This is the story of a woman of great courage and compassion. The acting was excellent. I, however, felt clubbed to death by every anti-Jewish cliche known. I lived in the mid-west during the time of this movie's setting and had several Jewish friends. I rarely ever saw the unkind responses shown in this movie. In fact the only times that I ever heard negative comments about Jews were in a few adults who were prejudiced about equally between all the groups different than their own. In this regard, the movie is little different than many "black" movies that go to extremes to show victimizing of their class.


This isn't a movie; it's propaganda. It uses natural empathy with the plight of the Jewish refugees as a tool to stir anti-American feelings. Seriously -- was it necessary to make nearly ALL of the Americans into unfeeling racists who were only marginally better than the Nazis?

Every group appearing in this movie has a right to feel maltreated ... by the filmmakers.

The leading lady is a farce, as well. More thought could and should have been given to her wardrobe ... I mean, beyond how well a given outfit highlights her ample breasts. Having her parade around like a show pony in one cutesy outfit after another is just laughable in light of the subject matter.


Excellent performances by Anne Bancroft and Natasha Richardson fail to rescue this syrupy and predictable propaganda film. It's every bit as exploitive in its own way as the propaganda films the Nazis once made. They too were well acted and brilliantly produced but were made to sell a political message rather than entertain. This film's message may be very different but the technique, the one perfected by Dr.Goebbels, is the same. Like Exodus, it is not a story so much as a political manifesto. Maybe that should be the occasional role of film but frankly I'm tired of having guilt trips laid on me every few months. It's particularly embarrassing that all the American flag waving, done ad nauseam in the second episode, was created by Canadians. (The film was shot in and around Toronto and was in part Canadian financed.)


If it weren't for a goofball romantic subplot ala Top Gun, then this would rate double what I gave it.

The whole detailed presentation of a company going through Navy Seals training from day 1 to graduation is well-realized and it's what makes the film. Pretty much a realistic portrayal.

The subplot of an affair between a recruit and the wife of the Seals CO is just plain dumb and unnecessary except to satisfy the girls who are watching. Pretty much an unbelievable, unrealistic event that detracts from the rest of the show. Just as unbelievable is that this same recruit drops out of the program one minute before graduation. Yeah, right.

Also, the paunchy CO climbing the rope drill with ease is obviously done with some sort of elevator/lift device out of view, and is laughable.


A ridiculous portrayal of Navy SEAL selection and training.

SEALs-to-be go through such a rigorous training that it seems hardly likely that Del Piso would have sufficient energy after daily training to pursue any woman let alone the captain's wife.

Also odd that Del Piso disappears for hours on end to meet with Michelle without being missed. Where does he find the time? And when his team mates are let-down you'd think they'd come down hard for his lack of commitment to the team.

And what is with the civilians strolling through the training exercises?

"Hell Week" seemed like a cake walk compared to what I've be told and read. This can't be anywhere near a realistic representation - if it's no tougher than this I could be a SEAL . . . NOT!

The bottom line is that there are more entertaining love stories (An Officer and a Gentleman) and more realistic movies about military training (Navy SEALs: BUDS Class 234) - watch one of these instead.

Footnote: One excellent shark attack moment at about 77 min into the movie - brief but truly effective.


A nasty little bit of Holocaust revisionism, one wonders whether anyone who liked this film actually thought about it. Sure, Benigni is winsomely charming, but what is he trying to say here? That the concentration camps were not so bad, or at least survivable if one kept one's head or tried a little humor? The film trivializes the deaths of 6 million, while letting everyone else breath a little easier for not having to face, even at the big screen's remove, the completely dehumanizing horror that was Hitler's death machine. If you think "Life is Beautiful" is sweet or uplifting, I invite you to watch "The Last Days," the Spielberg-produced documentary of Holocaust survivors, or even to see "Schindler's List" again. There was nothing sweet about it.


Only the naive and ignorant will find this film charming. Those who know anything about the Holocaust will see it for what it is--a lie that desecrates the memory of six million dead.

Under the Nazis, six million Jews died for no other reason than that they were Jewish. This invests the fact of their Jewishness with transcendent importance. In "Life Is Beautiful," however, Roberto Benigni's character Guido is Jewish only because the film announces that he is. His Jewishness has no other significance; it is not the affirmation of anything; it is a manipulative plot device. Guido's goodness is not attributed to his being Jewish--that is something to be dispensed with quickly, as if it were an embarrassment.

And so Benigni ends up treating the Jews very little differently than the Nazis. For one thing, he shamefully misrepresents the reality of the Nazis' Konzentrationlagers. A Jew would have been murdered for any ONE of the acts of defiance that Guido gets away with. Benigni's film turns the real danger and real violence and real death of the Holocaust into something like a Roadrunner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote never really suffers or dies. But this is a lie: under the Nazis, the Jews suffered and died. They did not get away with carefree acts of defiance.

What is more, the mass of Jews in the camp in which Guido and his son are imprisoned are treated as nothing more than the faceless and nameless background to Benigni's disgusting clowning. They are given no more individuation--no more personhood and uniqueness--than they were by the Nazis themselves.

"Life Is Beautiful" is an obscene exploitation of enormity and sorrow.


This movie is a disgrace; it tries to hide the collaboration of Italian fascists to the deportation of thousands of Jews and non-Jews to death camps during WWII in Italy. Believe me, Italian fascists were as obnoxiously criminal (and sometimes even more) as their German peers. In this fascist revisionist libel Italian fascists are depicted like harmless comical characters untouched by the crimes against humanity, they and their German associates were responsible for, crimes that live and will live in infamy until the end of times.

Death camps according Roberto Benigni were some kind of poorly managed boot-camps in which you could mange to survive by means of being slightly more intelligent than the average prisoner. There's a moment of the movie when Benigni manages to reach the lowest  an endeavour you had thought not possible after one hour and a half of the previous ordeal  it is when he, very underhandedly, provides the viewers with a thick mist in order to veil, that is to hide, a pile of corpses of prisoners murdered by the Nazis.

Let us suppose, just for the sake of the present argument, that a fascist movie can be funny  this is arguably a fascist movie  well there isn't a single funny scene in this poor excuse for a movie, the joke are trite and all of them can be predicted by someone who has seen at least one cheap comedy before.

This thing has been unjustly compared to The Great Dictator, which is maybe the worst movie Charlie Chaplin did, but the the comparison is still unfair, The Great Dictator is an overrated sentimental bad movie, but it is not fascist propaganda like Roberto Benigni's.

If you want to see an excellent Italian comedy dealing with the same subject try Lina Wermüller's Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975) http://imdb.com/title/tt0075040. You will not forget the sequence in which the great Giancarlo Giannini seduces a two tons whale-sized SS woman officer in order to save his life.


Words escape me! Perhaps ludicrous, contrived, insulting come close. There is nothing factual about the depiction of the holocaust in this ridiculous, totally unbelievable mess. Death camps were not nasty places where people toted weights around, got a little dirty but remained shaven, were able to keep their sons not only hidden but alive and well despite a starvation diet, had access to records, phonographs and loud speakers, could basically move about at will and suffer little more than the inconveniences of a run down boarding house. This movie claims the camp where our heroes sojourn is a death camp, (not one of the thousands of concentration camps that were located throughout Nazi occupied territories) complete with gas chambers and ovens. There were only six death camps, all in Poland, and all were dedicated, absolutely dedicated, to the dehumanization unto hideous death of their inmates. Slow agonizing demise from Zyklon B was the easy part; twenty minutes of choking, while clawing at your throat and eyes and it was over. The devastating removal of every vestige of humanity through constant beatings, lack of sleep, lack of food and water, lack of any semblance of medical care, torments that ate away at body and spirit over endless days, was the intolerable part. No one ever spoke to a guard without being shot on the spot. Guido would not have been taken around a bend to be killed, he would have been shot, or beaten to death, or hanged, publically to display for the other prisoners both his impotence and the Nazi's total control over life itself. It is absolutely impossible for a boy to have been hidden for a day much less weeks in a death camp. To depict this living hell as a Stalag full of Schultz's, largely ignoring at least one of the inmates, who gets to clean up and wait tables, with his son, no less, is an insult to every person who has been touched by the real horror of the holocaust. This would have been a great propaganda film for Goebbels to have shown to the Red Cross to show how humane the Nazis really were. If this was meant to work as some laugh-your-way-through-life's-troubles allegory, then a vehicle more appropriate than the greatest genocide ever perpetrated by man against man should have been chosen as the vehicle. As it stands this movie is a travesty.


Being offended or not by the way the Holocaust is depicted in this movie is a matter which belongs to a person's feeling, and nobody has the right to judge other's feelings. Sure, I would not like to be a Holocaust survivor and to be forced to watch this movie, because I would be probably deeply offended.

Personally I was hurt by the extreme superficiality and by the several nonsenses which create really unbelievable situations. In the movie the tragedy is deliberately turned into a tale, from a father to a son, for the psychic survival of the child. But the fiction of the "game" must be confined to the child eyes, and not extended to the whole scenario of the camp. In this way, the show is irritating. From a mere artistic point of view, the movie is not very well directed and acted. Ideas are "old", gags on Nazis, on their way to speak and march, are boring and annoying. Once again, Nazis are shown mostly as stupid and their behaviour arouses mirth. Tragically, they were not !

The great success of the movie in U.S. is amazing. I only hope that young people, facing for the first time this page of our History, will prefer to read books and watch documentaries or, if they like modern movies, Spielberg's "Schindler's List".

P.S. Please, do not compare with Chaplin's "The great Dictator" (1940) ... that was conceived and produced DURING the WWII and not 57 years after!


After all the fuzz and compliments about this movie I thought it was going to impress me big time...it did, but in a negative way. Okay, I can't say it fails completely at making you feel some beauty of life, but it's way too superficial, childish and pretty unbelievable...besides, "The Father" is simply too annoying doing his pretending game. It's just too much sugar in this movie...diabetics rather stay away.


I found this movie strangely unemotional, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was insulted or not. By the end, I didn't care one way or another. As long as I didn't have to listen to that man any longer..Benigni needs an editor on his dialogue. I did enjoy Horst Bucholz's small part, but it was lost in this movie.


Yes, I gave this film a 1. I would have given it a zero, but it was not possible.

I read all your overwhelming comments about this movie and bought the DVD. Started to watch it looking forward to an unforgettable film experience. Well, the film did not disappoint me. Really. It is unforgettable! The worst film since "Plan B from outer space"!


If this movie had been made in America it would have received much more objective criticism. But, for some reason, many film watchers think that they must automatically heap praise upon any foreign made movie because it's the "in" thing to do. I am not surprised by all of the undeserved superlatives and ridiculous "10" votes given to this mediocre film. This movie is watchable but that's about it. The storyline is so implausible and unrealistic that it should be labeled as "fantasy". All of the syrupy comments about the great "love" shown by the father are laughable.


For a Z-Grade movie, this is all right. The acting is better than in a good number of films of this type, and it certainly manages to create mild suspense, (especially in the opening scene). It was a good idea to keep it short; many Z movies try to draw out the story WAY too much, and it turns out terribly.

That being said, this is not a good movie and it deserves nothing more than one or two stars. The acting is awful; the dialog is amateurish; the camera work is atrocious; etc. (It is not good enough to fall into the "so bad it's good" category, if that is any indication).

Thus, I certainly wouldn't recommend this movie unless Z movies are your thing.


Well the Direction was okay, given the potency of the movie. Cinematography was horrid, having allowed flawed lighting in shot movements. The art direction was simple. It dealt with themes of religion. There were I feel undertones of black and white view points. It is a generic horror film. The dialogue had an overabundance of clichés and the shots did little to acquaint the viewer with the characters surroundings. However, this film was not bad given the fact that Poche is a novice film maker. I am a fan of B movies because they are so darned corny and funny, and this one fits the bill. It's 35 minutes of hell.


Pretty decent short film. The technical aspect was not great, some bad sound here and there, but for the budget, it is watchable. Obviously you cannot expect a hit when movies are shot with a low budget and with a skeleton crew(which I'm sure this movie had). The acting was pretty decent overall, and the story was good as well. I liked the Goth(so to speak) girl and the main actress was also pretty good. I did like the end when the guy being interrogated turns out to be a very significant character in the movie(do not wanna spoil it). The movie is about 40 minutes long, so that is a plus because usually movies like this that are too long are hard to watch all the way through.


"The Philadelphia Experiment" takes the intriguing idea of time travel forward and turns it into a routine, often silly thriller. Michael Pare, hot off "Eddie and the Cruisers" stars as one of two WWII soldiers that are time warped to present day (1984) and try to get back. When his buddy does go back Pare seeks him out in 1984 and when he finds him the scene is so ridiculously written it kills the whole movie. Not a chance would the friend act the way he does to his supposedly long lost buddy. It's awkward and unintentionally funny - which can be said for the whole film.


Dreary and flatly directed, 'The Philadelphia Experiment' is a disappointing lump based on a supposedly true story in which sailors Michael Pare and Bobby Di Cicco are transported from 1943 to 1984 during a radar test. Could be intriguing. Isn't. The plot unfolds so slowly, and is directed with so little style, that it's of practically no interest. As Pare gets closer to finding how he ended up in '84 things pick up a little but those developments are skipped over pretty quickly in favour of a conclusion filled with crummy visual effects. Pare injects a little charisma into an otherwise duff cast that includes Nancy Allen in full-on plank mode.


After just watching this film for the first time, I have decided that not only do I want my money back, but I want the one hour and forty five minutes of my life back. Lets start with the plot. This is confusing at best, with two men transported in time from 1943 to 1984, one of whom gets returned, the other not and the one that does not has to save the world from the vortex created by a military experiment. This isn't in itself too bad, but it fails to explain why the man didn't simply return to their base and speak to someone who knew about the experiment, but instead goes on the run across the country, getting involved with a really annoying woman and killing a few people along the way. As for the acting, if people pelted the actors with eggs at a screening, it's probably to go with the ham they served up here. The special effects were disappointing. Any film post "Star Wars" should be able to do better than this. And don't even start me on the eighties hair !!!


This movie is so horrendously bad that it is actually awesome!!! This is the kind of movie that revels (unintentionally) in its atrociousness. There is absolutely no saving grace to this movie whatsoever. Mike Berube as Neil the cameraman is the only member of the cast not 100% bereft of talent of any kind (he has 99% no talent). As for Mr. Patterson's writing and directing ability: One wishes he had kept his penchant for self-expression to himself..... However I am strangely compelled to give this movie a 2/10 just simply because it is so mind-boggingly heinous in its marginal attempts at acting , plot and story that this is without a doubt the most awesome god-awful movie I have ever seen....


Wow I just love the fact that people have seen this movie, I'm just very surprised. I am in the movie and I have only seen 20min's of it(basically just after I get killed off)

I have to say that the acting may seem wooden tho I have to say I don't think my acting was wooden, bad yes but I had emotion! Anyway the movie was the first for the director and I am happy that he at least put himself out there and made the movie. Anyway thats my 2 cents.....

Neil The Cameraman. Oh one thing that I have heard .....I heard some rumors that they were thinking of doing a sequel, if that is the case I would gladly jump on board.


This movie should be used as a demonstration to media students as to why you should NOT use the mic built into the camera to record sound. In many scenes you cannot hear the dialog.

There is a lengthy outdoor conversation scene where you can hear a near roar of crickets in some shots, and none in others. So the lesson there is to record some "room tone" background sound to use to solve exactly this kind of problem. Of course so much cricket sound was recorded probably because they used the camera mic rather than a boom.

So this is an example where a movie is made basically unwatchable because of such poor sound quality.

Also, don't use you friends as actors just because they are your friends.


i was the "henchman" in the black shirt and backwards ball cap with a hellraiser box tattoo, close up when the grenade went off, and I'm about to laugh cause it was so cheesy, but hey it was an easy 225 dollars,but i knew it was a straight to USA network movie when i saw it...but the Germans probably liked it a lot more, it was filmed in new port richey, florida, in basically someones field, the city was so proud that there was a movie being filmed their, that they treated the cast and crew like royalty, and threw them a big party (i.e. free drinks and chicken fingers). even the crew realized what a turd this movie was....one guy just walked off the set, and i had to double for him, look for when the kid falls of the back of the boat and two guys haul him out of the water, they switched us mid scene, because they were to lazy to do a reshoot, and i look NOTHING like the guy i switched with...I'm at least 60 pounds more than him and a half a foot taller...i was the only extra that would get in the water without a fuss, i worked as a plumbers apprentice once...a little water doesn't bother me


OK first off, I would like to say that Hulk Hogan has appeared in some amazingly bad films since he became famous. Most were rather bad and a few just plain unwatchable. But this film is hands down the worst most farcial display of acting I have ever seen, NO LIE.

I was bored one day simply flipping through channels where I come across this film. OK I see Hulk Hogan, being a ex wrestling fan I decided to watch it. At no point could I even comprehend what was going on, I mean where was the plot? even if there was one. Basically its just a movie out in some Florida swamp where Hogan and his wrestling buddies put on some amazingly laughable fight scenes while looking for buried treasure. Other actors chime in and desperately try to save the movie but it just ends of being even more laughable.

I honestly wish I could write to the Hulkster himself and ask for the 99 minutes of wasted life he stole from me. That is how bad this movie is.

On a positive note this film however could be used to show aspiring filmmakers on how not to make movies, that about all it is good for.


What makes this movie so bad? Is that the insane plot about Hulk Hogan's "retired" secret agent finding a treasure map on the back of a turtle and then following it? Is it the sad waste of talent of Robert Vaughan? Is it Grace Jones's almost insulting turn as the baddie and the usual assortment of incompetent henchmen? Or is it the patronising and quite frankly unbelievably immoral ending?

Surely somebody, at some stage of making this picture, must have realised that the only people who were going to watch this was desperate parents who drop their kids in front of rubbish like this and call it "family entertainment"? It's cheap, crass, embarrassing and just not worth the effort. I realise that I may not be the target audience but even so, children should not have to put up with awful movies like this one. Avoid like a nasty aunt at Christmas!

Still, the scenery looked nice.


I'd spent the Saturday night awake, chatting to friends online, and so consequently I was feeling a little tired on Sunday morning. I was staying at a friend's house so there were two of us crashed in his room in front of the computer. We switched the TV on and crashed about 15-20 minutes into this movie.

At first I thought that the movie was a creation of my own tired, over-imaginative mind; OK this is a dream, I'm dreaming this, I can handle this, I ought to lay off the peanut M&Ms.

But no. The more we watched, the more I realized this was real. Very real.

Hulk Hogan was Hulk Hogan, usually sporting a wry little smile that suggested to me "yes I know this film is pants, I'm not taking it seriously". Robert Vaughn was trying desperately to act (doing rather well too). The remainder of the cast (yes Grace Jones, I'm mainly thinking of you) would probably have failed an audition for a Nativity Play on this performance.

But it doesn't stop there. Maybe because we didn't see the start but all kinds of plot lines didn't appear to make sense, nothing seemed to follow on from each other, I never felt any tension in the movie and upon watching the scene near the end with Grace Jones water skiing (?) onto the beach I was left wondering ... "WHY???". The dialogue was pretty poor [IMDB lists no "memorable quotes" which in this case would also make a good plot summary].

I'm left with the general thought of "why was this movie made", except as an example on how not to make a movie.

Closing thoughts. It is the worst movie I have ever seen (and I saw "Robocop 3" at the cinema!), I can't explain it any more than I already have done, you will never complain about movies again. That alone makes this movie a "Must See"!!

It is August. I'm hoping they go on to show "Santa with Muscles" at Christmas.


This was in the bottom 5 of the worst movies I've ever seen. The plot made no sense. The acting was awful. There was nothing right about the movie. At first it's very entertaining to pick out all of the production bloopers, and make fun of the horrid acting (including a person making a "squak" noise for Hulk's parrot instead of having the parrot actually squak.) But after a while it just puts you to sleep. I'm a huge Hulk Hogan fan, but I have no idea why he makes movies like this and "Santa With Muscles." I also don't know why Grace Jones or The Big Show, Paul "Chef Bordee" Wight, agreed to make this. Hulk is very talented and is a tremendous entertainer, but for some reason loves B movies that make him look like an idiot. If you have any love for Hulk, please don't see this movie.


Who makes this stuff.

I watched this on BBC one tedious afternoon ... couldn't they just have showed us Titmarch repeats or something. So it's the Hulk none stop, no ads for what seems an eternity. OK so there's a big crazy world out there to explore, and there are even other channels, seems like hundreds of them these days. Obviously I didn't have to waste my precious hours on this inanity and then more time following it up with this effort to save you your hours; but note to BBC director general; McCinsey's Island into TV licenses of £150 or whatever it is, does not go! Going off at a bit of a tangent there but anyway ...

Seriously ... WHO MAKES THIS STUFF! Hulk Hogan ... I can only assume that the man has some kind of disorder that makes him literally need some kind of attention to survive ... he's wrestling at 53 for god sake!! Obviously the only attention McCinsey's Island will get the 'Hulkster' is, well, if it goes up there as one of the worst pieces of film of all time.

Plot: basically there is none ... everything's built around awfully carried out set pieces ... the most ridiculous one coming at the end where the main evil-doer chases our heroes along the shore, wait for it, on water skis, firing wildly at them before crashing. Hulk's stature and physique, his main 'attributes' as an actor; which I guess are supposed to offer the viewer something in the way of a substandard Arnie; cannot hold him up, given his monotone delivery and constant cardboard cutout appearance.

Anyway there's buried treasure, retired secret agents, treacherous damsels involved and an appearance by another wrestler (I think) for a show down with our favorite bandanna clad all action hero. It all pretty much passed me by. I kept watching it though ... sadly I fear just to able to say 'hey have you seen McCinsey's Island ... has to be the worst film I've ever seen'. That's just the petty type of person I am ... I advise you to avoid this piece of trash like the proverbial plague. I dunno; check out one of the Hulk's better efforts in the time you save yourself ... The Nanny ... now that was a film ...

WHO MAKES THIS STUFF EH?


Those of you who have read my chat thread will know that I have already voted for and commented on this film under another name (agent_grrrr). My reasons for doing so again are purely selfish. This film is a criminal oversight on the IMDb's Worst 100 films ever made because, without a doubt, this film should be included in the top 10 of that chart. "McCinsey's Island" is not da bomb, it's a bomb. It's a giant, stinking, rotten, filthy bomb and must be avoided by all except those of a highly cynical nature.

The plot, such as there is, concerns retired secret agent Hulk Hogan who is brought out of retirement by a strangely lost-looking Robert Vaughn to recover the treasure on McCinsey's Island for reasons that are never fully explained. Maybe they needed all those cheap-looking jewels and gold coins to fund a sequel, who knows? Anyway, things take a turn for the worse in every sense when evil baddie Grace Jones shows up to claim the tat (I mean, treasure) for herself. In short, it's your typical family-entertainment fare which means it's light on story, characterization and effects and high on talking parrots, comical violence and low-speed chases on boats.

Actually, there was a curious phenomenon which occurred while watching the boat chase scene. Although it clearly doesn't, it felt like it lasted close to quarter of an hour. Round and round they went, endlessly sailing through what looked like the Florida Everglades. And it didn't even look particularly fast or thrilling, summing up the movie well. There is nothing to recommend about this movie. There is no reason why adults should watch this and there is little that even the youngest of kids will take from this. Besides, most kids these days won't have a clue who the Hell Hulk Hogan is anyway unless they watched his recent WWE comeback with utter dismay. Incidentally, Vince McMahon (if you ever read this) - why bring back Hulk Hogan AND Roddy "Saggy Tits" Piper? Hulkamania might live forever (if you believe in that sort of thing) but the human body certainly does not.

I think that you are all well aware of how strongly I feel about this film. It is easily the worst film I have seen since "Dungeons & Dragons" (and I paid money to see that!) and quite possibly, a contender for the worst film of all time. However, the producers were clever. By never releasing the film in cinemas (except Kuwait, of all places), they tired to bury this film. That's why you'll never see this film on DVD or rarely on TV for the unfortunate networks that bought the rights to it. They bury the film and hope that we won't notice. But we're better than that. We know offensive film-making when we see it and we see it here, cowering in fear beneath our steely gaze. Therefore, I issue an plea to all for view this movie or read this comment. Vote for this movie and get this installed in the Worst 100 Films according to IMDb users. If you have seen it then you have my sympathy - take your revenge and vote! If you haven't seen it then prepare yourself to watch a movie so bad it makes "Gigli" seem like "Gone With The Wind". Then return here and cleanse your soul by doing the right thing - voting! Think about how many schoolbooks this film's budget could have bought! Think about the hospitals, the charities, the orphanages that might have survived had "McCinsey's Island" never been made! Think about the children! Together, we can stop this evil before any more films of this nature are released on an unsuspecting and undeserving audience. You have the vote - use it wisely.


This movie stunk. I mean, it's hard to imagine seeing much worse, but Santa Claus with Muscles could do it. But what a stinker. I mean, a real bomb. The story is dumb, the dialog make the story seem great. A parrot with a food obsession? That was possibly the best part! ick!


I am a huge fan of the Earthsea books and have been since the 1970s. I was so excited to hear the books were being adapted into a mini-series, particularly now with the CGI possibilities out there. To say this was a huge disappointment is the understatement of my year. Unlike some, my dismay is not because they changed the story from the books - screen adaptations do that all the time, sometimes to an extreme degree like here. But for that kind of adaptation to be good, you still need good casting, good writing, good acting, and good direction. There was none of that here.

Even my husband, who is not a fan of the books, didn't want to keep watching it (we tuned out after about 45 minutes and then looked in twice more for about two minutes each), purely because the script was so wooden (oh, for the lyricism of Le Guin's original prose!) and the line reading by the actors was so poor - it was like watching a high school play without a breakout star. They took what was a subtle, UNIQUE (the operative word to the max) series of books and made it grotesquely derivative - heartbreaking, given how truly original Le Guin's world was. She had no Sauron or Voldemort equivalent in her books (think about it, you fans of the books) - her whole point was there is only the evil that men do. In her Earthsea, no one is completely evil but everyone is capable of evil acts (even Ged). But obviously Hollywood can only deal with external, black and white conflicts - and so it had to invent a big bad villain (with only a glancing association with an original Le Guin character). I started out very nervous about this, because Ged was cast with blond curly hair - but I couldn't have possibly imagined how profoundly awful it would be.

Please, everyone who is reading and writing these comments - don't blame Le Guin. This mini-series has virtually NOTHING to do with her books.


Treasure in, Garbage Out. This can hardly be called an adaptation of the novel, as the miniseries has almost nothing in common with the books except a few - not all - of the names. The story has not been changed, but discarded, and a hackneyed Swords & Sorcery 'epic' put in its stead. Ged's solitary search for understanding is replaced by a buddy flick, with Vetch now providing comic relief. In a curiously inconsistent approach to political correctness, women are introduced to Roke, but the black characters are played by white actors, with only one notable exception. (Yes, Ged, Vetch, Jasper, Nemmerle - excuse me, 'Archmagus' - were all black in the books.) Heck, even the Shadow isn't a shadow anymore. Any resemblance to the book is strictly for market appeal.

As a movie/miniseries, it fails. The dialogue is laughable, the acting generally wooden, the special effects not up to the grand effect desired. This would-be LOTR/Harry Potter comes across more as Dungeons and Dragons. Glover mails in his lines, Ashmore fails to achieve the depth of character necessary to make the audience feel the change before and after the incident on Roke Knoll, Calvert turns Kossil into another tiresome scheming vixen; Roche at least has fun with the only role with no counterpart in the novels, and he hams it up royally.

It's simply amazing that the script ever got greenlighted.


The Sci Fi channel should have put some of their marketing money into production, because this was not only a BAD adaptation of an incredible book, it was the worst I've ever seen. If you have read the books, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you haven't, go to the library or bookstore (they're worth owning) and spend the time in the book instead of wasting it on this worthless show.

A few key points of my utter disenchantment (pun intended): 1) Ged was the same age throughout the entire movie when in the books we get to follow him from age 10 to 80. 2) There is absolutely no sex in the book, but you get a nice bedroom scene in the first 5 minutes of the movie. COME ON. The books offer MORE than enough material to engage the reader. You don't need to whore the characters, although Sci Fi managed to make one up for just that purpose. 3) Bad acting. It took me back to the days of MTV's "Undressed". 4) Lame ass CGI. After seeing Sci Fi do OK with Dune, I was hoping for much better graphics in this movie. 5) Most importantly, Le Guin's books won awards for what they are. IMHO, Sci Fi showed an inordinate disrespect for that by bastardizing the plot into something completely different. BOOOOOOOOOO!

To sum up, don't see it. Don't even give it a second glance. Anyone associated with this atrocity needs to have their head handed to them on a magician's staff. If you want to see an Earthsea worth seaing (a pun on the level of the Sci Fi production), get the books. Or borrow mine; but you'll have to wait a few days as I read them again to regain the enchantment.


This was the most appalling adaptation of a story I have seen in quite some time. It does violence to the fundamental story line of LeGuin's books--no wonder she has publicly distanced herself from it.

For one thing, Ged (that's his true name, by the way, and everyone on Earthsea has them) is not a petulant teenager. He is impetuous, but not petulant. There was also no Christian subtext in the books. Ged did not rise from the dead; he was re-born when he received his true name, but that happened when he was seven, and is something he shares with every other Archipelagan.

The people of the Archipelago are red-brown to black. They are not pasty Chlorox white. A series that had non-whites as its protagonists was a rare thing in the sixties and seventies--whites don't need to appropriate this one now.

The God-King was not trying to conquer all of Earthsea in order to conquer death. He does not succeed in an attack on Roke, and he does not knife the Archmage.

Normally, I understand the compromises necessary to translate a book to a film. The two move at different paces and have different story telling needs. So if dialogue wanders, or secondary plots disappear--fine, so long as the original author's intent and main story line are preserved. This adaptation (in which the producer, Robert Halmi, claimed to speak for Ms. LeGuin (and called her "miss"--MISS, to a woman who has been in the forefront of feminism for over thirty years!!!!!!!)) did not even maintain the same story or the same intent. LeGuin has noted that the whole story revolves around two young people coming into their power--and the responsibilities and problems thereof. There was none of that in this story. For shame, anyone responsible for decisions about this film: you did terrible work this time around.


One of the main problem is the massacre of most of the motivations that guided Ged & helped me relate to him as a character. In the original, Ged started out with a delight in control over other creatures; this delight was warped by his pride, which was the origin and core of the conflict. His desire to impress arises from his interactions with a witch's daughter, leading to his first summoning of the shadow (not to mention the fact that the daughter plays a key role later in the story). In an equal-and-opposite kind of way, Ged's pride and power unleashed his own potential destruction. The mini-series detaches the characters from almost any sense of motivation, turning them into pieces passionlessly moving about in something akin to a bad D & D adventure.

For the record, I voted with a rating of 2/10. Under ordinary circumstances, I need to black out from the pain before I rate something this low; unfortunately, the fact that the movie claims to somehow be related to Le Guin's series warrants a further deduction for misrepresentation.


Two-thirds through last night's show--the first half of EARTHSEA--I muttered to my wife, "This is so bad." She said, "So tomorrow you'll be at the computer typing up your gripes to someone." I looked at her indignantly and said something like, "Ah, why waste my time?" Of course, she was right, so here I am. An Earthsea adaptation is long overdue; I'm just so sad that it was done so shabbily, with such an eye (apparently) toward anticipating what the unimaginative masses would like to see, as opposed to the rich, subtle, mystical world that Ursula Le Guin so beautifully created in her great Earthsea novels. I don't have the heart (or time) to break the mini-series down, bit by bit, to show what's wrong with it. Let's just say that the screenwriters, producers, and director insisted on reshaping a great work of popular art into a cookie cutter shape, substituting clichés for subtleties and an "epic" (read Lord of the Rings) war story for what should have been a personal struggle with good/evil. Worst, I suspect that in Part II, tonight, we're all gonna see Ged, whose little cheek scar only adds to his overall "hotness," smooching a princess (the SMALLVILLE babe). This thing is almost as bland as last month's elections. Mr and Ms. Producers, either do Le Guin justice and tell the story right or don't bother!


What an abortion.

1) Ged does not have a girlfriend. He shows off to the black-haired sallow (East Asian?) half-witch daughter of an evil sorceress who both repels and attracts him. She does not wish him well.

2) Ged's Dad is not a blustery stock comedy character. He is an ill-tempered village blacksmith who does not hesitate to beat Ged and is far more menacing than cuddly.

3) The witch of Ten Alders, Ged's first teacher is not a motherly good witch type. She is strange and fey and tries to enslave Ged with her spells.

4) The battle of Ten Alders is not fought in daylight and does not involve Ged singlehandedly tricking the Kargides into going over a cliff.

5) The title 'Magus' is never used in the books.

6) oh, yeah GED is the secret name and Sparrowhawk is the use name. Additionally before he is given the name Ged by Ogion, his name is Duny.

7) There are no girls at the school of Roke. Women become village witches or evil sorceresses (kind of a high-born witch) but never mages.

8) The Doorkeeper of the school of Roke is not an amusing trickster, but a mysterious, mild but powerful mage, one of the nine Masters of Roke.

9) Jasper is politely condescending to Ged, but it is mostly Ged's own sense of inferiority that causes him to take such extreme umbrage.

10) Vetch is not a fat stock comic sidekick character, but a stolid stout-hearted friend, occasionally light-hearted but mostly serious and with a great deal of the good sense that initially Ged lacks.

11) The Archmage Nemmerle spends all his power and his life closing the hole that Ged creates to summon Elfarran.

12) It takes Ged a whole year to recover from the attack of the shadow and he is described as seriously scarred.

13) Jasper does not become a Mage.

14) I don't even know where to begin with the dragon thing, but the dragon that Ged defeats by using his name is Yevaud, the corrupt dragon of Pendor, not Orm Embar eldest and wisest of all dragon kind. Way too much wrong here to even go into.

15) Kossil is not a young blonde junior priestess vixen, she is a heavyset middle-aged High Priestess of the Kargish God-King who believes only in power.

16) The God-King is not hunting Ged, sleeping with his priestess or making war on the Inner Islands. He doesn't even come into the story.

17) Tenar is not a junior priestess, she is Arha, the reincarnation of the High Priestess of the Nameless Ones. Technically she is the Senior Priestess of the Temple complex.

18) Thar is not some kind of beautiful, kind and wise mother superior. She is the tall, thin High Priestess of the Twin Gods who is stern but fair and not cruel to the young Arha.

19) The Nameless Ones are quite different from the shadow that comes through the hole that Ged opens. The Nameless ones are ancient, chthonian, maleficient powers bound to the place of the Stones. The shadow that comes through the hole is more like that evil that lurks in Ged's own heart given form and power.

20) The Nameless Ones do not need to be kept from escaping into the world. They just don't do that - they are bound to the tombs of Atuan. Arha's job is to propitiate the Nameless Ones with rituals and blood offerings. In the past the Nameless Ones were consulted as an oracle but not at the time of the tales.

21) Invade Roke? Please. Things that threaten Roke can't even GET there. The Roke wind blows them away.

22) The shadow does not talk to Ged and profer the usual "You can't know the POW-ah of the DARK SIDE" kind of temptations

23) Vetch is not killed by the gebbeth and brought back to life.

24) There is no 'Amulet of Elfarran' The thing that Ged and Tenar put back together is the Ring of Erreth-Akbe which when rejoined allows them to recover the lost rune of peace. This does not magically kill all monsters, make the sun shine brighter and bring forth in Earthsea goodwill to men.

25) Ged and Tenar do not kiss and become lovers. In fact in Tehanu it's mentioned that Mages are celibate and that this is currently enforced with spells which make it impossible to even think of them that way.

26) Oh, yes there's PLENTY more


For the lack of having anything better to do, I decided to plow through all 3 hours of this sorry excuse for television (I know, it's supposed to be 4, but I discounted the ads). I bet I know why they put so much into marketing this so-called "Earthsea miniseries." Things that are great do not need to convince people that they are great. On the other hand, things that aren't do, because if everybody's first impression would be their most lasting, it would not be a good one. So the hype was there to provide this good first impression to buffer what was to come.

Allow me to start with the acting. I've watched student- and home-made movies that have more convincing acting than this. Let's start with the scene when Ged and his father spot this attack on their village. They shout loudly as these soldiers pass beneath them. Then, Ged's father notices the soldiers and says something like, "Go warn the others." Right, so Ged runs off, leaving the father standing there looking at his feet as his son goes off into danger. I couldn't help but laugh.

A scene or two later, these soldiers begin charging a bunch of townsfolk who are simply standing in the middle of the road with something in hand, waiting to be mowed down. The soldiers, charging uphill of course, look like their armor's winding them. I could almost see them huffing and puffing as they reach not a foot away from the mass of villagers. Suddenly, a cloud flys into their face, and even though everybody is only a foot away, they looked like they were taking the opportunity to catch their breath before finishing those last twelve inches.

Cut to a few minutes later after a cheeze chase scene that looked like a crowd had found something strange and was moving cautiously towards it. So this wizard comes along and brings back to life a dead guy in front of a whole town. What do the people do? Stay silent and whisper to each other when the wizard and his newly-reincarnated step aside to talk of course!

Next is the voice acting. For about two hours, I thought the main character's name was Gant or something along those lines. How many ways can Ged be butchered? Watch it and see! Granted, it got better towards the end. But for the first half hour or so, I couldn't make heads or tails over what some of these people were saying. It wasn't as if they were speaking with any emotion either. The voice acting was either flat, forced, or unintelligible. On the bright side, there were a few scenes where it was tolerable, and some where it was actually convincing. If only I could say that about the whole movie...

I don't expect much in terms of cinematography or costumes, sets, props, etc. from a television series like this, so I expected nothing incredible. Of note however, is the mangling of the "CG" in the movie. As somebody else said, replace the CG with clay, and it would have been just as good, if not better. There's this talk about releasing a "shadow," but what it looked like was an imp or some winged demon. If that's a shadow, then so am I.

Now, let me work on the screenplay. Before I get to the story, allow me to say that the dialogue was uninspiring and about as emotionless as the acting. Of course, it would be logical that with bad acting came a bad script, and without question, most of the lines in the script either did not have the emotional impact by using what I call "weak" words and constructions, or simply did not make any sense with regards to what was happening. To give a good example, later on in the "series" (who in their right mind calls a two-part show a "mini-series" anyway?), somebody just finishes saying no upon the pain of death to one person when this character suddenly seems too afraid of dying to reject the next person wanting the same thing. Oops, must have wanted to live after all...

Finally, I've arrived at the good stuff: the storyline. If anybody reading this wants to know how far this storyline has deviated from the books, go to official boards of this movie (quite easy to find actually) and read up on what was changed. I, having not read the books, did not see the movie with such a bias, and thus was not influenced by their contents. And yet, I still have nothing good to say. Let me put it this way, if I took every cliché out of this show, I think all I would have left would be a bunch of clowns talking to each other with only the last syllables of their gibberish loud enough to be heard. So all the clichés with their predictable conclusions have to be put back in before an intelligible line could be uttered. If I wanted to watch brainless drivel like this, I would tune instead to the WB. But even if everything else was perfect, it still wouldn't have been good. It wouldn't be half as bad, granted, but still not yet good either.

For one, there was no sense of time. Echoing what others stated before me, it seemed like the whole thing took place over a series of days. They obviously said something about weeks, but it felt like everything could have happened within the span of one. Without a sense of time, there wasn't even so much as a sense of development and growth in the characters. And so things that were supposed to be emotional, and were acted out as an emotional scene, albeit poorly, undoubtedly invoked a sense of bewilderment instead.

Along the same lines, the storyline was supposed to convey an epic feel. However, it not only fell short, but was missing several key ingredients. First, it felt like one long "monster-of-the-week" television show. The conclusion (after the climax) was about all of two minutes long. For another, many of the loose threads were left hanging. Granted, it largely revolves around one central figure. However, an epic's side characters are nearly as important as its main characters, and they have their own stories, even if it is one never told. Their actions must count. This certainly was a monster-of-the-week show in that people came and went with almost no consequence. Here, they did their thing, interacted with the main character and maybe left a mark upon him (in this case, this was blatantly untrue), and that was that.

Then, there were the plot holes. Forget that this was supposed to be a reference to a larger work. These plot holes were not pieces of the world left out because of time and budget constraints. If this "shadow" wanted to devour its summoner, why did it initially flee? If "Dumbledore" (actually named archmagus in the show) was so powerful, why didn't he just wipe out the attackers while they were at sea? He did say he wanted to prevent the loss of lives. Wait, maybe he couldn't because the evil king was on board one of the ships, and the king needed them to advance the plot. What happened to their staves when Ged was caught? One would think he disappeared them, but that possibility was already ruled out a moment before. Which reminds me, why were they not being chased inside, and why did those inside not hear them when they entered and quickly slammed the door shut? Let me just say that if this was even partially true to the original story, many of these issues would have been thoughtfully resolved one way or another, since they would have been addressed in the original story.

There are moments...every so often, I would catch a glimpse of the real world behind this shadow, the real Earthsea that this work only pays lip service to, and I would wonder how great the world of Earthsea truly is supposed to be. I hear this is supposed to be like a "Starship Troopers," and that gives me hope.

Well, if this movie has done one good thing, it certainly has inspired me through its deficiency and overall suckiness (OK, not a word) to actually go read the books. I would suggest everybody else do the same as well.


Well, my husband and I are both avid EARTHSEA fans - fans of the books, that is ... this mini-series was so horrid, it was almost funny. The only resemblance to the books was the names of the characters and the setting - other than that - the storyline was trashed. MOST of the characters were badly miscast and only bore a lightly tainted resemblance to the characters created in the books. If you have NOT read LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy, you might enjoy this mini-series **MIGHT** since you will have nothing to base your disfavor on besides stiff acting and predictable plot-line... If you HAVE read the trilogy, PLEASE do yourself a favor and watch something else - or re-read the books - or take a nap - anything! It left such a bad taste in my mouth, I'm going to have to RE-read the books myself, just to be able to return to an untainted version of Earthsea. bad, bad, bad


No redeeming value. A cheap piece of trash that bears the same resemblance to the books by LeGuin as a Ford Pinto does to a pinto stallion. Everyone involved in this production should be ashamed.

The producers were clearly looking for a way to rip off Harry Potter and/or the Lord of the Rings when they stumbled upon this venerable series of fantasy books. Obviously they were just looking for a "brand name" to slap onto their uninspired swords-and-sorcery tale. To get the Earthsea stories to fit this mold, they have stripped out everything original, worthwhile and challenging about the original books. It's not even clear the screenwriters read the original books, they appear to have written down the character names and geographical features and started from there.


It is a complete catastrophic ruining of one of the greatest epic fantasy books. It seems that whoever wrote a script for this movie didn't cast a glance to this Ursula K. Le Guin's masterpiece. The original storyline was almost completely changed, the characters were awfully presented, even the names and appearance of some of them were wrongfully represented, and many events that happened in the movie are nonexistent. Since I've read the book one day before watching the movie, I even didn't manage to find the meaning of making a movie by the book in the manner this movie was filmed. It gives totally different picture of almost all characters that appear in the book, skips the events of great importance for the story and make up the events that ruin the atmosphere and the story itself. Dreadful experience...


It is exactly _that_ bad. No wait, it's worse. The acting is not very good, which is of course to be expected. I wouldn't mind it, were the cast and script more appropriate. Ged as a blond blue-eyed blacksmith must be close to the exact opposite of how he must have looked in the mind of U.LeGuin, but I could live with that. Tenar as a cheery little gel, on the other hand, is just not Tenar. Call her Mindy.

As for the adaptation itself it is horrible. I mean that literally : it bestows horror. I really do wonder what was on the mind of whoever wrote the script, to result in this kind of abomination. Whoever it was, please do try to understand the actual book before doing it again (better yet, don't do it ever again). The one with all the words on it, you know.

It has won awards and fans all over the world for a reason.


I first read the Earthsea books by Ursula K. LeGuin back when I was probably about 9 or 10. They were wonderful - I could feel my imagination soar and create mental images of the characters, the environment, the storyline... mainly based on the wonderful writing of Ms. LeGuin. When I saw that the SciFi channel was going to air a miniseries based on the Earthsea books (and man did they plug it over and over...), I was instantly enthused about it! I had to see it! I marked it on my calendar! No one else was allowed to watch the TV while this was playing on the day it premiered!

When I actually did watch the miniseries on the SciFi Channel, my reaction was of complete disgust - the storyline, while using parts from the actual books, was neither complete nor in order, the characters didn't seem at all like they should be (even including their descriptions in the books), and everything just seemed wrong. The acting by Isabella Rosselini and Kristin Kreuk, and a couple of others, were decent enough, and the sets seemed to be well made, but that's about the only good things I can say about it. Probably the only element that matched my mental images that I had formed from reading the books was the gibbeth character.

It's a shame when production companies and television/movie studios are allowed to take some great work of written fiction and butcher it to the point that the original author is embarrassed about it (see Slate 12/16/2004 - http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2111107 for Ursula K. LeGuin's own words about how "SciFi Channel ruined my books"). Authors should be allowed to have final say about how scripts adapting their works are developed, instead of having to sit back and watch the monstrosities that are created just because they sold the rights to their works to a studio. Shame on you, SciFi Channel... I wonder how badly you're going to screw up "Battlestar Galactica"? Perhaps they should just stick to playing science-fiction movies and series reruns.


This mini-series takes everything that was original in the books and replaces it with a cliché. It takes everything that was unique in the books and replaces it with something generic. It takes everything that was true in the books and replaces it with something false. The women exist only as extensions of the men -- they are endlessly willing to sacrifice themselves or to perform menial tasks. They are fooled by tricks that wouldn't fool a ten year old and praised for completing tasks that a six year old could complete with ease. And yet, the mini-series is most popular with women under 18 or over 45. I wonder what that tells us. By the way, someone should tell the writer, who seems to specialize in ruining classic fantasy written by women, that "grasp" and "last" don't rhyme.

Rick Norwood sfsite


What can I say to decry this artistic atrocity that has not already been said? Certainly it is worthwhile to repeat the complaint that the racist producers of this shameful exploitation of a beloved book series and it's author's good name to make money with no concern for quality or pleasing viewers. To make all the black heroes of the books white for the movie, leaving only one token black character is inexcusable. What possible reason could there be for this whitening of the cast besides racism? I challenge anyone to give me one good reason for changing all the black protagonists to white. They can't do it because there is no possible good reason. Again, this is racism, plain and simple. By the way, I am a white curly blonde haired guy myself, all the more reason to feel shame and sorrow that our society is still this openly racist.

But here's a point no other reviewer seemed to notice. In the last shot (check it, tivoers) after the hero and heroine kiss for no good reason (spontaneous horniness brought on by increased universal harmony presumably causing all nearby to pair up and go at it) the soldiers surrounding the temple suddenly start to hug each other for no apparent reason. Perhaps the universal harmony horniness has hit them too. Are we to imagine a giant orgy followed? If not, then why the sudden kissing and hugging? I guess the producers needed a neat and simple way to show that all is well, so they slap on a clichéd movie/TV ending with everyone kissing and hugging despite there being no reason for it in the plot. Or perhaps they just needed a way to explain away the warrior subplot they invented for the miniseries. Having no resolution to it they show the soldiers breaking out in a group hug-fest so we will understand that their quest for world domination ended in the big universal harmony wave. I am truly disgusted and offended by this piece of excrement, but at least I got one good laugh at the thought of the soldier's orgy. Anyone else notice this?


If Ursula LeGuin was dead, she would be turning in her grave. Since she isn't, she can only watch in horror how they mangled one of the best fantasy series ever written. Almost every character looks and behaves like an idiot, especially those who are kind and good. Bad guys are even worse. You can see that they spend a lot of money in this productions, it doesn't look cheap or unpolished, but it's completely wasted. Writers, or whoever is responsible, used the book as a very faint guideline, but their story makes little sense; if I haven't read the book before, I am not sure I would "catch their drift". A very sad attempt and a waste of time. Better see anime version.


I saw this mini series a couple of years ago after searching on the internet and found this film adaptation from Canada (I live in England) and I though 'great' so I bittor... err... obtained a copy and watched it all - I'm not sure how - in abject horror.

Now there are numerous comments here - the majority in fact - which will tell your if you even got to reading THIS review, why it invokes such horror. Now I'm not a fan of Le Guinn, I've only read the first 'Wizard' book, not even the series. It follows a young wizard called Sparrowhawk through his life's trials as he sails around earthsea, a fictitious archipelago from ages old. It's a fairly straightforward story. However, it's such an extraordinarily exquisite and authentic experience it's emotional simply through the quality of the composition of the narrative itself, story content aside. I'm not an obsessed fan, I just know when something is really good, and this TV production ON ITS OWN was the typical trash you see on TV every day (except I quit watching TV in 1999 so I don't have to suffer) - in that sense it's fairly normal, and OK production. But in comparison to the story it's allegedly based on it's such an immense, indescribably travesty that, - well, I can't describe it. It should never have been made. They should have made a film of some talented unknown young (or old) fantasy writer in Canada instead.

Why should this matter? It doesn't really does it. However as one previous reviewer said, quite rightly: "...its almost impossible for filmmakers to make a movie about a loved book without disappointing their fans." I have to disagree with other texts in this 'genre' however - Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Narnia - all clearly with staggering budgets of course and various contract obligations obviously in the case of the irritating though opportunistic and hard working Rowling. They did stick verbatim to the story lines.

Anyway I don't have time to slate this really, I'm only reviewing it to give it the one star it doesn't even deserve to take the average rating down, it's much too high because of all these people who don't know any better reviewing it without having knowledge of the book. I know, it's anal, in any other case I'd really not bother, Rowling, CS Lewis (the g@y tw@t, I wish his publisher had sacked him) Pullman, even Tolkein, any book, I don't really care, I'd enjoy the book, and/or enjoy the film, or not. However there's something kinda special about this book - not spectacular, just really tight storytelling. Well you can read it and find out. This TV adaptation is agonising.

My main beef is that, Lord of the Rings aside (obviously) This book, A Wizard of Earthsea, is the most worthy of making into a really long, really expensive film - more than anything by CS Lewis or Rowling (she seems to have taken the main premise of her Potter books FROM Wizard of Earthsea in fact, the magicians school.

Rant over. If you've not seen this production, never see it, watch Moonacre or Stardust or something, and buy Le Guinn's books.


First I will admit, I did not watch the whole mini-series all the way through and jumped around bit after the first part because I was so disappointed. I will also add that I've read the books a few times, so my expectations were probably high, especially after Lord of the Rings.

Before I give my comments on the mini-series, after reading the various comments from other viewers, I'm convinced the standards of viewers have dropped and the shallowness of the average viewer cannot be overestimated. There is no way this mini-series should rate above a 5 of 10.

The acting was not bad, but I did get the sense that most of the cast was completely unfamiliar with the books and the stories. The whole series felt mundane and unoriginal. The fresh minimalism of the Earthsea series was lost in the typical fantasy treatment given to the stories. As a reader, I was also disappointed in the casting and the dramatic differences between the books and the mini-series.

You could tell from the casting and the way situations were changed in the mini-series that the producers were trying for a younger audience used to Harry Potter and other highly derivative fantasy works (the J.K. Rowling fans will want to murder me, of course). The books could be considered slow by today's standards, but the had an undercurrent of sadness that made them more powerful. The aura of the books was completely lost in the mini-series. There was no sense of history like you feel when watching Lord of the Rings or some of the better fantasy movies (Dragonslayer, say).

The 3 stars I give the mini-series comes from the generally good production values and the commitment to making a mini-series rather than trying to compress the whole series into 2 hours or so. I would have preferred that they had just made a 2 hour movie perhaps compressing the first two books, than the radical changes and alterations that were made for the mini-series. In short, it was a typical Hollywood-corrupted production that had so much promise only to be ruined. Overall though, the mini-series was a below average effort for such a promising story. The producers of the mini-series should have just said it was "inspired" by Earthsea and used a different name. A decent example of this type of thing is the recent Sci-Fi channel mini- series, "Tin Man". They didn't call it Oz anything and totally re-imagined Wizard of Oz. It wasn't great, but much better than Earthsea.

One can only hope that the failure of the Earthsea mini-series won't close the door to future attempts to re-imagine the books on film. Lord of the Rings was famously messed up by a partial animated version, so there is always hope.


Har, har, har. Sci Fi channel strikes again with another adaptation that sucks the big one. Not content with ruining Battlestar Galactica last year, they now present us with this most dire of literary conversions - The Legend of Earthsea.

Now, I recall reading Wizard of Earthsea back in my childhood. But I can't recall anything much about it - too many other books since then. So I approached this adaptation with an almost unbiased view. However, despite not having any gripes against the film on the basis of "It's not like the books!", I do have a lot of grievances based on the fact that it's just total rubbish.

First off, the acting. None of the actors were in any danger of drowning during the making of this show simply because they were all so horribly wooden and would have floated without a problem if they'd fallen in. My two personal favourites were the chap who played Ged's father and the King of something-or-other who wanted to rule the world.

Ged's father delivered most of his lines atrociously badly. Especially when he was supposed to convey some sort of feeling at the time. The scene where Ged goes over the cliff saw him giving such a fake show of grief I expected the villagers to stare at him as strangely as if he had just burst out laughing.

The King of god-knows was only slightly (and I mean very slightly) away from a mustachio-twirling villain. His overacting just got worse as the film went on. He was chewing up scenery at a ferocious rate of knots. Plus, his crown just looked pants. Like something you'd get out of a cereal box. But at least it distracted you from his agonizing mugging at the camera.

Then there was the CGI. My pet-hate is CGI that doesn't look even remotely real and guess what? Earthsea has awful CGI in spades. The three standouts, though, are as follows.

Firstly, any scene where the CGI map fades into the "real" world. Laughable. Reminded me of the old Hammer "Wolf-man" movies where Lon Chaney "slowly" changes into the wolf man. Not at all convincing there, but at least they had no technology as an excuse. Here it just looks as shoddy and rushed as it is.

Next we have the scenes of the port (Couldn't tell where it was meant to be) which had piers and cranes and boats and all kinds of CGI things. They would have looked fantastic in any computer game I played oh.....five years ago. Here, they look like what they are...very cheap-ass CGI.

And finally, the dragon. I haven't been so insulted by a CGI dragon since the Dungeons and Dragons movie. The fact that its size also seemed to change during its scenes was also totally risible. As for realism, forget it. This dragon is to realism as Barney is to dinosaurs.

There were also a number of plot inconsistencies that sprang into glaring obviousness during my torturous observation of this film. Firstly, just how does an entire school of wizards, who control the winds (among other things) not manage to defeat a sea-borne armada of men by the simple expedient of, say... blowing them away? And the Gebbeth? What was that meant to be? Something scary I expect in the books. But here, we're treated to an actor who has a whole "Uncle Fester" thing going on. About as scary as Ronald McDonald. No... wait....Ronny is scary....I take it back... Unca Fester was less scary than Ronald. Laughable in fact.

Final gripe. The costumes. What pantomime show did they steal these from? Despite the odd smear of dirt here and there there was something about these "outfits" that told you if you looked in the seams you'd find a shiny new care label. Maybe they got a job-lot of left-overs from "Hercules - The Legendary Journeys" - whatever, they are not good.

Mercifully, the entire program is already fading into a murky haze. Which is a good thing, because the last thing I need when I get hold of the actual books to read is to have the awful scenes of this production spring into my mind's eye. That would be too much like a waking nightmare.

Even as a non-Earthsea fan it had nothing to offer me that hasn't been done bigger, better and frankly, with downright more heart, elsewhere.

Avoid!


This was a slow moving, predictable film full of attempts to evoke cheap emotional responses from the audience.

The acting was beyond dull. As is typical for this type of film the script was probably five pages long with most of it consumed with "...then there was a long drawn out silence...". By the time of the main actress' tenth drawn out silence I was getting irate.

Further to the point, this German film appears to have come from someone more worried about the soundtrack than the script. A love of "Moonlight Sonata" and "Road to Cairo" may be admirable, but not when the absence of such masterpieces would leave behind a film without the capability to evoke an emotion otherwise. I found myself slightly disgusted with the obvious attempt at using music as a kind of tear-jerker, something that only suggests an inability to do it through screen performance.

There are other pretentious and annoying little snippets within this film, such as a repeating animal noise, and other "symbolic" imagery and sounds. These only serve to reinforce the aforementioned disgust, but they also play a dual role of destroying any mystery about the ending and making this one of the most predictable and uninteresting films ever made.

The ending was so blatantly predictable that most people would probably guess what will happen from about thirty minutes in. Suffice to say, the ending was in the same chord as the rest of the film, pretentious twaddle that leaves you feeling cheated and used like Pavlov's Dog...


I saw this as part of a European Film Festival at the AFI Silver Spring, MD theater. The festival supposedly gathers some of the best European films, including over ten foreign film entries and the 2007 Palm d'or 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 days. That combined with Nina Hoss winning best actress at Berlin Film Festival, I thought I would see an interesting film. Much to my dismay, I ended up watching a predictable movie that has been done at least a dozen times before. Within the first five minutes of the film, I was able to predict the editing. Part of me spent the next 85 minutes hoping I was wrong about my prediction, sadly I was not. Beyond the predictability of the film, it's also directionless. Overall I found the film to be a waste of time and would not recommend this film.


Well, I know about Hitler and all the bad things that Germany did at WWII.

But still, I don't understand, why 60 years after-wards, we still have to suffer by having awful German cinema ! (I do like some Fassbinder films)

Why are there only films about Hitler/DDR or these empty theater films for bored bank-workers?

Why only these "Quality Films"? Films that imitate the "Good Taste" of the past? Films that imitate the film language of Bresson, only taking out the content and the originality he had?

God, please help Germany.

Give us ART! no more Endless Restorations of the past!


Whilst there are some intelligent references towards the relationship between the former East and West regions of Germany, the film as a whole drags on far too long in what seems a never ending, repetitive cycle of tiresome and boring events. The dynamic and exciting world of business is transformed into a dull sequence of events, which constantly occur, highlighting the clear lack of ability in writing an enthralling script. The contrast in acting styles from Nina Hoss (Yella) are minimal, at several occasions looking as though it is too painful to smile. On the other hand David Striesow's (Phillip) performance attracts the attention of the viewer, and is highly commendable, in particular his swift changes in mood. However, when all is said and done Petzold's "Yella" is a film full of irrelevant references pinned under the title of "artistic licence", it would be better suited to a total running time of 30 minutes, rather than forcing the viewer to endure 86 minutes worth of scenes depicting the supposed ideals of the capitalist West. My advice is save your time and money, spend £15 on a documentary on capitalism - it'll probably be more interesting.


The movie is well-shot, but in no way does that compensate for a future story. The problem is that there is no good direction in the film. We don't know why Yella separates from her husband, and as such we don't know what she's running away from, nor do we know where she is heading. Usually, not knowing where the film is going is something I enjoy, but here, it all seems pointless, as we don't even know where the character is coming from.

The opening sequence, where Ben follows Yella in his car does set a tone, but I think it does not satisfactorily explain why Yella wants to move away from him. To some extent, it doesn't even seem like Yella wants to lose him: at two points Ben breaks into her hotel room, and Yella seems far too acquiescent. One plot hole, at least to me, was how on earth did he manage to get into her hotel room?!? I doubt he just walked up to the reception and asked for the key. Afterwards, Yella doesn't seem to do anything further about it: she doesn't ask for her room to be changed, or even seek advice from anyone.

Yella's 'dodgy job' isn't explained well either, all we know is that there are negotiations, and envelopes of money are exchanged. To some extent, this is acceptable, because Yella isn't given any good explanation of what's happening, and so, we can also be left in the dark. But, considering how much of the film seems to take place in fancy boardrooms, some slight revelation, in due time, of what is actually going on would've been appreciated.

The two lead characters live in a hotel, and what struck me is that neither of them ever close their doors. This is puzzling, especially considering that Yella is, it would seem, attempting to leave her stalker ex. Even more so when the ex has proved that he is capable of entering her room, even when the door is closed. These hotel doors left ajar did provide for one point where I thought 'now the fun begins', and that is when Yella leaves her room and seeks out her companion. Finally it seemed that she took some initiative and would be in charge of her own life, and not drift around being controlled by others. (To that point, it had always been her companion seeking her out.) Yet, what followed was just a parade of new board rooms, with Yella playing second fiddle.

When Yella proclaims her love to her new-found companion, I lost any sympathy I had for her, because it is obvious that she is the typical weak female, falling for 'the bad guy', and she doesn't even try to change her fate. After leaving the stalker bad guy, she falls for the bad guy who steals money from his employer, and seems to hope that all of a sudden life will become better.


Improbably dialogue, hammy acting, and a "twist" in the storyline which is neither clever nor original. Actually it just doesn't make any sense. What a waste of two hours. The reviews here in the UK were quite favourable, which makes me think that there was an exchange of brown envelopes off-screen as well as on-screen. Oh, and the subtitles were some of the worst I've seen, particularly in all the business-related discussions (Eigenkapital equity translated as "Personal Capital", Abschreibungen as "Deductions" etc.). Seeing as the whole plot revolves around these bits, you'd have thought they'd get someone to proof-read it who is familiar with these sort of terms.


"Tracks" is supposed to be about young teenagers 14 to 16 years of age being tried as adults and placed in an adult jail. Chris Gunn just doesn't look the part. He is too old, and this deprives the film of any impact. America has a reputation of being cruel towards juveniles. There is the possibility of a story along these lines, but the film doesn't manage to come across. There is a sexual harassment scene, and a couple of fights - almost compulsory stereotypes in this sort of story. But it is boring, boring, boring. The 'David and Goliath' factor, where a young and fragile hero goes up against a powerful brute villain is missing completely. There must be many young teenage actors who could do the part successfully. "Salems Lot" and "Dune" had the same problem. When will producers learn?


This is a movie that could have been, and should have been good but it wasn't. Bad script. Unrealistic prison and visitation scenes, and just boring. I am not familiar with the NJ corrections systems but if in fact this young man was in a maximum security prison (which the movie said it was when he was admitted) nothing really made any sense. It is almost like the film makers really did not research corrections at all. Even the child abuse flashback scenes were just corny. More like a really bad made for TV but it was worse than most of the stuff even on Lifetime. Too bad a half hearted effort was put in from the makers of this film.

4/10.


A low-budget movie, and it shows... some pretty bad acting; though Ice T was very good. The movie was slow-moving for the most part, had poor audio and equally poor visuals: dark and grainy; the casting was pretty bad, and thus, the story -which is purported to be 'true'- seems unbelievable. As stated before, the casting of the particular actors and actresses in TRACKS to play 14-16 year olds makes no sense, and even worse, detracts from the film; they're just way too old to play the parts called for. But even if that's a forgivable faux pas, the truth is, at times, this film was just so plain boring that I considered not bothering to see it through to the finish... There's really not much good to say about TRACKS-- But I only paid $1.07 with NJ sales tax to rent it at Red Box, so for a buck/seven, I give it a 4.


This movie was just lame on every level.The lead actor was as weak as water.The story was suppose to be disturbing, with urban "street smarts", and it reminded me more of a cross between an "after school special" and a Lifetime movie, but with some horribly delivered and unconvincing mature language.The plot was suppose to be a loosely based "true to life" story about a juvenile sent to an adult facility, and the hardships he endured, with rape scenes that I guess were meant to be disturbing. But as I said before, the acting and delivery of dialog,were so weak in this film,( I am ashamed to use the word 'film' to describe this crap ), that it turned it into a comedy for me.I have seen "movies of the week" that were more convincing.It didn't, at any point, bring any emotion, except extreme disappointment.Please don't waste your time. I gave it a 1 out of 10, only because 1 is the lowest # I could rate it.


This is the worse film I've looked at in a long time. The acting rises from awful to alright. But the dialog is the worse thing its go going for it. Half the time it doesn't make any sense. The main character makes a youthful bad-ass mistake and gets punished for it. But Jersey sent the 15 year old up the river with the big boys. Insane. So, I think it good in that it got this kids story told and thats why I'm giving it ANY points. The script, the plot arrangement, non-scenceitcal errors in individual scenes and in producing, the cardboard cutout actors (check the gay dude - you canc't miss him - did I say the dialog? I''ll say it again, the dialog! This was all bad. I'm surprised Ice-T got near it, but he imight have had hopes for it. This kids got that is worth the world knowing about, so its a shame they've made such a bomb of it.


So it was funny, I guess. The point is that they're all stupid, and we get to kind of have fun letting them be stupid and run around the woods. I get it, I should say... fun! Yeah...

I don't know, I think a few things in this were pretty creative, mostly the different type of stuff the killer did and the whole side-story involving the transvestite. I also like the references to Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Deliverance (at this point, can you even have a killer woodsman story without said references?). Also, the whole duct tape thing was a great motif.

I actually think the funniest and most interesting part of the movie was the credits, though. Wardrobe provided by Wal-Mart. Yeah, good stuff.

--PolarisDiB


What can I say about Troma and Decampitated? This film was so BAD! Bad in ways you would want to eject the tape during the first 20 mins. The cover is a good lead-on. You think it's a horror flick, but needed it is another Troma rip-off. The writing is BAD, some of the jokes are funny but then it gets old quickly, and the killer, concealed by a bee screen, can actually be seen! Avoid this one... unless you like cheap-worthless comedy.


I do love low budget movies, but this one is just awful. And not in the `good' awful sense that is usually accustomed to low budget movies. This is just pure and simply awful. The story, a bunch of not too bright kids get the great idea of going camping. Turns out they chose to camp in the hunting ground of the all dancing, all killing psycho fisherman, who runs around in the forest killing everything in sight. Humans preferred. I guess you can figure out the rest. These kids get lost and need to escape the evil clutches of the fisherman.

 Usually I enjoy the humor of Troma, but this one is just awful. Not many laughs at all. And no uncalled for nudity either. No great ideas for the plot, no mindgrabbing gorie effects (there is a high amount of blood though), no good jokes.no nothing really. It's pretty much just a waste of time, and for Troma a waste of money. Of course, no true Troma fan should miss it. But others should try to avoid it.


It really really sucked!! Thank God for the "Friday The 13th" movies! I really enjoy them... =) I almost felt sick after the opening scene... Who wants to se a girl loose all her legs and still keep on running? Silly as hell. I want them to be a bit more serious than that even though they don't have to be "good". Ugh!!


oh my...!!!THIS FILM SUCKS!!!!!!!Not funny, boring, idiot, incoherent, dumb ass,bad,bad ,bad,bad, uff! There's no adjectives too describe this awful and idiot film...

What they are thinking??? Honestly, this flick is a back stab in Troma's back,and i like Troma very much, in memorable films like : "Toxic Avenger", "Tromeo and Julliet" and the one and only "Terror Firmer"!!

"Decampitated" is a mix "Parker Lewis",cheap blood and the worst and terrible humor that i have the pleasure too see!!!

If you like this movie, i can also recommend bad and horrible movies like this one:"Cannibal! The Musical" (one of the worst...); "Blondes have more guns" (...); And the fabulous "Alien Blood".......


"Can't Hardly Wait" was a perfect fit for Jennifer Love Hewitt. She doesn't have to act. All she has to do is sit on the sofa, pout and show off her cleavage. To her credit, however, she does this very well.

I am seriously beginning to doubt Miss Love's true acting abilities. When is she going to be in a substantial movie with a role that requires her to do some real acting? Perhaps if she ever does have such a role her lack of any real acting talent would be exposed and her star would come crashing down. So it's safer for her to stick with lightweight movies such as "Can't Hardly Wait."

I gave CHW three stars: Two for Seth Green, who is pretty funny all the way through, and one star for Melissa Joan Hart in an unbilled appearance. Other than that, you've seen this plot many times before and you've seen these characters many times before.

Of course, CHW would have been somewhat redeemed if it had given us a positive message or two. Instead we get more cliches, like getting drunk will change you from Mr. Nerd to Mr. Popularity. Please!

"Providence" fans, look closely to see a pre-Providence Robbie Hanson guarding the beer keg. No, on second thought, leave this movie alone and watch a re-run of "Providence" instead. That would be much more entertaining.


This is a horrible movie that shows that the director/producer/actors did not at all bother find out about a culture they are talking about.

This movie is full of flaws and displays a totally wrong picture of the Arabic/Muslim culture. Even the infrastructure of Bahrain is shown as old/poor with camels and stuff.

Any person who ever has seen any of the gulf countries (some of the richest countries in the world) will see that the infrastructure is in much better shape and way more modern that in the US or western Europe...

And no attention is given to the fact that the adult marine is actually having his love-affair with a minor, which is not romantic, but disgusting.

This movie really just makes me wanna puke my guts out!

Disgusting, simplistic and manipulative!


Having been to Bahrain, I enjoyed picking apart all the inaccuracies in the film. Like: The Manai plaza is in the middle of a sand lot and is much more militarized. The rooms in the movie were your standard sized Hollywood "barracks room" set. The rooms at the Manai are huge, and by hotel standards, rather top notch. The mall is in the middle of the city, not the suburbs. A house like the one the princess lived in wouldn't be on a tree lined boulevard, open to the common folk. Most nice homes over there are behind walls. The "Tree of Life", being the only thing worth seeing over there, would not be so isolated as to allow the princess to talk to, much less make out with, an unclean infidel. Tourists go there all the time. Whoever suggested shooting in suburban southern California should have been fired. They were in Vegas anyway,why not shoot there?


This is a horrible movie. They make the Muslim family look like they are bad people. This movie makes the American family look like they did not do anything wrong. First of all Jason should not even mess with this family to begin with. He disrespected her family. They are a royal family. This is a very bad movie because Muslims should stay with Muslims. Americans should stay with Americans. As you can see, they divorced in the end. The Muslim royal family are trying to protect their daughter from the American. He took her away and did not get penalized. He should of been sent to jail for life. He married her in a stupid chapel in Vegas (SIN CITY). The Muslims should have disciplined Mariam before she came to the country of America. Now she went from being a princess to an American divorced girl. If she would have married a Muslim, she would stay married. She did the wrong decision. It reminds me of the movie "Not without my daughter." Another bad movie, she was acting so stupid. She stole the kid and ran away. What a bad women. People make her a star. How ridiculous!!!!!!!


Robert McKimson's 'Hurdy-Gurdy Hare' suffers from a feeble premise which never offers much of an opportunity for laughs. Bugs Bunny, in an unusually money-grabbing, greedy incarnation, purchases a hurdy-gurdy complete with monkey in order to make some money. When the monkey attempts to swindle him, however, he fires the simian and takes on his role himself. The monkey informs his father (an unattractive reimagining of Gruesome the Gorilla from McKimson's previous 'Gorilla My Dreams'), who comes after Bugs in search of retribution. Set against the dull backdrop of an apartment building, 'Hurdy-Gurdy Hare' feels instantly laboured and unfunny. It never even threatens to come to life once throughout its seven minute runtime and, while it doesn't quite plumb the depths of the studio's very worst output, 'Hurdy-Gurdy Hare' is a cartoon that I could easily live without ever seeing again.


Eternity and a Day (the director really knew what he meant) is an art-house movie made after an infallible recipe to win critical acclaim and eventually those great prizes of the broken hearted that will never make a blockbuster. The ingredients of the recipe are quite simple: you take a famous actor that already stared in a few cult/art movies, namely Bruno Ganz and have him play after a script written by a famous screenwriter who was behind many successful art movies, namely Tonino Guerra and add the name of a famous director already acclaimed as a master on the whole thing and you have...this. First of all, I admire Bruno Ganz in his original voice (the dubbing was atrocious, I mean it is so dam obvious that they felt the need to get Ganz to make the credits sound appealing!) an actor with a wide range of possibilities who fails to work his charms on you because he is given very little to work on. This was the responsibility of T. Guerra, a name that I have come to hate because, even if I agree that La Notte was a masterpiece and L'Aventura comes pretty close, I see them mostly as the result of Antonioni's vision, and Guerra's later projects convinced me he wasn't much of a screenwriter after all. Making a script that is the basis of an elliptical, action-free, blank-metaphor-full movie such as this one is again an argument to support the idea that sparkly credits (give us the Palm d'Or!) were the only reason why his presence was solicited.

So, the story, if any, is a combination of at least four movies that I can think of on the spot: mostly Wild Strawberries (with the lonely, aging man with an unfulfilled life who ponders about the reasons one lives and what are the best decisions in life. Also the old man appears projected as old in his memories), L'Aventura ( Guerra for starters and also the attempt of the main character to desperately give a meaning to one's life, and the metaphors associated with the sea), Death in Venice (the metaphor of the sea, the relation between an old artist and a child who inspires him to find the meaning of life and love), Eyes Wide Shut (a long shot but the children sale reminded me of that secret organization). Giving Caesar his due, taking those movie references from this one what remains is an intolerable bore with the camera lingering in a meaningless manner on ....whatever in order to fill the wide holes in the ozone-layer of the "poetic atmosphere".

And I needed four coffee cups to finish this movie


A pretty strong sense of deja-vu gripped me as I was watching "Eternity and a Day", and it wouldn't let go. The blurred windows and lights, the people with the yellow water-coats, the obligatory walk by the sea, the foggy settings, the usual mix of suburban and rural Greek landscapes, the choreographed wedding etc. It's hopeless, any post "Alexander the Great" Angelopoulos film feels the same. "Eternity and a Day" is his version of Fellini's "Amarcord", with a few bits of "Death in Venice" thrown in for good measure (the ending for example).

What's worse is having to endure the pseudo-philosophical babble of famous rich directors, who are trying to convince us that they are existentially troubled. Cringe as the protagonist (ie the director's alter ego) wonders why he was unable to love in his life, or how long tomorrow lasts. Blush at the pure melodrama of his ex wife's letters. Elitists will of course say that this is "deep" art, but I must protest, Angelopoulos made quite a few bucks with this one. You would be well advised to watch "Travelling Players" or "Alexander the Great" instead.


I guess my fault with this film was going into the cinema with such high expectations. Having read reviews and knowing the film was to be poetical, I was really looking forward to seeing it. It started with an extremely promising sequence with the children on the beach, but all was downhill from there. Suprisingly disappointing.


OK, I like serious drama films and I am a big horror fan. This one tried to mix them together and I was pretty bored. For a werewolf movie I was expecting somewhat brutal kill scenes and I was hoping to to see a man to werewolf transformation. No on both. This was trying to be a movie with a message about a mystical group of "Wolfen" who have been demolished due to western civilization. By the end of this, I could really care less about the wolfen's back story. The "wolfens" are really just wolves running around throughout the movie. They look cute just like a Siberian huskey. There is nothing really scary about them. If you have watched Snow Dogs, you have seen the wolves in this movie. Throughout the movie we are subjected to wolfen vision. I am not kidding. Its like predator vision but more student filmish. The wolfen vision comes at random and sometimes seems unnecessary like a lot of the scenes in this film. We do get to see a Wolfen vision sex scene that is pretty scary in itself. That was the only time I tensed up when watching this. The kill scenes try to be very stylish but we aren't allowed to see anything. You will see a big splash of blood squirt across the camera, a head or hand fly off to the side, or see a wound on someone suddenly appear. I don't know if it was just a budget restriction but u never see a wolfen actually attack someone until the end and its not worth the time. I have seen the lead actor in this act well in other films but here he just talks very monotone, has no personality, and put me to sleep. I would give this one star for a horror film and 5 stars for the effort to make a good drama. So we meet in the middle at 3/10


1981 was a good year for werewolf movies. American Werewolf In London (one of my all time favorite movies), The Howling, and this, Wolfen. Wolfen came out last, and well, they sure didn't save the best for last, did they? Wolfen stars Albert Finney, with the most scariest looking mullet in screen history he plays a pudgy cop who is investigating a series of bizarre deaths in the Battery Park area of New York City. Bit by bit, as the story unfolds, he finds out that the attacks aren't made by a human, and more strangely, there's a connection between them! Despite it's interesting cinematography, the whole story thing is ridiculous, and hardly holds up. Albert Finney embarrasses himself (again) and the rest of the cast try in vain to raise themselves above the cheesy script.


Jordan Hawley wrote and directed this dark 'comedy' about the current state of love/hate relationships in Los Angeles (or inability to create same) with about as much panache as yesterday's onion rings. The storyline has been used so many times that the tread is off the tires.

LA ghostwriter Owen (Paul Schneider) is a 'nice guy' who sustains an inability to form a satisfactory love relationship. Exasperated with his life style he decides to become a cad: that must be what women (and men) want. He reverses his nice guy tactic and begins telling everyone he encounters just how he feels - and that is usually negative! The only person who doesn't but into his change is his roommate Allison (Poppy Montgomery) who is bisexual and therefore not wholly available. He decides to leave Los Angeles and move to the East Coast where a lucrative deal awaits him to write the memoirs of a famous man. At the last moment he meets one Val (Jennifer Westfeldt), an animal activist: the chemistry is there but each has a conflicting program. Owen is honest with her, a factor that does not chase her away, but both part ways to other parts of the world. Upon return to LA after a disappointing experience on the East Coast, tables turn and surprises arise. And the ending is a mixture of silly and unsatisfying.

Movies like this are meant to entertain and some of the dialogue is clever albeit acerbic. It just that the idea of relationship examination under these terms is so worn out that the movie just doesn't spark any innovative thoughts. After about thirty minutes into the film this 'audience' lost interest.


this is one of the worst films i've ever seen. to me, it represents the worst aspects of the movie "business". it's a product. not brand name at that. it's the grocery chain generic version of laundry soap or pop corn or a cheap version of a scouring pad/sponge. in order to sustain an industry you have to have product and this is pure product. OK, i've seen worse. at least they try to make a statement about finding love and the hoops we jump through but it contradicts itself time and time again until the characters stand for nothing. personally, i don't relate to any of them or care for them any more than i would poor schmucks caught in the wrong line in a grocery. and their plight seems to me no more serious than that. i give it four yawns. fortunately i was learning my new cell phone so it wasn't a total was of time. (sarcasm on) and how is it that Paul Schneider hasn't gone on to stardom. sarcasm off). this film is as replaceable as a piston rod.