P., but in the movie they are basically frat boys. It's a fun normal guys against the obnoxious dweebs movie. And while that formula has worked, very occasionally, in the past, it is absurd in the setting of a game company. If you decide to use an unusual setting for a movie, you don't simply cram in all the conventions of movies from different settings into that one. Unless you're a hack.

About two thirds of the way through the movie I gave up. Something happened that I knew would result in a series of painfully predictable events. And I realized I hadn't actually laughed at anything for the last half hour anyway. So I stopped (although I did fast forward just to make sure I was right that they would follow the most predictable clichés, which they did).

Normally if a movie's bad I just say it's bad and then run out of things to say, but this movie is such a phenomenally shoddy production that it deserves a long diatribe.

Shame on the movie for luring a good actress like Linda Cardellini into it, then surrounding her with talentless nobodies. I'll give the movie 1 point for giving Shirley Jones the chance to be the anti-Shirley Partridge though.


Sadly, this movie did have potential with such a willing cast, but everything was so poorly thought out and poorly executed. I don't think I've ever seen any film where every scene just falls flat with a loud thud, as it did here. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a "stoner" sex comedy that didn't provide at least one laugh, but this vortex of pain provided nothing but groans and misery. The last time I was this stunned at how un-funny a comedy can be was with the awful "Big Momma's House." Scene after scene, these movies will turn your brain into jelly. Silly and stupid can sometimes be funny, but here, silly and stupid are used as a torture device against the viewer. An absolute, rock-bottom dud.


In the last few years of Ron Miller's (son-in-law of Walt Disney cum Producer) reign he churned out live-action crap on a stick often starring the very boring Dean Jones, whose entire career was based on that kind of light, empty-headed fare. Other horrible films from that same period include Pete's Dragon, the Last Flight of Noah's Ark, Unidentified Flying Oddball and the dreaded Condorman. I'll not mention Tron because I thought it ambitious and Miller was only the executive Producer on it, so he had little to do with the actual production. However he was in full force when this god-awful piece of human junk was expelled from the bowels of creativity. Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. Second sequel to much- loved Love Bug tale finds Herbie in love with another car who has a brain and heart too. There's a race, some lame bad guys, a diamond and Barney Fife. Shot in France, the film actually is nicely photographed and the countryside is lovely. But one gets the idea the film was made so all involved could have a three month vacation in France. The rest of film is a wreck. Prat falls, bumbling thieves, wicked German racing competitors and a pretty bouncing feminist all fall under the category of stock supply. The biggest insult of the film: trying to further develop Herbie's lover personality via shakes, beeps, flashing lights and movements indicative of a horny seventeen year old, Disney's writers do an injustice to our cute little VW. Then again I would think it'd be tough for anyone to top Helen Hayes driving Herbie around a skyscraper ledge in the second outing.


Even Disney are guilty of the cash cow disease, after the roaring success of The Love Bug in 1968, the house of mouse cashed in with Herbie Rides Again, Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo, and Herbie Goes Bananas. Neither sequel capturing the charm and inoffensive appeal of The Love Bug back in 68, in this one we find race driver Jim Douglas and his sidekick Wheely Applegate, entering Herbie in the Monte Carlo Rally. Naturally things outside of the race start to take over priorities, they get mixed up in a diamond robbery and Herbie falls in love with another car!. The car stunts are of course pleasant and easy on the eye, and it would be churlish of me to really vent venom on such a friendly piece of fluff, it's just that the film goes nowhere fast and personally now i can see it for the coin motivated piece of work it is. Still you get to see Herbie take a bath, foil the baddies and of course dance for the lady in his life, so something there for everyone i think....................4/10.


If you thought Herbie trying to kill himself by driving off a bridge in 'The Love Bug' was daft, wait 'till you see him acting horny in this bewilderingly silly second sequel. Dean Jones is back as the driver who competes in the Paris to Monte Carlo rally; this time his sentient VW falls in love with another car in the race, a Lancia driven by Julie Sommars. By this point in the series the energy and charm is lacking even more than in 'Herbie Rides Again'; the movie is overlong and threadbare, although it's watchable thanks to the return of Jones's typically likable performance, a few funny bits, and the cast's frantic mugging.


This movie made my face hurt. I don't understand it...things just happened, inexplicably, and they usually resulted in someone bursting into a song and dance number. I don't understand how people can laud this film with praise. There are B-movies, and then there are B-musicals, and then there is Rockula.

The songs made me want to run headlong into a wall. The only saving grace is that one of the musical explosions turns out to be a musical video, which eases the pain, yet still fails to justify why it needed to exist. The most frightening section of the film is Toni Basil's creep-dance that accompanies her weird song. But on the bright side, she can manages to find the notes that she is looking for, unlike pop music sensations Rockula (aka Rapula) and Mona...wow, can we say tone deaf. So if you want to question life for about 90 minutes, see this film. If you hate your life, then buy it.


As a CA resident, I'd like to see the jackholes who were shutting down the electricity plants to raise the prices get some jail time too.

I thought the movie was pretty good and has some very informative pieces. While they stuck to how Enron rose and crashed, I found it really interesting. However, when the movie focused on it's anti-Bush slant, it made me wonder if they were really being accurate.

It's fine to point out any connection the Republicans had to Enron, but the monster was created while Clinton was president. The CA energy crisis happened under Davis's watch. Both were in office during Enron's abuses, but neither are held accountable in any way. Rather, many minutes are spent on how Bush was friends with Lay. So what? Lay played golf with Clinton and spent the night in the Lincoln bedroom. Why are Democrats given such a free pass in this film? I think most politicians are a waste of our taxpayer money so I'm not partial to either party but I hate feeling like I'm subject to someone's political agenda when I watch a documentary. Yes, politicians deserve some blame, but I really doubt that the only guilty one's have Rs after their names. I found no value in portraying the Bush's as Kay-lovers when Democrats received just as much Enron campaign money as Republicans did. Like I said, it weakens the rest of the film for me because it makes me suspicious of the rest of the facts they lay out.


I learned little of significance from this film that I did not already know from CNN and The New York Times. (And I did not follow the Enron case obsessively as did some others.) The film did a very poor job of explaining what "business" Enron was in that might actually have been on the up-and-up before it started hiding its debts in the entities created by Andy Fastow. It also significantly underplayed the role played by Arthur Andersen and Vinson & Elkins in validating practices that were afterwards found to be illegal. Nor did it go as far as it might have in exploring what the "investors" -- all those prominent bankers -- thought they were doing. With the 24 hour a day cable networks, the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, documentaries have proliferated. I've seen many in the past year that were better than this one.


Oh, man, I hated this movie. Granted, the site locations were great, but that's about the ONLY positive thing I can say about it. Now, I'm going to state right at the beginning that I am VERY critical of the way weapons, especially firearms, are both portrayed, and handled, in movies. Being a war flick, portrayal was fine, but the shoddy weapons handling in the movie would have NEVER been tolerated by a real SEAL Team. The acting was more wooden than my first sailboat, the equipment carried (or lack of it) was laughable, and the dialogue was, shall we say, lacking in ANYTHING interesting. Well, with the exception of the journalist, which was actually prescient. Watching this movie was comparable to watching "Palmetto" with Woody Harrelson, where each scene was so bad you just couldn't turn it off, because you had to see if they could get worse with the next scene. Like Palmetto, they certainly did. The scene in the water, where, after shooting the first of the enemy, they BLOW THE DAMN BOAT UP, thereby having to face possible drowning, made me laugh so hard, that for a millisecond, I almost thought it was worth waiting through the movie for. Then Charlie Sheen decided to drag the surviving enemy down to the depths of the ocean (the way it was filmed, with the many camera cuts, it looked like they went down about 80 feet. Nice continuity there....) before slashing his throat was so damn stupid, I was stunned. Then again, so was the whole damn movie. I enjoy action movies, but not this one. NOTE: The version I watched was a TV version, pan & scan. I can't imagine that made a difference, except for making the whole thing blessedly shorter!


Someone commented that Charlie Sheen's character should be court martialed for doing whatever he wanted. You may be right, but that is how SEAL's truly are. I served for several months with a SEAL team out of Norfolk, VA. Actually, I should say they used our ship to deploy themselves around Europe for a couple of months. I was the postal clerk on board and everyday these guys would try to get their mail. Since only one person was allowed to pick up the mail each day we issued one pass to one person. Each day a different SEAL would come up pretending to be someone else. Well, after the third time I said no to them until I had proof who they were. They went NUTS!!! I thought they were gonna bust through my cage, gag me, and then steal the mail. Luckily I had not only the President on my side (The Navy), but the Federal Government (US Mail). That was the only time I saw the SEALs stopped from having whatever they wanted. They were allowed unlimited shore leave, where we had to be back on ship at a certain time. They killed and tortured a woman in France and the two SEAL's only got a 1 week detention on ship, whereas a Seamen was caught stealing a bottle of wine from a French wine shop and he got a court martial. Is it any wonder why the SEAL's retention rate is over 85%? As a SEAL you are god. So this movie does a pretty accurate job of portraying how a SEAL acts and thinks... unfortunately it is so unbelievable to normal people that it comes off as being fake.


The contemporary chapter of the U.S. Navy's elite underwater demolition team is called to do.... whatever they want, apparently.

Charlie Sheen was made an officer. Already the storyline is unbelievable. Michael Biehn is his immediate C.O., but he keeps Charlie on a rather long leash and one of the guys pays for it early on by getting killed thanks to Charlie's patented stupidity. The rest of the team spends their spare time committing courts-martial offenses. Mostly an exercise in random gunfire and paper-thin ethics, these particular Seals might be better suited to serving as crash-test dummies.

Some good action scenes counter the goofy proceedings.


Top gun without the in-house animosity. Or class. Or money. Or Cruise. An excuse for an upwardly mobile cast of next-big-thing actors to market their ability to lead a matinée this doesn't really have anything anyone can get their teeth into. It's a shame because the opening shot of Charlie Sheen opens out with great promise which is squandered almost straight away with a preposterous wedding set piece. Barking.

Dennis Haysbert is a changeable actor for me but in this film he is fine, particularly the action sequences. Michael Biehn is a first-class action hero but not a leading man: Charlie Sheen is, to all intents and purposes, the leading man but never quite an action hero. There's a stunt cast of hundreds who are also mentionworthy. 3/10


Note to self. Never ever ever again watch a serious movie with Charlie Sheen in it. Great comedian, horrible seal. This movie makes Navy SEALS look like a reckless group of rangers when, in fact, they are the most elite form of military in the world. Charlie Sheen helps destroy the Navy SEAL reputation. Thank you for making such an incredibly select group of individuals look awful in one of the worst action movies I have ever seen. This is a great story which could be made into an amazing action movie, but why Charlie Sheen? There are possibilities for a very passionate story here, but Sheen decides to wreck them with "funny" comments.


Navy Seals is an ignorant, racist and complacent movie which thoughtlessly uses the Middle East conflict as the backdrop for an action flick concocted for a comfortably sheltered American Mid-West audience. The conflict, as well as those involved, is used simply as cannon fodder to glorify the photogenic young Americans who proudly kill Arabs for the good of 'freedom'. But what is worse is that the film's action scenes are sloppily handled and unexciting, which prevents Navy Seals from working even as a mindless shoot-'em-up.

Charlie Sheen's character (Hawkins) is disgusting, obnoxious, ignorant, reckless and, above all, racist. He refers to the Middle East as a 's**t-hole' and to its inhabitants as 'rag-heads'. Throughout the film, the Navy Seals' characters are glorified through the use of the Lebanese natives as cannon fodder. They indiscriminately massacre these people with a consequence-free attitude. There is even the tasteless murder of a young Lebanese boy who is shot by Hawkins; Hawkins makes fun of his language before shooting him whilst making another humorous quip. Besides being tasteless, this should be unacceptable. The film's extreme (though predictable)pro-American stance is also revolting. This can be seen when the Lebanese-American female journalist informs Hawkins that terrorists cant be made to talk because 'they are religious zealots.' Hawkins then retorts with 'yeah, and we are the Navy Seals!' The implication is obviously that zealots are meaningless next to American military might. Moreover, even after insulting this journalist's racial heritage and treating her like a sex object, the script demands her inability to resist this disgusting thug and she still ends up sleeping with him - because he is an All-American Navy Seal. This marginalizes the journalist's character by making her submissive to the 'superior' pro-American attitude of Hawkins despite his insulting behaviour toward her. Beyond ethics, this plot twist also has little credence as drama.

The screenplay is also amateurish. Most scenes are simply strung together without any thought for mood, plot or character development. The 'music video' scene at the golf course, for example is just shoddily edited eye candy. And the two scenes where Charlie Sheen plays the reckless hero are also pointless. In one he jumps off a bridge from moving car just to show his mates how tough he is, and in the other he chases down a tow truck on a push bike and drives his car-off it. Neither scene has a follow-up anti-climax, both are highly improbable, and neither has any bearing on the plot as a whole. They are just candy designed as a vehicle to showcase Hawkins' cheap all-American heroics, and are poor substitutes for character development. Most of the other plot development scenes are also badly filmed and poorly scripted as - in fact this affliction affects the entire movie. Apart from the African American Navy Seal and his wife as well as the characters of Michael Biehn and Charlie Sheen, every other member of the team seems unknown to the audience, so that when the climatic scenes roll around there seems to nobody to root for and anybody's death to lament.

In such a film, the action sequences can potentially rescue the production. But here they don't. These are badly directed, badly lit, and showcase badly performed stunts. In fact, their direction is so poor that they are almost incoherent to the viewer, resulting in not only the scenes being incomprehensibly hard to follow, but also in a complete lack of fear and suspense. Poor lighting only adds to their impotence. The explosions look fake, gunshot wounds unconvincing and one of the more daring stunts, involving crashing a Mercedes over a tank, looks just like a stunt which has been staged on a backlot and then poorly edited.

The ending of Navy Seals places the coins firmly on the eyes of this production. First there is the obligatory slow-motion 'running-away-from-the-big-explosion-that-should-have-killed-me' scene with Sheen carrying Biehn on his back. This was obviously the default scene intended to be the star of the movie's trailers. Then there is the ending itself when the remaineder of the Seal team, wounded and floating in the ocean, are rescued by a submarine. This submarine had in fact turned for home long before, but of course it had miraculously returned in the nick of time. Topping it all of, despite the Seals' violent and stressful ordeal, and despite the fact that numerous of their colleagues had just been killed, with a number of them still bleeding acutely, they all manage to laugh heartily while blessing America vociferously. Predictable? You can just imagine this ending while watching the opening credits.

This movie indulgently uses the Middle Eastern conflict as a vehicle for the macho All-American tendencies of the movies' photogenic young leads. Arabs are treated condescendingly and dismissively, and their slaughter in the movie is used as a fulcrum to glorify the use of American military might against an 'inferior' minority group in a consequence-free environment. The events of 2001 have pointed out that such smug and overconfident trivialising of the conflicts of such minority groups is certainly not a consequence free passtime. The Middle East can no longer be written off as a s**t-hole full of rag heads knocking each other off (to quote Charlie Sheen here); it is now a place in which involvement can lead to severe consequences. Today we are reminded that the consequences of such arrogance can manifest themselves quite close to home. Therefore, in the very least Navy Seals looks pretty foolish these days; but this is to be kind. This is a highly ignorant movie, whose production values and professionalism are equally suspect. Navy Seals is, ideologically and artistically, a complete insult to the intelligence of its audience.


I'm a fan of good, plausible, action movies. And I'm a huge fan of the elite military units such as the Navy SEALs. Finally, I'm a huge fan of Michael Biehn. Sadly none of those allowed me to really enjoy this movie at the time. I gave it another chance more recently when I bought the DVD. Here's the problems with this movie in a quick list: 1. It's a poor mans top gun, for example including a virtual music video of the SEAL team playing golf with a soundtrack of "The Boys are Back In Town", which concludes with Charlie Sheen doing an inane chase to get his towed car back.

2. This is quite simply a Charlie Sheen movie, when Sheen was trying to be famous before he started doing stuff like Hot Shots. Reports I've heard indicate that Sheen was a baby on the set and it affected the roles and Direction the rest of the actors in the movie got.

3. Biehn is the head of the SEAL team yet Sheen seldom obeys him. Any SEAL showing the lack of discipline that Sheen's character does, or who endangered the team as he does, wouldn't even have made it through BUDS training let alone gotten on a team.

4. SEALs are cross trained on weapons. Yet in one part of the movie a SEAL has to "figure out" how to use a U.S. Stinger Missile.

There are a few good scenes in the movie. The assault entry at the beginning, Bill Paxton as "God", and some of the footage in what was supposed to be Beirut at the time. Overall though this movie is a loser.


This movie is absolutely terrible... Definately a bull***t story and even worse acting. Too bad Charlie Sheen is involved in something like this since he is a decent actor and has done a couple of really good movies.

The special effects are 'A-team'-standard with the classical car gets shot and then flips over with a little fireball under the hood.

Of course the enemy are portrayed as total idiots and die as fast as they can say '-Die evil Americans'.

Unless braindead movies are you game, don't spend 113minutes of your life on this rubbish. Pick up 'the Platoon' or 'Apocalypse Now' instead.


Be very afraid of anyone who likes this film. They probably inhaled too many paint chips as a child. Its so awful I refuse to relive a plot. O yeah, there wasn't one! This movie is a true definition of what Hollywood creates for people who don't want to think at a theatre. Do the bad guys win? Do the good guys win? Who cares!


Alexandra Maria Lara: A very beautiful and enticing woman, but not a good actress. In all the films I've seen her in, she appears to me as the exact same character. Whether it be in THE DOWNFALL, NACKT, VOM SUCHEN UND FINDEN DER LIEBE and now WO IST FRED! She always is (plays?) the young, good-hearted woman, who is a little naive and doesn't know how to handle the things happening to her. She disposes of a repertoire of probably five different facial expressions that she works with abundantly. I personally have a hard time believing that she could play a mysterious and slightly obnoxious character because it just isn't in here. So she's typecast as the nice girl next door, which she is, but, once again, she ain't up to snuff when it comes to acting. Til Schweiger: Same thing! The film: Downright stupid. As it was an American movie it would have been a great role for Adam Sandler who I don't like either. I wasn't offended by the fact that this is a film with handicapped people in it, I just thought that the jokes resulting from this weren't funny at all. I chuckled twice or three times but when I was halfway through it, I was just bored and annoyed and wanted this flick to end.


Seen this one in a Sneak Preview yesterday and must say it was terrible. After the credits I thought: "Hey with this cast it'll probably be pretty good". Didn't at all turn out that way.

Lame predictable groaners, terribly simply drawn characters (maybe except a little Ms. Lara's) and an ending one could foresee 10 minutes into the movie. And worst of all, it misused a delicate theme (handicapped persons) for low level and mostly tasteless jokes without ever touching anything but the surface of the issue. The handicapped person the film sympathises with the most is the one who is just faking it. What kind of message is that? And the film doesn't have a thought through ending at all, it basically comes down to: "I love you, doesn't matter that you acted like a prick."

To sum it up: Great cast that must have been terribly bored to sign up for a terrible flick.


(There Are Spoilers) Usual slasher film with the story taking place in and around this God-forsaken mine outside the almost deserted town of Sutterille. After receiving a letter map and gold nugget from her brother Jared, Shadrach Smith, Clair and her husband Nick Breman, Carrie Bradac & Sean Hines, drive to the village together with four other friends and armature gold-prospectors Alx & Tori, Steve Wastell & Sangie, and Hayden & Rox Ann, Rick Majeske & Elina to stake their claim.

It later turns out that the fact that Jared disturbed the long-forgotten gold mine caused the ghost of the notorious Jeremiah Stone, Vernon Wells, to come back to life and with that restart his reign of terror. Stone, or 49er, is about the most ridicules slasher/killer in motion picture history. Stone looks like he was buried for years under a few tons of coal runs around with this hook slicing people in two. After doing in almost the entire cast local hermit Aunt Nelly, (Karen Black), who's daughter Eve (Alexandra Ford) was also one of Stone's victims, tells those still alive that unless they return the gold back to the Stone mine the crazed miner will never rest until he kills all those who still have it.

Aunt Nelly is given just enough time to tell her story before she's turned into a human torch by Stone and ends up jumping into a nearby stream.The movie goes on endlessly with the killer miner on the rampage looking like he's about as scary as burnt toast and just as dark. Even those in the film seemed to show no real fear of him. In one scene when he broke into Aunt Nelly's house everyone inside all charged, instead of running away, him causing the ghost miner to lose his right arm; Stone spent the rest of the movie with a miner's pick attached to his "stump".

Besides Actress Karen Black the film "Miners Massacre" also has veteran actors John Phillip Law and Richard Lynch as the town Sheriff Murphy and Old Man Prichard. Passable stuff but nothing special the movie has a predictable ending with the entire gold mine going up in flames. The audience given a hint by the makers of "Miners Massacre" that the end to this mindless lunacy is nowhere in sight and may very well resurface in the very near future in a possible sequel, God help us all!


A group of douche-bag teenagers go up to an old mining town in hopes of finding gold nuggets. The one hitch in the hair-brained scheme is that the ancient supernatural miner whom the gold belongs to doesn't wish to part with his treasure so easily and so begins to dispatch the interlopers accordingly.

Literally cliché-sprouting dialog, horrible acting, some insanely terrible 'southern dialect' and a lame unmemorable killer who resembles Jeepers Creepers (without the aforementioned's predilection of young boys naturally) combine to make this stinker just about unwatchable. Even cult legend actress Karen Black in a small role can't save this aberration.

Eye Candy: Elina Madison shows (badly lit) T&A

My Grade: D-

Where I saw it: TMCX


Seeing the cover of this before I watched it, my expectations weren't high, especially since it was amongst those other crappy horror movies at blockbuster (alongside films like Junior).

Alright, not only does this movie have the brainless stereotypical characters (the rich douche bag, the bitch, the sheriff, the localer that knows what's going wrong in the town, and so forth), but has such god-awful dialogue, acting, directing, and cg effects. The Jeremiah Stone dude was hilarious. (*SPOILER*) I'll never understand why he bit his finger off out of nowhere when he was holding that chick up hostage.

The premise for the movie is just as atrocious as the other flaws. From what I could get from it, Jeremiah Stone was a gold digger during the Gold Rush, and a notorious outlaw. He had a crapload of gold, (*SPOILER*) and put a curse on anyone who went after his gold before he was gunned down by the locals after he killed some girl, but not only did he survive, he bit off his own finger and ran off. So, present day, a group of clueless morons find out about this gold mine, and of course, they are warned by locals about "The Curse of the Forty-Niner". And what do they do? As expected, ignored the warnings and greedily sought for the gold. They get the gold, and all sorts of s**t goes on. Thankfully, (*SPOILER*) the bitch gets her head cut off.

That's about it. Looking at the cover of the film, you can tell what kind of movie it's going to be. It's just so terrible it's hilarious.

1 1/2 stars out of 5.


The monster will look very familiar to you. So will the rest of the film, if you've seen a half-dozen of these teenagers-trapped-in-the-woods movies. Okay, so they're not teenagers, this time, but they may as well be. Three couples decide it might be a good idea to check out a nearly-abandoned ghost town, in hopes of finding the gold that people were killed over a scant century-and-a-half before. You'd think that with a title like "Miner's Massacre" some interesting things might happen. They don't. In fact, only about 1/10 of the film actually takes place in the mine. I had envisioned teams of terrified miners scampering for their lives in the cavernous confines of their workplace, praying that Black Lung Disease would get them before The Grim Reaper exacted his grisly revenge, but instead I got terrestrial twenty-somethings fornicating--and, in one case, defecating--in the woods, a gang of morons with a collective I.Q. that would have difficulty pulling a plastic ring out of a box of Cracker Jacks, much less a buried treasure from an abandoned mine. No suspense, no scares, and plenty of embarrassing performances give this turkey a 3 for nudity.


And unfortunately, so did I. ANY movie that relies on a bad pun as its tagline or its title should be relegated to the $2.00 bin, but we decided to try a second consecutive bad movie for movie night. We had a winner in "House of the Dead"--go with that one if you want a laughable flick.

Some witch jumped into the water after being set on fire by Mr. Miner. Some guy took a dump in the woods. And that same guy grabbed a new girlfriend right in front of his old one. I don't remember much else. The last third of the movie was utterly insipid, and we were all waiting in agony until the end.


Oh dear oh dear. It really gets on my nerves when a low budget, pointless horror affair tries to look interesting in the credits by having a bunch of good names pop up in the cast, only to involve each one in the smallest, most pointless possible roles. In this film, we have Richard Lynch in one scene, a momentary appearance from Martin Kove, a brief spot for Vernon Welles, slightly more time on screen for John Philip Law and a little time for Karen Black. This bunch of random cameos does not really add up to much though Richard Lynch and Karen Black do raise some of the few smiles of this film with their appearances, and its quite painful really, as none of the main cast are much good at all. I couldn't help but think that if more scenes were filmed with any of the b movie veterans above the film would be a whole lot better but as it is there are just a few tantalising glimpses of good entertainment without the film ever actually attaining much entertainment value. Of the main cast the only charismatic or likable performances in my opinion were Steve Wastell, as Axel and his girlfriend who I believe was played by Elina Madison (never heard of her before but she has some measure of screen presence and is a good looker). The plotting in this one is simple, evil undead miner goes after those who eek to steal his gold, and it should make for good slasher fun, especially given that it is directed by John Carl Buechler, who has done special effects for many of these sort of films, including having worked on all three of the major slasher franchises (Halloween, Elm Street and Friday 13th) and such small gems as Mausoleum. Unfortunately, the film is sadly lacking in suspense, likability and satisfying gore. There are one or two mildly gory moments but nothing worth the effort of watching the film, I wouldn't say. In fact, aside from the above mentioned cameos this entire movie is really quite stale and turgid with characters that couldn't get offed quick enough for my liking and an unfortunate lack of any real interest. I didn't even find it fun in a laughable bad movie sense, which is rare for me, since I love a lot of pretty crummy films. I'd say, avoid.


A group of friends receive word from a pal who has found gold in an old mind shaft nearby an ancient abandoned western town of Suttersville. Despite warnings by the local sheriff, Murphy(John Phillip Law), Old Man Prichard(Richard Lynch)a bedraggled hick who swindles tourists with supposed collectible Wanted posters, and kooky superstitious Aunt Nelly(Karen Black)to stay out of the mine due to it's notorious legend(..that an evil coal miner who sold his soul to devil and murdered a priest's(Jeff Conaway)daughter will return from the dead to kill those who remove the gold from his shaft), these people only see the green, not the blood red which could potentially ooze from their slain bodies. Finding the gold of Jeremiah Stone intact, they line their pockets and carrying cases, prepared for the bright futures that supposedly lie ahead. But, when you do not heed the warnings of those you consider backwoods loons, the obvious result will be gruesome death. Jeremiah Stone, as we see, is lying merely a skeleton near an alter containing skulls lined next to each other as the candles on top of them light up, the pickax underneath awaiting it's master, with dust particles returning him to a grotesque corpse with demonic exposition, his eyes aglow with wrath. This hapless group, hoping for some fun around the campfire with gold providing them with warm prospects for life ahead, will fall prey to the vengeful ghoul and his mean pickax. Another victim will meet the nasty end of a shovel thrown through the windshield of her vehicle, directing it's path straight into her neck. Another failed attempt to retreat has Stone causing a frightened victim to drive his car into a tree, his body engulfed in flames as he fails to escape without harm. Another, a local girl searching for her new friends, worried about their well being, receives the pickax buried into her stomach. Aunt Nelly informs those still alive about the Forty-Niner and the curse on those who raids his eternal stash..and pays the price for relating such information. Will anybody survive? Or, is the entire group fated to perish at the hands of the zombie miner?

Make-up effects artist and monster creator, John Carl Buechler directs this supernatural slasher without worrying about logic or strong story-telling, opting instead to allow his zombie miner to destroy anyone and everyone who happens to be in his path. He provides just enough back story, and this is feeble at best, for the killer allowing special guest star, Karen Black(..oh how her career has sunken into the abyss)to explain to the viewer about him. The story given to us has the miner holding a priest's daughter hostage, threatening to execute her as the Suttersville authorities warn against such an action. Startling enough, Stone plants that pickax right into her back, with the opposition unloading their guns with little effect because he sold his soul to Satan. Retreating to his domain, the mine shaft, Stone sends out a warning against anyone even attempting to take what's his, the loot. Typical of most slashers in general, this bunch of twenty-somethings are your garden variety victims, with little development other than some banter and exchanging of words provides as filler until the undead maniac pops onto the scene to slaughter them. They are the usual group, from the city, trespassing unto unfamiliar territory, resurrecting an evil that should remain dormant. Like many of the later 80's slashers, a good deal of the violence is off-screen. What is on screen, the minimal gore, is rather mundanely presented and happens rather quickly. The ghoul make-up for the killer is only shown occasionally;he's mostly shrouded in darkness, the victims' horrified faces as he catches or chases after them are given more credence than the method of destruction. One thing's for certain, stunt men were set on fire many times. At least three times, a character is burned alive by either a lantern or flaming vehicle. Martin Cove has a minor cameo as Black's former husband, Caleb, now living with a much younger, and dense, honey. Vernon Wells(..of The Road Warrior and Commando fame)has the back story role of Jeremiah Stone as a human, still capturing the same type of menace he specializes in. John Phillip Law seems to be enjoying himself as the rather polite and hospitable sheriff, welcoming the outsiders to his neck of the woods. Buechler has quite an attractive cast of actresses, all wearing tight pants and smallish shirts, showing off their sleek and athletic figures, especially Elina Madison as easy-lay Roxann, always willing to remove her clothes for greedy jerk, Hayden(Rick Majeske). Stephen Wastell(The Ghosts of Edendale) is Axl, a rather clumsy foil, used as a butt of many jokes including his "dump in the woods" scene and current unemployment status.


Certainly expected more after seeing the cast list, but WOW!

I think a first time director could have done a better job with this project, and the fact that a veteran like John Buechler made it, puzzles me to no end. Somehow, the budget allowed them to secure a bevy of D-List actors, whom they succeeded in embarrassing for an hour and a half. The unknown actors were just plain awful, less Steve Wastell who does a decent job as Axl. The story is so bad, that it really needs no mention. The overall production value seems standard, with some above average camera work, if you can make it through the God-Awful "slo-mo" scenes and the painful "person on fire" sequences. I knew it would be dumb, I just had no idea how dumb, and unfortunately it's time spent that can never be returned to me. I suppose if you enjoy really bad "B" films, this might work for you, but if you value any story at all, this one is simply dreadful... A complete waste of time.


And believe me that's a pretty stunning accomplishment. Take "Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove," change the killer from a pirate to a prospector, change his obsession from buried treasure to old gold, and his color from puke green to deep blue. You now have "Miner's Massacre." The problem is, at least "Jolly Roger" was entertaining enough -- albeit in a so-bad-it's-good way -- to keep you watching it for the whole two hours. There's no strip-joint-murder scene or any bizarre killings. I can't tell you how many times I lost interest in "Miner's Massacre" and started doing dishes or cleaning around the condo. And, the ending is absolutely silly. The 49er dude just randomly re-appears out of nowhere to kill the local sheriff, while the lead actor and actress are sitting in the sheriff's cruiser, screaming. A truly horrible movie.


how does anyone keep on seeing horror movies after this one??? really this one it's so bad that makes me sick!! and love horror movies but come on....... who could had remembered to do such a awful movie? It as no history!!it's only a men who chases a bunch of teenagers because they take something from him !!! and what have they took?? gold....it's typical.... The movie is boring from the beginning until the end!! And what is Karen black who is a great actress doing in such a ridiculous movie like this? but what can I say ?? I think everyone should see it because my opinion is my opinion!! may be you would like??? I don't think so but.....


The storyline is a ticked off claim jumper made a deal with the devil to find gold, and is forced to protect it forever. A bunch of friends find the gold and gets talked by the old miner and they're forced to blow the gold to smithereens in order to send him back to hell.

I mean seriously...how did this film NOT win the Oscar for movie of the year? What a compelling storyline of late 20 year olds running from a claim jumper straight out of the 1800's. I love how in other movies you can't kill the monster but they can knock it out...this movie they write the monster as completely indestructible.

The opening of the movie clearly rips off Nightmare on Elm Street part 4 but what the hell, not like that movie was a 5 star classic either.

Highlight of the movie is when we're introduced to a girl who's never been to school, never been out of the town, never learned to read or write....yet speaks perfect English, is smoking hot and wears the latest fashion. How did the Oscar's miss THAT?

OK I'm done with the bad jokes, this movie is pure crap and only watch it if u have nothing better to do and all the spices on the spice rack are in alphabetical order already.

2 out of 10


Let me start out by saying I LOVE horror movies. Big budget, low budget, big name actors, no name actors, it doesn't matter. And when it comes to judging movies I am very forgiving. This movie however, is pretty bad.

The actors show little or no emotion when delivering their lines and the acting is worse than many lower budget horror flicks I've seen. As the actors get killed off, you could care less. There is very little gore (I have no idea what film other reviewers watched when they say there is good gore in this one, because there isn't) and the special effects are substandard at best. They steal so much from so many better horror movies (Jeepers Creepers, Friday the 13th, Leprachaun) and it still doesn't help.

Luckily I saw this on Showtime and didn't have to actually pay any extra money to see it or waste a spot in my Netflix queue on it. There are so many better horror movies out there and I recommend you see those instead of this big letdown.


I am shocked to see that this movie has been given more than two stars by some people. They must either be kidding or be totally blind for the art of acting, directing and other flaws of the movie.

I must admit that I just could not force myself to sit through the whole movie, it was just too bad.

The three first characters, not including the "digger" were just awful actors, and I mean AWFUL! Maybe the director didn't care, or may be he is a worse director. It was like watching a bad school play. The movie was of course filmed with a video camera (lowbudget - not real film), and the light settings were not very good either. In addition, the sound man (if they had one) must either have been a newbie or a drunk as the sound were amateurish. Even in one of the first scenes from the kitchen (AWFUL acting btw) the sound from the dialog was pretty bad. For example, when the woman moved her head while speaking, you could hear her voice disappear and come back. It sounded like they had tried to correct that in post-production by turning up the volume a bit when she turns her head. In addition, you had the ongoing irritating buzzing sound from either camera equipment or other sources in the kitchen.

All these squeakers in the first 5 minutes or so. Need I say more?

A good school project or fun project for friends to watch, but should never have been released for a real audience, especially not for a PAYING audience. THIS WAS A RIP OFF unless you have a very low standard regarding movies, or just bad taste. You are WARNED! SB.


This is an embarrassing nth rehashing of the same plot in the nth bunch-of-idiots-young-adult-in-peril-because-they-are-idiots slasher movie of the early millennium: this time we get the story of a crazy miner who comes back from the dead to retake his gold from the hands of the usurpers. We have almost no thrills, almost no bare flesh (even if the girls are really hot only one of them goes showing her bare ass for a few seconds), the usual bunch of sunset boulevard horror stars in cameo roles (this time Karen Black, Richard Lynch, John Philip Law, Jeff Conaway), lots of fake blood, only the crazy miner resurrected as a zombie is cool enough to leave you stuck - well not exactly - to the screen till the end. Don't waste your time if you are not a completist.


A group of friends discover gold deep inside an old mine. But by taking the gold and thinking they've hit it big, they awaken a long dead miner who's Hell Bent on protecting his treasure. "Miner's Massacre" is a chintzy b-horror movie in the extreme. You've got all your familiar clichés, your group of intellectually-impaired teenagers, characters going off on their own to investigate strange noises, a few pop-scares, the mysterious sheriff, the old lady who everyone thinks is nuts (Played by top-billed Karen Black no less), and so on. Nevertheless, it's done in an amusing, non-pretentious fashion that makes the film mindlessly entertaining in a "so bad, it's good" kind of way. The characters and dialog are what you'd expect from this type of filmfamiliar, routine and unoriginal. The actors all do a decent job though, consideringI've actually seen bigger-budget films of it's type with worse acting (I know what you did last summer, anyone?) and add a bit of credibility to the film itself. The villain in this film (The 49'er) is obviously derived from the creeper from Jeepers Creepers, all the way down to the brown overcoat, the hat and the long white hair. Like the creeper he never talks, and is butt-ugly to boot. The gore is somewhat disappointing in my opinion. There are a couple of fairly gruesome moments, but too much is off-screen and the death scenes are often laughable (Spoiler ahead!). There's one truly hilarious moment where a girl gets decapitated by the said villain, and to achieve this 'effect', the filmmakers hid the actress's body beneath the villain's coat, with her head poking out, and put some fake blood on her neck. Seriously, you could see the outline of her shoulders! I think they could have done a little better there, even if the budget was low (And I'm sure it was, but, still). The special effects are cheap but sufficiently effective and for the most part, moderately well done for a low-budget film. Either the effects guys or the director seem to have a thing for explosions and fire. Almost every scene towards the end of the film has at least a couple of characters being burn to death (Always filmed in slow motion) or SOMETHING exploding, be it a car or an old mine cave. Seriously, hasn't anyone ever heard the term; "Stop, drop and roll"!?!?!?

"Miner's Massacre" (Or "Curse of the forty-niner", what ever you want to call it) is cheesy and dumb, albeit entertaining, and as long as you don't have expectations through the roof, you'll be sufficiently entertained.

I'm feeling generous, so I'll give it a 4/10.


"Curse of the Forty-Niner" doesn't really deserve a long and detailed review, so I'll just make some random observations about it:

- Cool opening credits.

- No plot.

- Is there anyone who's ever seen a horror film before and can't guess, within the first 20 minutes, who will survive and who will not among this group of walking stereotypes?

- Hey, that newcomer (Alexandra Ford) is pretty hot!

- Richard Lynch (made-up to look about 100 years old) and John Phillip Law have fun, tongue-in-cheek cameos.

- Karen Black has a bigger role, but she's not fun - she's rather embarrassing.

- Martin Kove is on-screen for about 40 seconds, but still got his name on the video cover. Did they pay him for this appearance or was it the other way around?

- I hate cheap computer-generated effects in horror films.

*1/2 out of 4.


this movie absolutely terrible ..not only was the acting awful but so was the sleep got while this movie played..this movie achieved the all powerful goal of crap ..i watched this movie thinking my 5$ wouldn't b in vein .but i was very wrong ..i guarantee u r better off just reading what i have to say about this unbelievably horrible movie b4 ..puttin yourself in the way of this dignity depriving movie ..i give it a negative 1 for trying..but no please no don't watch this movie..i had friends who joined me for this film..shortly after they were no longer found this movie actually will make u end your life please please don't see it i beg of u. if u see this movie make sure u destroy all copies because this movie is a spawn of Satan.


this movie really SUCKS, SUCKS REALLY REALLY HARD, this movie should be in the Bottom 100, but it is so bad that almost nobody has seen it to vote for her so many times that it should be at the same time of "Manos - the Hands of Fate." I should have him position 1 (awful), but the reason for which I put him 2 was for Eve, the girl of the town that, besides some scenes of nudity, besides, I thought of voting for 3, but like they killed Eve, I returned at 2. it is that movies like this they should not be financed by anybody, since not even they took to the fame or other productions to the actors main, great falsehood, jaja, the history of a mining ghost that kills to "mansalva" and after they put an end to their misdeeds, it reappears, because with the end they shitted it very ugly.

FINAL SCORE (VOTE): 2 (for the nudity and the performance of the beautiful Eve)


What's the point? Hasn't this been done before, better? And again? Why is Werner Herzog wasting his good talents and time with junk like this? Shouldn't he be shooting a movie somewhere--I mean a real movie?

It all felt fake from the beginning. Werner Herzog would never have sought to make a film about the Loch Ness myth--at least not on such a small scale surrounded by losers--so the plot was not believable from the beginning. The actors who are supposed to act like they're not acting were obviously acting. The story was not interesting, the "everyday people" requisite in every mockumentary were invisible, the personalities were stale, the jokes were not funny, the effects were unconvincing and the ending was nowhere to be seen.

I just don't see the point. It's a fake movie about a fake movie. Hah, hah. Perhaps if those who thought up such a movie sought to make one that mocked people who really were out to find a real Nessie, now that could have had some potential. But Herzog is not a believer and never claimed to be. A mockumentary about the cryptozoologist crowd would have had so much more fuel.

It was a miss.


Had she not been married to the producer, Jennifer Jones would not have been the most obvious choice for the leading female role in this tragic tale of an affair between an American soldier and an English nurse, set against the backdrop of the First World War. Her British accent is not perfect, and in the fifties it was unusual for a big romantic lead to go to an actress in her late thirties, even one as attractive as Miss Jones, especially when she was several years older than her leading man.. There were a number of beautiful young British actresses in Hollywood around this time, such as Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Simmons and Joan Collins, any of whom might have been more convincing in the role, but Miss Jones had one important attribute they all lacked, namely a marriage certificate with David O. Selznick's name on it. In the event, the film turned out to be such a turkey that they were doubtless grateful not to have it on their CVs.

The film tells, at great length, the story of the romance between Frederick, an American volunteer serving with the Italian Army as an ambulance driver and Catherine, a nurse with the British Red Cross. After the Italian defeat at the battle of Caporetto, Frederick is wrongly accused of being a German spy and sentenced to death. (The film paints a very harsh picture of Italian military justice; it would appear that Italian Courts-Martial had the power to pass the death sentence after a trial lasting all of thirty seconds without hearing any evidence and without allowing the defendant to be legally represented or to speak in his defence). Frederick manages to escape and to cross the border into neutral Switzerland, accompanied by the pregnant Catherine.

Hemingway's novels have not always been a great success when filmed. Howard Hawks succeeded in making a good version of "To Have and have Not", a film that is considerably better than the book on which it is nominally based, but that is because he largely ignored Hemingway's plot and turned the film into a remake of "Casablanca", set in Martinique rather than French Morocco. Like the 1943 version of "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "A Farewell to Arms" is overlong and fatally slow moving. It is also miscast. Jennifer Jones never makes Catherine come to life. As for Rock Hudson, his assumed Christian name could be unfortunately appropriate. He could be as solid as a rock but also as impassive as one, and in this film his Frederick seems an impersonation of the Great Stone Face. Despite the passion and emotion inherent in Hemingway's plot, the emotional temperature is always far too cool. The picture has little going for it apart from some attractive picture-postcard views of Italian and Swiss scenery. It is hardly surprising that it was not a success and that its failure ended Selznick's career as a producer. 4/10

A goof. Shortly before the battle of Caporetto, an Italian officer states that Russia had already concluded a separate peace with Germany. That battle started in October 1917, at a time when Kerensky's Russia was still fighting alongside the Allies. The Russian Revolution did not take place until November; it was only the "October Revolution" by the old Julian calendar. The new Bolshevik regime signed an armistice with Germany in December 1917, but a separate peace was not signed until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918


This film should be called adventures in Cinemascope. It is like the screenwriter and director tooks the Cliff's Notes page 3 outline and decided that this would be a great vehicle for a film about the Italian Alps. Rock Hudson is pretty good here, but the dialogue bears no resemblance to Hemingway at all. This is a made up version of Hemingway. Hecht, the screenwriter, is a hack. Watch the 1932 version with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. That is great cinema and was made by someone who understood Hemingway and the war in Northern Italy. Gary Cooper is very, very good compared to his performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls where he is stiff as a board and thinks he is in a western.

Anyway, if you are a Hemingway fan, do yourself a favor and do not watch this film. Your best bet is to get the unabridged audio CD and just listen to one of the greatest novels ever written.


Terrible adaptation of Heminway's low key love story. An American soldier (Rock Hudson) falls in love with a British nurse (Jennifer Jones) in Italy during World War 1. What's wrong with this? Virtually everything. Hudson is WAY out of his depth here. He could be a good actor but not in this movie. Jones is far too old for her role (she's 21 in the book--here she's 38...and looks it!). Also her acting wavered between overdone and underdone! They took a simple low-key love story and blew it all out of proportion. The film is fatally long (a little over 150 minutes), self-indulgent and padded to a ridiculous degree. It seems producer David O. Selznick thought he was doing "Gone With the Wind" again. Some of the scenery is truly stunning (even on a small TV screen) but there's not enough of a story to match the images.

SPOILER!!! The ending where Jones dies is supposed to be tragic but the bad acting and overblown theatrics had me fighting not to laugh!

To make matters worse actor Vittorio De Sica overacts to a truly embarrassing degree. Overblown, self-indulgent, badly cast and slow. Pretty terrible. This was (understandably) a financial and critical bomb and ended Selznick's career as a producer. You might want to tune in for some of the scenery at the end but it's really not worth it. I give this a 3.