The idea was very clever; the director was one of the best in Spain; the cast was stellar, putting together some of the most famous comedians in the country; even the song that came with it was a huge hit in the Spanish charts! It couldn't fail, could it? Yet it did.

Because this was supposed to be a comedy, but it doesn't have a single laugh-worthy joke. Seriously. I really wanted to enjoy it, because I'm a fan of all the main players involved (de la Iglesia, Segura, Wyoming, Angulo), but I found myself staying silent throughout the whole thing. The problem is probably that the comedy is so black, that it's not comedy any more. It just isn't funny. But it doesn't work as a tragic drama either, because the story is so exaggerated and so absurd, that it's impossible to take it seriously. So it simply doesn't work at all. A pity of wasted talent.


*Possible spoilers ahead!* This is historically inaccurate and very dull. I mean, lets face it: who wants to see an execution? In this video (spoilers!) it took one chop to cut her head off; in real life it was three. Don't watch this if you don't want to watch a silent, black and white video.


For the technicals, I am sure they could'nt have done better for 1895, but this is quite pathetic... I can easily see the camera moving a little when the actor is replaced. I expected something horrorish but it was'nt at all! The 'video' does also not really appeal to the reality happening. I would not expect a woman to be so easy during the beheading scene, since it would be that she would fight for her life and struggle or at least cry during the process. None of this is to see. You also see the head moving when the actor gets replaced by the dummy of which you can then easily see the fakeness. This was like an experiment of trying to make an early ghost picture.


"Call Me" is all about Anna (Charbonneau) who is smart enough to be a NYC newspaper columnist but not smart enough to hang up on an obscene phone caller. A lame B-flick which smacks of indieness and amateurish autuersmanship features a mediocre performance by Charbonneau, Strathrain for a heartbeat, Buscemi in a bit part, poor production value, and a hokey script/screenplay. Just more flotsam bobbing on broadcast. (C-)


The trouble with this film is it is very much of its time. It's hardly a film of the book, more an excuse to steal a few sparse ideas and try to string them together into a light-hearted comedy.

There's really far too much slapstick, and 1950's style girl-chasing, no real sense of a journey as there is in the book.

I wonder if anyone will ever make a proper adaption of the book, making proper use of JKJ's wonderful anecdotes? It would be tricky to do - they are often about completely different people from the three in the boat, but they are what make the book so good, and they've simply been discarded in the film.

So, in summary, if you've never read the book, you're in for a nice surprise: comedy that is still funny after a hundred years and more, but don't let this film put you off.


The only two similarities to this classic novel were the title and the names of the main characters. Poor old Jerome must have turned in his grave as he looked down and watched this being created. The original book contained a multitude of comic situations which could have been harvested to create a memorable film but someone somewhere had a better idea ! All three leading actors where perfectly cast to play Jerome's characters, if only they had been allowed to do so then this could well have become a British comedy classic.

Poor acting, directing and script with lightweight story line. One for all concerned to erase from their memoirs ! A great cast who must have shuddered and shrunk down in their seats at the showing of each days rushes.


I recall seeing this movie when I was young and being a fan of the book (the 'tin of pineapple chunks' scene is still the funniest bit of writing I've ever read) but having just watched it again, I am sorely disappointed. The slapstick is completely at odds with JKJ's gentlemanly humour. However the location scenery on the Thames helps to make up for the poor direction and dialogue. I always liked Jimmy Edwards' style on TV, but it doesn't translate well after 50 years. Laurence Harvey made a big mistake with this, he is not a comedian but as usual David Tomlinson provides a solid performance. Jill Ireland, Shirley Eaton and Lisa Gastoni as the female interest are much much better than the boys


I read the reviews of Three Men in a Boat before watching the film and couldn't believe that it is as bad as most reviewers claim. I mean to say, just look at the cast. Tomlinson, Edwards and Harvey are not a collection of comedic geniuses, perhaps, but surely they amass enough talent to produce an amusing adaptation of this admired novel. However, the negative reviewers are correct: this film is simply terrible. Although it only runs to 84 minutes it took me five sittings to get through it. I could barely tolerate watching twenty minutes at a time. I persevered becausewell, look at the cast, surely they would deliver something funny eventually; perhaps the finale would be hilarious.

I grew up in Britain and still love old British comedies: Ealing, of course, Will Hay, Alastaire Sim, Peter Sellers, and so many others. I even like the lower-level comedy of the Carry On series, Benny Hill, or Frankie Howerd. This film, though, has less laughs than Polanski's Macbeth.

Some reviews have suggested that some people find the film unamusing because it is 'dated.' It was made in the fifties and set in the 1880s. However, these facts alone shouldn't be detrimental to a film's appeal. A good number of Britain's best and most appreciated comedies were made in the fifties, such as The Lavender Hill Mob, Hobson's Choice, and I'm All Right Jack. In fact, the decade is a Golden Age for British film comedy. The story's setting in an earlier period can hardly be detrimental either. Kind Hearts and Coronets stands easily as one of the best British comedies, yet it was set in the same historical period as Three Men in a Boat, was released six years earlier and was filmed in black and white. Similarly, Ken Annakin, this film's director, had his biggest successes with Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), both of which are set in times only slightly later than Three Men in a Boat and are equally far removed from contemporary audiences, but are still relatively amusing.

Some films age badly because of the focus of the material. George Formby and the Old Mother Riley comedies relied for their context on a particular interwar period and a British working class culture that had largely disappeared by the 1960s and has little meaning for people in contemporary Britain, let alone the rest of the world. Other examples are the sex comedies made in Britain in the 1970s or the blacksploitation movies made in the US in the same decade. These films are clearly dated but retain entertainment value because of their anachronistic fashions and dialogue.

Astonishingly, Three Men in a Boat was nominated for a BAFTA for, of all things, best screen play. This is baffling because the writers make little effort to drive the story with witty dialogue. Dialogue is, in fact, rather scant. The attempts at comedy come mostly from slapstick situations where our heroes wave tent poles and oars around for insufferable lengths of time, fall in the water repeatedly, and prattles on loudly and unintelligibly. The assumption is, apparently, that if these situations continue for long enough something funny simply has to happen. It doesn't. Slapstick can be badly done but it doesn't become dated. The silent movies of Chaplain and Keaton are still wonderful; the Three Stooges are still ridiculous and funny; much in Norman Wisdom's movies is dated, but when he falls through a window he is still hilarious. Not so Tomlinson, Edwards and Harvey.

On this one, I'm afraid, I concurs with the "smug" negative reviewers. This is the least funny Brit Com I've ever seen, and I've seen "Carry on England."


Seldom have I seen a film this bad, no matter that the book it is based on is one of my favorites. It begins OK, but then turns into a bad slapstick movie, dated in every way - even Ed Wood's films are better!

Nothing basically wrong with the acting, nothing very wrong with the photography (the colors have aged badly, though), the sets, or the wardrobe, but it is far more dated in every way than any other film I can think of. Very fiftyish, very safe, very boring!

Ken Annakin has made a few good films throgh the years, like "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes", but this is definitely not one of them!

As a whole the girls do a better job than the males - even when trying to laugh the the three men just sound very amateurish! Their battles with the tent and the boat is just silly, not funny, and as my wife commented: "Men can be stupid, but not that stupid"!

Overall, the dog wins as best actor, by a wide margin!


Frankly I thought Masaki Kobayashi could do no wrong.

I really wanted to like this. Damn, I even tried to and tried hard. Not only because Kobayashi is one of my favourite directors and arguably a true titan of Japanese cinema any way you look at it but also because if his brand of socially-minded, emotionally cathartic tragedy could make the leap from his jidaigekis set in Tokugawa Japan to any other genre, that would be the war drama.

Set in 1943 Manchuria, WWII in full bloody swing, The Human Condition follows the trials and tribulations in occupied China of Kaji, a young idealist drafted in the service of the Japanese army. He is transferred to the hinterland to work as a supervisor in the ore mines of the area, a place where thousands of Chinese prisoners of war slave away in inhuman conditions for the benefit of the Japanese motherland. Kaji, full of youthful optimism as he is, attempts to befriend the Chinese POW's in an effort to both make their living conditions better but also improve their labour efficiency to appease his demanding military superiors.

And there the movie starts falling to pieces. For a film clocking in at 3 hours and 20 minutes, there's really an awful lot of bland, generic scenes where two or three characters discuss the most obvious things and feelings; not a whole lot of subtext going on, chunks of dialogue delivered right on the nose - a major faux-pas for any storyteller that makes the story crawl to a gruelling halt.

Frankly, the movie is melodramatic enough to constitute somewhat of a genre anachronism; it would have made much more sense coming out in 1949 instead of 1959. All this with Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, the movie responsible for both revolutionizing the Japanese period drama and action movie and bringing the concept of the alienated antihero to new cynic heights, only two years away.

And speaking of protagonists, it's Kaji, the main character we're called to identify with, played by samurai icon Tatsuya Nakadai before he was even a supporting actor in Yojimbo, that poses the biggest problem. His attitude and worldview of unconditional humanism are all too naive and convenient to hit the right emotional chords. Idenitifying with Kaji's holier-than-thou idealism is hard, not because people like him don't exist in real life, and I hope they do, but simply because this kind of clean-cut idealist character doesn't fare well in a dramatic context.

Bear with me here. Now every dramatic character (and by extention his actions that forward the plot) has to be defined by and rooted in some sort of inner conflict. In Kaji's case, it's between work (supervising prisoners into forced labour) and ideology (every human being should be treated with dignity and respect). But his ideology brings him into direct conflict with every major Japanese character in the movie; the army officers, his boss, the other supervisors - people who, in no uncertain terms, could have his head if they were so inclined. Why Kaji repeatedly goes against everyone even at the risk of his life is never so much as hinted at. Usually some sort of character flaw forces the character to take action in an effort to redeem himself. Kaji's only flaw is his idealism. In that sense, Kaji is more of a martyr or a saint than a real, flawed human being. It's only natural then that the viewer might become frustrated by his idealistic persistance, a feeling that is shared (ironically) by his antagonists inside the movie (the abusive supervisor and the army officials). If this is a clever trick on Kobayashi's part to have us sympathize with Kaji's enemies (and maybe feel bad about it), then I tip my hat to him. Because it was done at the expense of a movie.

Another thing that bothered me was how forced the drama felt at times. For example, near the end (and this is no spoiler that matters), a Chinese prostitute whose prisoner lover was executed by the Japanese, throws rocks at Kaji and calls him "Japanese devil". The only responsibility Kaji had at the execution was that he simply couldn't prevent it from happening. He's not even a military officer, just a labour supervisor. There's no reason for the prostitute to throw rocks at Kaji instead of the real culprits. It seems to happen for no other reason than making the viewer identify with his character. His tolerance only seems to invite more abuse which only reinforces his martyric status.

That's not to say that THC is not without its moments of beauty. The cinematography is good throughout, with some beautiful exterior shots and certain scenes and images resonate with true emotional power: the starving bodies of Chinese prisoners dropping like flies from train wagons, the lenthy execution scene, a parade of prostitutes visiting the concentration camp.

Overall, I'm very disappointed with The Human Condition. Based on the glowing reviews here, I was expecting a masterpiece to equal Kobayashi's other work from the 60's. It turns out THC is a war melodrama that might have been very popular in a devastated post-war Japan that was thirsty for the populist theme of humanism clashing against the oppressive system, but I found it too simplistic and convenient and lacking the sophistication of Kobayashi's true epics (Seppuku and Samurai Rebellion).


I rented this film because the trailer looked very funny. The producers must have taken all the funny bits and put them into 60 seconds. After that, there was no fun to be had.

The funniest parts of this film were the ESPN graphics and jokes and Obscure Sports Quarterly, also a visual gag. The rest of the funny parts were stolen right from BASEbasketball-- the team names, the girls dancing in extreme costumes, the obscure sports idea-- but BASEbasket did it more original and more funny to watch. I highly recommend that over Dodgeball.

The movie feels like it was a SNL sketch that should have lasted 10 minutes yet was stretched to fit an hour and a half. The actors look like they were given a couple lines and then told to go for it. They look blank at times like they don't have anything funny to say. Basically if you like comedies where the characters and situations are just supposed to be hilarious and they are, like The Royal Tenenbaums, devoid of any jokes or humor beyond that. Maybe this has something to do with Ben Stiller, since he was in both films. That might be the case, since I did like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore.

I was brought up with the idea of comedies to either be satires or had a joke a minute thrown at you, like Airplane, the Naked Gun and South Park. A movie like Dodgeball moves slow because the characters, after they come into the scene and give you that one laugh, like the gym owner or the pirate guy, don't seem to have any more steam and the viewer is suppose to enjoy it for what it is. It seems to be the new wave of comedy film making and it isn't funny nor makes any sense. The jokes fall flat, like everything was improved and nothing was written down. Movies cannot live by improv alone. Take Timecode and movies like that....please.

Then, if you get the DVD, there is an alternate ending that made me laugh, not because it was funny, because it was so bad. I don't think the director knows how to make a movie. Rawson Marshall Thurber should go back to his day job!

I give this a 1, which is the lowest rating I have given any movie. If there was a 0, I would give it for my time wasted. I am glad I actually didn't see this in a theater. I would have asked for my money back.


I'm not trying to convince anyone who saw this that they viewed a bad film because nothing is more subjective than comedy and I do believe that there are some solid laughs found here but many of the subplots in this story are just so obvious and predictable. Story is about Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn) who manages a small and rundown gym called "Average Joe's" but with his pathetic group of members he doesn't make much money and now the bank needs $50,000 or they're going to take it away from him.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** White Goodman (Ben Stiller) runs a very successful gym also and he won't stop at anything to get his hands on Peter's and he even agree's to give him more than $50,000 but that doesn't convince Peter to sell. Peter is convinced by his members that they should join the Dodgeball League and try and win the championship prize in Las Vegas but what finally spurns him on to the idea is the help from Patches O'Houlihan (Rip Torn) who is a dodgeball teacher and Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor) who works for the bank.

This film is directed by newcomer Rawson Marshall Thurber who benefits from the opportunity to work with a cast that has been in several goofy comedies reminiscent of this and they together make this film work on several levels. The story is slapstick with so many jokes and humorous situations tossed in that you can make a case that it resembles the "Airplane" films but the main problem I had with this is the predictability of most of the situations and it's characters. Was is really surprising to see the one nerdy character who wanted to be a cheerleader end up with the hot chick from his school? Did anyone believe Taylor's character would be attracted to Vaughn and that she would even get involved with dodgeball? Sure, I'm nit-picking but these were such glaring aspects of the story that it's shocking to me that the makers of this film don't realize how cheesy they are and just change it. If you love Stiller and his over the top comedies than you'll no doubt enjoy this effort but for me I found too many parts of the film cartoonish to allow myself to admit this as a guilty pleasure.


i just don't like this director and his idea of entertainment at no time did i find it funny or worthy of my attention the talent was there but the lines were LSD material dreams means confusing? dreams mean ridiculous? dreams are strange but most have an unconsciousness development. this movie lacked the ability to hold on to its public or to properly show the actors talents. When you loose the viewing audience with boredom, then the talent takes a back seat and no one cares. they simply wait for it to finish or leave the environment.. sad........a woody Allen on crack. save film and stop the madness, Mr director.


Michel Gondry, who directed this, also directed "Endless Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind". That was a great film. I would say that "La Science Des Rêves" is OK, but only that. Thematically it is similar to "Endless Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" in that quite a bit of the plot takes place in the mind of one man, but whereas "Endless Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" was a warm experience, this one is a cold one. Gael Garcia Bernal tries hard, and some of blatantly primitive special effects are quite wonderful, but I just didn't care one way or another. It's a kooky and strange film, and irritating, and is definitely not as good as "Endless Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind".

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it. Another day and I might have thought that it was wonderful.


Looking around at the nearly empty showing of "The Science Of Sleep" it is no wonder that art films draw so poorly. It doesn't have to be that way as "The Illusionist" proved this year. But when you make a deliberately claustrophobic, cryptic film like this you really can't complain when no one shows up.

The big problem with this entry for me is that not only does it make no sense but it is extremely unattractive to look at. The low budget shows in many ways. It is not that I am narrow minded to the point that I have an issue with cheap effects. The opening shot of Hitchcock 's "The Lady Vanishes is an extremely unconvincing model that even a child could spot, but that film has style and substance. If you have no budget you can at least make it look like you have one unless your goal is to drive away all but the most aspiring critics trying to demonstrate their "hip" credentials. How anyone could sustain interest in such a repetitive and uninteresting nightmare is beyond me. It seems that films have become way too polarized lately. You get either comic book franchises that appeal to the lowest common denominator or you get contrived and pretentious claptrap like this.

Small budgets don't have to mean disastrous results. Take for instance "Edmund" which even has to substitute LA for Manhattan and guess what: They get away with it. If I had not read that it was not shot in the Big Apple I wouldn't have guessed.

I had a lot of the same frustration with "Being John Malkovich." It is not that I don't like Kauffman ("Adaptation" was a great film) but in both cases it seems as if the intent is to turn off all those viewers that are not already dialed into the exact wavelength. A thought crossed my head that this might be better watched a little bit at a time (like anyone with kids watches DVDs at home) but the the thought of having to suffer through this in installments seemed intolerable


Well I just spent the evening watching this with a group of 7 friends, mostly high-school teachers, collectively our book & film club. It started off quite positively - a bit bonkers perhaps but sort of amusing but by the end the audience was variously commenting: "I'd have preferred having needles stuck in my eyes!" or extending toilet breaks so they had less of the film to watch, or lamenting the sheer tedium of this movie. I didn't think it was THAT bad (not "up" to Death in Venice standard for example) but by the end I was wondering what point the film-maker was actually trying to make. Given that it was impossible to have much sympathy for any of the characters and given that nothing actually happened, surely there must be a philosophical point to it all? Once I realised there was none, I realised we had been yet again tricked into admiring an Emperor's invisible suit. I cannot believe people have given this film such high ratings. I think you've had the wool well and truly pulled over your eyes.


C. Sheen's character gets laid off within a day of discovering a SETI-like signal; he expects his girlfriend, who obviously doesn't give a hoot about his work, to be interested...she isn't. He buys lots of gear, gets a job doing satellite installs and secretly wires the customers dishes into an array so he may continue his work. I think C. Sheen was on amphetamines or something like that for this 'performance'; the overacting was laughable. I wanted to like the movie but couldn't pull it off. The dialog was fairly stupid as was the annoying kid who hangs around Mr. Sheen's apt. Sheen's colleague and a woman he meets while investigating are both murdered but old Zaminski (Sheen) is allowed to wander around breaching security at JPL and an installation in Mexico, unscathed. The Mexico installation was interesting but not enough to warrant seeing the movie. This movie had potential...just too bad it was thrown together haphazardly.


Charlie Sheen stars as a scientist who discovers that there really is "life out there." The only problem is that it's not out thereit's here, and they're covering up his discovery in hopes of remaining incognito.

This movie plays like a cheap sci-fi movie of the 30's. The only difference is that there are better special effects in the 90's. It wasn't a bad film, but I find that it WAS worth waiting 13 years to see it. I have seen some thrillers before and I didn't find myself holding my breath, sitting on the edge of my seat, or anything like that. I'm a fan of Charlie Sheen and I think Teri Polo is cute, but that's about as far as this movie goes.

3 out of 10 stars (and that's a gift).


This film is a dreadful piece of work, hardly worth a second thought except for one reason - it illustrates the use of entertainment media for propaganda purposes.

Arguably, the film's most credible character is climatologist Ilana Green (Lindsay Crouse), who describes evidence of plants growing within 90 miles of the North Pole (despite the fact that there is no land above sea level that close to the Pole), and who describes data from about a dozen CO2 monitoring stations which each report about a 1% increase in atmospheric CO2 - then she concludes from this data that Earth has experienced an alarming 12% increase in CO2. Fortunately, this error was not included in the IPCC's report on climate change, but for every one person who reads a peer-reviewed journal article on climatology, there are thousands of people who saw this film. My concern is that these casual viewers could have been misled by the pretend science.

Because the rise of atmospheric CO2 is central to the film's plot, I believe the writers had a duty to check the numbers - either make the total equal to the average of the several stations' data, or have the (fictional) stations all report data that averages to 12%. I don't think this was an accident - I believe the writers wanted to make our present situation (real life CO2 increases near 1%) seem scarier, so they deliberately misrepresented the global average by 12 times. If a real climatologist had published a paper built around an error of this type, they would be discredited and virtually unemployable in their field. This makes the film a propaganda piece, a deliberate attempt - way back in 1996 - to "sell" the global warming agenda with fraudulent, alarmist, inflated data.


Somehow, this is the worst alien invasion film from 1996. Though both Independence Day and Mars Attacks! have their fair share of flaws, this film is nothing but flaws. To start off, it's got some of the worst acting by an entire cast in a major motion picture. Some of this is due to the wretched dialogue, but most of it is due to what seem like first-take scenes. Charlie Sheen is overacting incredibly, and everyone else is just plain wooden. The story would be interesting if it were not botched completely with unbelievable situations and silly action sequences. The direction is entirely unremarkable, and the special effects are wholly un-amazing. Plus, it's got a kid in it - a sure flaw in any film for adults. Truly terrible.


There may be a spoiler lurking around here somewhere.

"Signs" was supposed to be substance without the sci-fi. (Although the substance really wasn't that substantial, though I did like that film.) "The Arrival" is all sci-fi without the substance. It would be wonderful to find a happy medium, but we rarely do.

"The Arrival" is quite entertaining, despite the miscastrophe of Charlie Sheen. At one point, when his character was soberly praising the merits of abstinence, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Well, at least his bod was nice enough to look at, although his hairdo was a bit scary -- it looked like it would hurt if you touched it, and I was kind of hoping the aliens would shave some crop circles in it -- and I wasn't too thrilled about the goatee. Poor Charlie uses the same face for every emotion: look angry, okay, eyes wide and intense. Look scared, okay, eyes wide and intense. INTENSE! I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

Well, because it was fairly necessary for the plot of the movie, the aliens had to have the usual human shape with slight variations, such as the -- oooo -- BACKWARD knees. (Hey, I can do that too, by the way!) But then again, it was NOT really necessary for the plot, as we got to see in "Galaxy Quest." The more I read books about science and evolution, the less thrilled I am with the lack of imagination when it comes to most aliens, who look like us only with different colors of skin, and a few strange protuberances.

This movie does have a few very imaginative elements but they are surrounded by lots more unoriginal sci-fi ideas and tricks so obviously contrived to startle the audience, or develop pseudo-suspense, such as the ol' scorpions in the bedroom trick.

But I do wish that some of these directors would get together and give us a movie that DOES have scary, suspenseful, sci-fi effects and elements, AND has some soul-searching substance (but not so much that it overshadows the main event, which is: holy sh**, we're being attacked/visited by ALIENS!!!!!) We have some great alien films. "Galaxy Quest" and the "MIB"s are great entertainment, but those are comedies, so wouldn't satisfy someone hoping for a good scare. "Starman," "E.T." and "Close Encounters" are top-notch, although the aliens in "Close Encounters" were rather disappointing at the end (a bunch of bald little people surrounding a tall bald anorexic - a benevolent Ann Coulter without the hair). Like "Signs," those films went more for substance. What I would like is a SCARY movie about aliens, such as "The Arrival" attempts to be, but without using so many of the worn-out tricks of the trade.

I didn't really mind "The Arrival," but I doubt I'll ever feel the need to rent the sequel.


This movie's poster shows a great white shark with its mouth wide open. Thus when I entered the theater, I expected something spine-tingling. On this point the movie did not deliver.

It was, in fact, a story about a scientific team searching for a great white to study. Most of the movie is spent searching rather than studying. To my way of thinking the movie was not a total waste of my time. There is footage of sharks (none of them great whites) feeding on a whale carcass. In addition some of the researchers leave the safety of the shark cages and swim among these unjustly maligned fish.

Eventually they find a great white which they study from the ship and in shark cages. Huge and formidable these sharks certainly are, but anyone expecting "Jaws" type of excitement will be be disappointed. Ditto to those who would have preferred more information about great whites than was offered. Such is my reason to call "Blue Water, White Death" 'interesting but unsatisfying'.


A Cheech and Chong adventure, strangely not involving much drugs nor taking place in LA. That also might be the reason this is also one of the least funny Cheech and Chong movies. The Corsican Brothers was much funnier than this movie (which is not saying much). The movie starts out in Chicago, where our heroes work at a car wash. As usual, they get caught up in a strange turn of events that leads them to Las Vegas (this time). The laughs are far and few in between. The musical scene at the restaurant reminded me of old Yeller (someone please shoot him or rather me). The funniest scene is when Chong freaks out in the restaurant dressed up as a woman. His opening soliloquy is also quite funny. If you want to see a pointless adventure, not induced by drugs then see this movie. If, however, you would like to see a good Cheech and Chong movie skips this one. Go see Up in Smoke, Next Movie or even Nice Dreams. The movie can be summed up in a few powerful words : Cheech's man thong. Remember, rock and roll killed Elvis and I haven't done drugs in a week. I feel great. I feel like doing more drugs. You got any ??


Item 1. I am a former Infantry Officer and was astonished at the number of military mistakes I saw. It detracted from the movie, which in my opinion was weak and showed little imagination,e.g. Lou Phillips was a CID Warrant Officer, but is called "Sir" and / or "Lieutenant" a number of times. W.O's are referred to as "Mr." or "Chief" without exception. The MP Captain treats the CID W.O. with disrespect. Warrant Officers carry a lot of clout. Senior Warrants I knew personally would speak to general officers on a first name basis.

Item 2. The MP Captain had a partial beard...That is a wrong answer. His Captain's Bars were on incorrectly and he had no branch insignia. His beret had a unit crest instead of his rank and in general, his demeanor was unbecoming of an officer.

Item 3. I like Victoria Pratt a lot, but on the cover of the DVD she has the flash on her beret over her right eye instead of her left eye. And when she left the EM club, her blouse was unbuttoned and flopping. No MP would ever walk around like that, especially a female MP. They're working in a traditional man's role and all that I have met are sticklers for professionalism.

Item 4. The Captain and his men abuse the CID WO and then the enlisted guys knock him down and kick him. That is crazy! Assaulting an officer is a Court Martial offense. Give me a break!

Item 5. The Major has a Combat Infantryman's Badge, which is conceivable if he branch transferred from Infantry to the MP's but which only further stretched plausibility.

Item 6. MP's discharging full automatic weapons and killing several people including civilians would have had the FBI all over the place. Why didn't that happen? This movie was a slap in the face of veterans in general, but especially disrespected Warrant Officers and the Military Police Branch in particular. Rating it as a 3 was a gift.


Lou Diamond Phillips sadly signed his name to this train wreck of a "movie". Phillips does his best to make lemonade from this lemon of a script, but it proves fruitless. The unknown supporting cast laughably overacts. The writing is awkward & the characters are unsympathetic.

Phillips plays a military detective, and former MP, who comes to the Presidio (the former military base in San Francisco that was closed and converted into a national park in 1994, not to be confused with the Presidio in Monterrey, CA which houses the Defense Language Institute) to solve a murder. His love interest, a female MP who looks extremely awkward in her over-sized uniform, proves way too easy, so it is difficult to sympathize with them as individuals or as a couple.

The plot boasts TV-ready predictability, and the production was obviously made for TV- there were even breaks in the movie to insert commercials! What a disappointment.

My advice...skip "Murder at the Presidio" and watch a "Law & Order" rerun instead. The plot will undoubtedly be more interesting.


This movie should be watched by anyone who wishes to learn from bad examples. God, it was a struggle to watch this. When the end came, it was a mercy, like the end to a long bout of cancer. This is a murder alright, but the script is the victim.

Let's get into the problems. As a Canadian, I could spot this piece of trash as from Canada right away. I was standing in line at the bank once, a long while ago and this guy in line behind me starts talking about the government grants he was receiving to make a film. "Doesn't matter what trash we make, so long as it's Canadian." As a taxpayer, it gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

This script was not reviewed by seasoned professionals. It's got too many clichés in it that are obvious. For example - the cop with mental problems. This cliché is done so badly, we only find much later why he suffers from guilt that drives him to drink. When we do, it's hard to imagine all that self-destructing behaviour coming from such a complicated set of circumstances. I'm self-destructive because my mother baked a vanilla cake on a Wednesday and I like chocolate on Thursdays. The cause and effect are so disjointed in time we wonder, "Why are they telling us this?" The conflict cliché. The Captain of the MPs claims jurisdiction in a murder case. I was half expecting the newspaper boy to rush in and claim jurisdiction. "I delivered newspapers on this base for years buddy, so that corpse is my responsibility. Back off!" The love interest cliché. The woman MP quickly jumps into the sack with a stranger she just met. Now I ask you, is that love? Why not insert a porno movie at this point for two minutes and then go to commercial. It would make as much sense.

Overacting: Okay, lots of it here, from the MP Captain to the mother-in-law, it's hot and heavy coming from the lesser roles, playing for the cheap seats. If you want to be noticed, why not be noticed for doing a good job instead of hamming up the role. It's level jumping, and it's not permitted.

Miscasting: Jason Priestley is cast in a very minor role here wearing his Perry Como smoking jacket. Sound the trumpets, a star has arrived. I kept expecting something to happen. He must be in this for a reason. Nope. Hoping for more, like a hanging participle, it simply was an incorrectly cast.

Also, while we're on the subject, that danged Texas sheriff warnt from nowhars near the Lone Star boy. To my ear, he hails from somewhar up in Wisconsin. Might as well have cast a London Bobby in this role.

Factual Errors: Hire a goddamn technical consultant, you cheap pigs. Soldiers shave, they wear the correct cap badges and don't call non-coms "Sir". If you can't afford one, watch another film where they do! I'm surprised you didn't have World War Two Shermans driving around in the background. People watch LAW AND ORDER for 20 years because it's technically well written. Lawyers write for the show. Take a page from their notebook. At least do some fact checking.

Crap Cinematography. Filmed using 70's vintage video instead of film , obviously not quality digital when witnessing the colour bleeds, faded backgrounds and motion blur. The director was doing the "you-are-there" jiggle cam for the first 10 or 20 minutes of the film and gave up on it. You can't do Jiggle Cam with cheap video. The executives probably had to have their eyes checked after watching the daily rushes. Lot of HDTV's probably get returned to the store after watching this.

Believability. Nothing kills a story molecule quicker and deader than the .44 Magnum Bullshitter. It's a huge cannon of a gun that shoots blobs of diarrhea onto the pages of the script. The smell can repel you for several pages of story and take your mind away from what's happening on the current page. The sheriff in Texas picked up the phone and called San Francisco based on a badly drawn composite. "Yeah, we've got your guy. I was picking my ass looking for something to do and I noticed the striking similarity between one of our rape suspects and your stick-man drawing here and I thought, what the hell, let's call up the Presidio for a laugh." Also, don't sheriffs in Texas talk with a drawl. Why not cast Tevia from fiddler on the roof. Ah, but I repeat myself.

And finally, I'm bringing this critique to a close not because I have run out of things to say, but because I'm tired. If you feel exhausted too, then you know what this film has in store for you. Lou, you hitched a ride on a wild turkey here, son. At least that part of it was entertaining.


Another reviewer put it best with the title for his review: "made for TV" One of the problems with made-for-TV movies is that some producer or network executive comes up with a concept and then hires by commission the writer and director; and if they are 'professionals' - in TV-industry terms, which has just about nothing to do with film-making, although the two industries do feed on each other for talent - they will slog through a couple weeks production whether they care about the concept or not.

The script here is most to blame - while 'professional' enough so that it's difficult to quote bad lines, it is a completely moronic story, utterly unbelievable - without knowing anything about the 'true story' this hypes itself as being 'based upon', I can guarantee that the one true thing you can say of this film is that it is not based on a true story. People with personal problems do not make good detectives; and one has to get into the story by assuming that every officer and non-com at the Presidio is engaged in a cover-up, or some other form of corruption? And talk about gratuitous - i.e., wholly unnecessary (and exploitatively filmed)- sex scenes! As if these characters had ever shown any real interest in each other in the first place.

However, as with most anything made for television, I was able to have this run in the background while doing something else (cleaning house), so I didn't have to pay much attention to it. That's the only good thing I can say about it.


I heard so many good things about this movie that I thought "Oh, I've got to see that". Then I realised I'd rented it a couple of weeks before and rather enjoyed it. I can usually remember films very clearly but this one is so predictable that it had just evaporated from my memory. Still, it's certainly a well-acted story of social change in a small town (despite the loathsome, stodgy music - I hate brass bands) and worth a look. Incidentally, it's interesting that most of the pro-Thatcher comments have been written by Americans who would be unlikely to tolerate her born-to-rule attitude. An institution like the House of Lords wouldn't last a nanosecond in the liberty-loving USA, thank God!


I thought this would be wry and amusing like Hope and Glory and others of that ilk. Instead, it was one-note and pedantic, making even the otherwise fantastic Mr. Postlewaite wear thin quickly. This movie has more anger than substance. It gets highly ranked because it is independent and the theme is popular, but it is just not very entertaining.


I must say, this film accurately portrays the brass band world- in that it's a pile of sh*te.

If you want to hang round with a group of drunk, middle aged, social retards; then I suggest you watch this film and find your nearest brass band recruitment officer and jump on board the road to hell (aka the continuously fruitless pursuit of winning any competition which comes even mildly close to worthwhile). Once you do that, you'll be considerably more than just brassed off.

Thanks for listening, You've been a wonderful audience, Good day!

P.S. This film's c**p (just in case you didn't get the gist of my rant)!


American Variation on Battle Royale except in this film those put on the island, squared off against each other, with bomb locks around their ankles, are adults(..mostly those with a criminal past awaiting Death Row). Stone Cold Steve Austin is a black ops federal special forces agent, Jack Conrad, who was infiltrating a drug cartel when he was caught and imprisoned in a Central American jail, bought and placed into the death tournament on a reality internet game. Vinnie Jones is a psychotic former special ops guy himself, McStarley, his was for the British government. The collar bombs have a trigger device that will go off if another competitor presses the button. Those handpicked to compete represent various countries, and only one can survive with the prize being their freedom. The corrupt mastermind behind the whole operation is Breckel(Robert Mammone), who looks like a self-absorbed Harvard grad with an insatiable desire to exploit a selected few to reap millions from those craving real violence..he wishes to "put on a good show" by manipulating his audience establishing heroes, villains, and the weak victims who are unable to outlast the stronger, more savage foes. We watch as the "condemned" fight for survival, trying to outwit each other, as weapons are parachuted to McStarley, and his temporary Japanese partner Saiga(Masa Yamaguchi)purposely by Breckel so that they can gain an advantage as a strategy to make his show more thought-provoking and gripping. What Breckel doesn't expect is how intelligent, resourceful and cunning Conrad is, and how he'll set his sights on getting even with ones responsible for placing him in this difficult, dangerous situation. Breckel underestimates Conrad and an even bigger problem develops as his base camp operation is not too far from the action. Also a sub-plot is those searching for Conrad's whereabouts and attempting to pinpoint where Breckel's operation is located.

Those expecting a bloody good time will be sorely disappointed as the frenetic camera work disrupts any kind of thrill the premise might produce. You see a blizzard of blows flash by as the high octane editing process and constantly moving camera remove any possibility of seeing two competitors exchanging real blows in a proper fashion. Stone Cold Steve Austin is a credible enough hero and Vinnie Jones is as unhinged a psycho as ever before, but they are undermined by sloppily staged action sequences which will likely give the intended audience a headache or the desperate craving for Dramamine by the time it's over. There's plenty of hand-to-hand combat sequences which could really hum if the director and cinematographer could keep their damn camera still long enough for us to enjoy it. Perhaps the filmmakers didn't have enough faith in their leads to provide realistic combat, but it's a shame that, burdened by the rather thin story-line, it can not deliver on what it's supposed to. Impressive setting with the jungle and dangerous rocks leading to rushing water as Breckel has cameras spread throughout capturing the action as it unfolds(..also having men camouflaged filming some action live on the scene). An ongoing story-line has Breckel dealing with the animosity of members of his staff who are finding it hard to deal with the violence that is transpiring. Within the screenplay is an indictment on reality television and the desire for viewing real, live bloodshed. Practically everyone's dead by the end of this film.


Some of the other comments are way too harsh. This movie isn't trying to be the next Fletch Lives. Don't take this movie too seriously and it's mildly entertaining. The fight scenes are too choppy and tough to see and the plot is predictable, but Steve Austin is good. He has the same deadpan expression and delivery throughout and it works. The rest of the cast pretty much phones it in. A lot of these actors look familiar. Like you have seen them before, but you can't quite place them. If you like WWF, then you will probably be satisfied. I saw an afternoon show with about 15 other people and only a couple were asleep at the end. Better than Marie Antoinette.


It is natural to expect that a product of WWE Films would be hard-hitting and action packed. But when the audience cannot properly see and enjoy the action, the end result is disappointing. WWE Film's latest production, "The Condemned", offers bountiful opportunities for action fans to satisfy their hunger. But due to the poor directorial work, it becomes a tease. Even the star power and fan following of the film's lead (former WWE wrestler Steve Austin) was not enough could not save this debacle. "The Condemned" is one big mess that leaves the audience wondering what was the crime they committed to deserve this sentence.

On a remote South Pacific island, television producer Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) has bought 10 death row prisoners for his own deadly game of Survivor. The convicts will fight to the death until there is only one winner who will gain their freedom. Breckel plans on broadcasting the carnage over the Internet in hopes of gaining huge profits for himself. Among the prisoners are the mysterious Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) and the homicidal Ewan McStarley (Vinny Jones). The game is now on for what is literally the fight of their lives.

Scott Wiper's direction is the biggest downfall to what could have been a great action movie. With quick cuts accompanied by hard rock, Wiper seems to be directing a music video more than a feature film. He does not let the audience fully benefit and appreciate the prisoners fighting one-on-one. Instead of using a wide shot to show the convicts going at it, Wiper opts to use close-ups of the actors who are dishing out the punishment. This severely takes away from the concept of the story and the film. The basis is to show what murderous felons would do when placed on in a life or death situation. By reducing the visual effectiveness, the point becomes moot. When the actors are not moving, Wiper's direction gets better. He does to a well enough job in showing the more brutal crimes such as rape without having to show the actual deed. The implication itself does more for the audience than the filming ever could.

The weak direction is accompanied by an equally weak script by Wiper and Rob Hedden. The story begins decently with the battle of wills between convicts. It is when the story turns into a forced morality tale that it falls apart and makes the audience hang their heads and groan. Throughout the duration of the film, the story becomes filled with the standard counterpoint arguments, e.g., the convicts are human beings, violence is simply entertainment, etc. These arguments would have made a more profound impact if they could not have been seen a mile away. If the script makes it known that these prisoners are hardened and remorseless criminals, what is the purpose of having empathy for them? The point of "violence is entertainment" is a dispute against the film itself. Wiper and Hedden seem to saying that it is wrong for the audience to be watching this brutal film they have created.

Even with a role that seems tailor-made for Steve Austin, he is not able reach the full potential of the character. Again, this is more due to the poor script and directional planning. As Jack Conrad, Austin is supposed to be an ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners badass. But he is hardly involved in any conflicts until the nearly the end of the film. Throughout the majority of the movie, Austin is forced to play Conrad as a sympathizer for the prisoners and the hardships they have endured. It is a major letdown for any fan of the superstar or action movies. Contrary, Vinny Jones has more action sequences and more chances to engage his character of Ewan McStarley. Jones really plays McStarley to the full tilt as a ruthless, unconscionable madman. He masterminds most of the killings and does all the combats that audiences were expecting from Austin. Audiences will be more excited to see Jones on the screen because they will know that something will go down. One can also see that Vinny Jones seems to be having more fun with his character than the rest of the cast because he has something useful to do.

Even by action movie standards, "The Condemned" has all the lucidity of a drug addict telling stories to school children. It enjoys brief moments of high points and adrenaline but has too many gaps between the action sequences and the story. The direction is just too poor and the script is too rushed for the movie to be fully enjoyable. The only condemned are those who bought a ticket for this movie. Yours truly is guilty as charged.

GRADE: D+


Ten action-movie film-makers (John Woo and the like) are sent on ten separate deserted islands and given an assignment: to write a proper script each. The conditions are that the script is intelligent, basically logical, fairly realistic, and the characters reflect real people at least to a healthy extent. Can they do it? They are given a life-time to complete the goal, but can they actually switch on their brains, and will at least one of them succeed in coming up with something other than moronic garbage? That's the real-life reality show I wanna watch. And laugh to.

I just found out that "The Condemned" is a remake of a Japanese film with a similar premise (with students, i.e. perhaps even dumber), and am not really surprised. Hollywood has become so decadently lacking in ideas and inspiration that remakes and idea-theft is practically all that's left.

TC basically has a wrestler, Steve Austin (even if you never saw him, you'll immediately know he's a wrestler; the face, the body, and the strange line-delivery are a dead giveaway), who plays an appallingly dumb ex-navy guy/marine/whatever. He makes bad decisions CONSTANTLY: 1) he refuses the key for his handcuffs, in what is meant to show his defiance toward his captors (there are much smarter ways to defy someone than by shooting yourself in the foot; that's the Bin Laden school of thought). 2) He gets a chance to telephone somebody - not exactly the norm in such a situation - and who does he call? His ex. What do they discuss? Her feelings. Only 5 minutes later does it dawn on him (after his ex asks for his location) that he should find out the co-ordinates for the island i.e. help the U.S. rescue team find him. 3) His refusal to kill Vinnie Jones, which comes back like a boomerang. In fact, the pacifistic aspect of Austin's character is laughable; here we have a guy who "killed more people than all the other 9 combined", and yet he keeps sparing lives of murderers who threaten his own. So what is he, an assassin-with-the-heart-of-gold? A wrestler-with-the-heart-of-Gandhi? More like the killer-with-the-peanut-brain.

There are many far-fetched and just outright dumb things about TC. We have a multi-millionaire, who for some strange reason known only to himself i.e. which he refuses to share with the audience, decides to become America's or even the world's most-wanted man by organizing a highly illegal game of "Ten Little Indians". Why would he do that? We are told he is intelligent, and we are told that he can sell a used chewing-gum to a university professor. So why do this? How could he possibly think he could get away with it? Or be in hiding for the rest of his life? The assumption, of course, is that all multi-millionaires (let alone billionaires) are corrupt, immoral swine, which is very rich - coming from fat, decadent, RICH Hollywood film-makers.

The game starts off with the ten "contestants" being thrown out of a helicopter. WHY??? It's obvious that the organizers went through great pains and spent tons of money on getting all these murderers released (a harmless bit of idiocy, by comparison) so WHY would they want to risk having them all killed before the game even begins!? One of the ten actually does die straight away; he is mistakenly thrown on the ground and impaled. Austin, the wrestler, is thrown on land, too, and survives because obviously wrestlers fall from 100 meters height every day and live to tell the tale. We've even got two females in the 10. We've even got a married couple! A married couple of serial-killers who behave like a regular, non-psychopathic pair! Full of love and tears for each other: I think I'm gonna sob now! Tell you what. I don't even see any moral problem with taking 10 psychopaths condemned to death and letting them fight it out. Actually, that would be poetic justice, wouldn't it, because most murderers are cowards and kill only from a position of physical strength and by surprise. Hence, experiencing actual pain, as opposed to merely getting hanged and dying quickly would be more just. However, the problem in this silly movie is that the convicts do NOT all behave like psychopaths, which they should logically be (apart from Austin, who predictably is jailed wrongly).

I also have to address the laughable hypocrisy in the film-makers trying to make a message (you read that right) at the end of the movie. The message is violence in society, reality shows going overboard, bla bla bla. The only problem is that this very movie caters to the public's insatiable appetite for violence, as well! Ridiculous, and so transparent.

One of the most illogical moments in the film is when Young and the Japanese guy decide to fight each other, thinking/knowing that they're the last ones left. One question: HOW could either of them possibly have known that the others were all dead (well, apart from Austin)?? TC doesn't start so badly, has an okay cast of "killers" (Austin can't act but he's likable enough, plus Jones is always fun to have) and could have been a fun mindless action film, if it had stuck solely to the action, and if there had been an iota of an effort not to have so much nonsense in it. Like the dull malarkey surrounding the millionaire's film-crew rebellion against the show.

A movie made by idiots for idiots.


I just went to see this movie and was very disappointed that I spent money on it. The movie is very predictable. The acting, what acting? Steve Austin, needs to stick to wrestling. The other characters were almost blank sheets. The only other ones they even tried to develop were the producer and his main assistant. The cinematography is very lacking, they could have used steady-cams in a few places. The violence is extreme and repetitive.

Spoiler Warning: After All how many different ways can you come up with to kill people with an anklet bracelet bomb. I could see how the movie was going to end almost before it started. Please do not see this movie in the theater. I would not even bother with the DVD.


Actually, I didn't have high hopes for this film. Usually when a film stars a professional wrestler, more often than not it is going to be junk. These guys aren't just that good of actors.

This one, however, was a little better than most.

First, it truly ridicules the awful cultural phenomenon known as "reality television".

Secondly, it has some interesting moments. The scenes where the producers of the show actually start to have reservations about what they are doing. The scenes where Austin tries to act with some humanity when everyone else around him is murdering with impunity.

It's not Shakespeare. It's not Lawrence Olivier. It is good entertainment for a few hours.

There were some parts where I thought were stupid, like giving the ankle bracelets 10 second fuses, allowing someone to pull the pin on an adversary and kill him/her ten seconds later. Or the black guy (characer names are hardly worth remembering) who says he will never trust another woman and then realizes the female contestant just pulled his suicide pin while she runs away.


of camera...

From the first action i new this wouldn't be a good movie. I hoped that was a small mistake, but i was wrong...

Movie story is about broadcasting & entertainment. One multimillionaire decides to put 10 convicts to death at one island, and all of them fight to death against each other. One will be a winner and he will get cash & freedom. Island is covered with cameras, and their reality is broadcasted with internet to the world.

Directing is solid. At start it tracks convicts from their prison where they had "qualification", small fights, to death of course. But shooting of actions anywhere in movie is awful. I got sea sick, because camera is the one that rolls and pitch more than "fighter" themselves. So I didn't get impression of "sick action".

Whole movie is made so it could be put in genre "sick action". It can be called action just because there are few fights, and sick not because there are poor filmed few tortures, and not because of sick idea of story, but rather because of sea sick that viewer gets, because of camera shooting.

And there is American hero, so this movie is strongly proamerican. Some bodybuilder supposly works for American government some "dirty operations" and the government left him alone to tortures in Mexican prison, and all the time, he didn't betrayed his country. That is totally unreal. And also he is very very smart and fast, and strong. Now, i tell you... that is sick. Everyone has weakness even super-strong-ultra-fast-and-smart American hero.

Mix that American hero with sea sick action recording camera and maybe you'll get idea of sicknes...

Everything sick about this movie is idea of story and sea sick. All the way through, every next action or scene is predictable, so I rewinded almost half of movie.

If you really have money & time to waste, go see this movie, so you can tell your friends tomorrow, that your worst film is "The Condemned"


OK, this film is sold mainly on Stone Cold Steve Austin as it's star. And it falls down on it's ass right there.

He isn't a current wrestler and hasn't worked in the ring for at least 2 years that I am personally aware of, it's more than likely even longer than that.

At least when Hogan did Rocky 2 and The Rock did The Mummy they actually were both working for the company. You can't believe Stone Cold as a fighter if you know anything about his injury history, especially his knees.

The fact that you don't actually see their star until your a full 11 minutes into the actual film speaks volumes about how much they care about their on screen talent.

The 2nd thing the film falls down on is that the fighters are told they have 30 hours to kill each other but the timer is activated before they even reach the island so the 30 hour time limit is a load of rubbish anyway.

I think they cast Vinnie Jones in this after seeing things like Gone In 60 Seconds, Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels and the UK remake of The Mean Machine. His reputation as a hard man has long since gone.

Watching the 'being thrown out of the helicopter' scene and "seeing" Stone Cold land hard on the sand you then know most of his hard stuff is going to be done by stunt-men.

Another pointless WWE extra was Nathan Jones. Now this chap hasn't worked for them for a VERY long time and had a real short career anyway. He'd already worked with Jet Li and really lowered his movie profile by agreeing to be in this garbage.

The fast camera cuts in his fight with Stone Cold were way too fast and made that scene real hard to watch. Nathan Jones was killed far too easily and too quickly and you can now see they'll be using the bomb each person is wearing on their ankle a lot as he was the 2nd one to go that way and the 3rd to die in total.

Clearly the writers didn't have enough material to show most of the film on the island as they introduced a family as a back story for Stone Cold and took us away from the island (and the action, slowing the film right down at exactly the wrong time and place).

Vinnie Jones rapes the Hispanic women who was there with her husband (although you see nothing, it's all implied) and then blows her up so she's #4 dead.

Now then. With no tools, exactly HOW did Stone Cold jam his GPS signal? This film's main problem is it's copying stuff that has already been elsewhere and much better than this. Yes, you can draw parallels to The Running Man, Survivor - Series 7, Fortress, Battle Royale and even a film from the same year as this was released Doomed.

If your going to steal someone else's movie at least try and add something creative to your own to set it above the other one? The next guy to die is one of the faceless black actors and yes, he's blown up by his bomb, so 5 are dead and we're halfway through the cast with 2 sets of alliances going (Vinne Jones & the Japanese guy, Stone Cold and the husband of the dead Hispanic woman).

Vinnie Jones identifies himself to Stone Cold as SAS (WRONG! Current and Ex-SAS would never say they were special forces ever, their trained not to). Vinnie would have never passed SAS selection, he's too much of a character. The SAS like what they call "grey men", people who don't stand out. Him and the Japanese guy also kill the Hispanic dude and he's #6 dead.

A black woman is the 7th to be killed (Vinnie shoots her with an arrow but she blows herself up with the bomb.) leaving Vinnie, Stone Cold and the Japanese guy left.

What WERE the metal things Stone Cold taped to his forearms (and where the hell did he find duct tape on an island)? Again we have another fight where it's shot with too many fast cuts to make it watchable. Fast cuts DON'T equal action, they equal damn difficult to watch.

Stone Cold kills the Japanese guy so it's just him and Vinnie left which was pretty predictable and you already know whose going to win that fight anyway.

Whoever wrote this clearly did NO research on the SAS and what type of person they take, Vinnie's character is nothing like an SAS person would be, too much bravado and being gung ho. That might work for Hollywood but it's just not true in the real world.

The worst goof in that sequence was Vinnie getting the "dead man's click" when the shotgun was empty. Sorry but the SAS are taught to count their rounds to avoid this and he had loaded that weapon himself so that was NEVER going to happen, OK?

After Stone Colds "death" we are made to sit through a very preachy message about watching TV violence designed to make us think and question what we watch. WHY? What was the point of that?

Vinnie killing most of the people in the control room was just another example that the writer didn't understand the SAS mindset at all. Oh, and the sound effects for his MP5 were totally wrong - it sounded more like a 50 calibre than a 9mm.

The death of the guy running the whole TV show is pretty weak and the fact that Stone Cold's bomb is never deactivated seems to be glossed over and ignored.

The super weak and lame reunion ending topped off a generally awful and weak film.

Avoid like it's hunting you down to kill you.


you guys wanna know why The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson's movies are so much more successful? cause he does his signature move, The Rock Bottom, in every one.

I waited the whole movie for someone to get mf'in stunned.

This movie sucked.

let's repeat this: you guys wanna know why The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson's movies are so much more successful? cause he does his signature move, The Rock Bottom, in every one.

I waited the whole movie for someone to get mf'in stunned.

This movie sucked.

just kidding. i liked it. i just wished someone got hit with the Stone cold Stunner....and that he wore his knee brace.


I went to the premiere here in Portugal. I attended for free and with friends, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone.

Being a fan of wrestling as I am, really has little impact on one enjoying this movie or not. Although the acting can be considered decent for a run-of-the-mill action movie, it's undermined by poor and lazy writing and directing.

The writing fails to deliver, mainly because it fails to follow up on what you see in the trailer: the contrast between the extreme violence some of us come to and the people that profit or witness that very same violence. Seeing as they take the premises from "The Running Man" with Schwarzenegger and from the Japanese "Battle Royale", one would think "The Condemned" could debate this issue further. Instead, it revisits the superficiality that plagues the common Hollywood action script.

As if the absence of story wasn't enough, the action scenes are also poorly directed. Shot from overly tight angles, the fight scenes are hard if not impossible to follow and their resolution is only clear when you no longer see one of the opponents standing.

"Bottom line", as Steve Austin would say, is this movie is not worth the time of people who VALUE their time. And unfortunately so.


Well that wasn't swell. When a director decides to have a wrestler as the main character, I assume that I will see situations where a huge man cracks, snackles and pops almost as huge or as evil men around him. Well, thats what we all want to see if we choose to watch this kind of film. Now if a director decides to hire cameramen who all seem to have one thing in common - epileptic seizures whenever there's action - then that director is condemned to a certain hell (quoting a known shepherd). And this is the Stone Cold Steve Austin-sized flaw in this particular film.

You Don't see the ACTION. Its all blur and fast cuts and shitty shitty bang bang. What is the sense of directing a action film if you can't see whats FRIGGIN happening'? Certainly the plot is something not to mention. Certainly the acting is average. So thats why the action-sequences should provide our minds with cool, ass-kicking violence and head smashing, skull crashing brawls. But nooooooo. Instead we get a vision of "cool fight-scenes" from a cameraman who likely has studied in the filming-school of blind, inbred orphan monkeys who didn't fit to write Shakespeare in a government secret project.

This movie should have provided action in the form of Stone Cold Steve Austin but it fails miserably because we can't figure the F out where he is hitting and who he is hitting and what damage it does because the FRIGGIN cameraman is having a seizure while filming ! So to make this simple : no story, no good acting, no huge special effects and yes, action. If you can call 46 cuts in a 60 second scene action.

A big disappointment


More historical curiosity that entertainment, "Manhattan Parade" is an early sound effort that has dated badly. Perhaps hysterically funny in 1932, the film's static shooting technique only emphasizes the flatness of the jokes. A recurring pair of theatrical producers, played by the comedy team of Smith and Dale, overstays their welcome with a series of tiresome exchanges. Abbott and Costello they are not. The story, which originally had songs, revolves around a theatrical costume company, whose successful president is played by Winnie Lightner. However, Lightner surrenders her feminist credentials early on when she meekly submits to her husband's demands that he run the company and she stay home where she belongs and care for their young son. Needless to say, the philandering husband is no better at business than he is at marriage, and the company falls into debt.

Were it not for Bobby Watson, who plays a designer named Paisley, "Manhattan Parade" would rarely be unwound from its reels. However, Watson's limp wristed character is yet another prime example of gay stereotyping in early Hollywood. His threats to slap his foes or quit and stay home to decorate his apartment are evidently accepted by the other characters as quite normal for a sissy. Whining about fabric that should be maroon rather than cerise, Watson underscores filmdom's concept that gays are silly, shallow freaks with no values of consequence in their lives. While not as offensive as some gay characterizations, Paisley, nevertheless, will irritate viewers who are sensitive to negative stereotypes. Interestingly, the film also features two other male characters, a shy, daffy researcher and an effete, snobbish actor, whose sexuality could also be questioned. The concept of the theatrical world as a haven for gays had already taken root.

Unfortunately, there is little to recommend in "Manhattan Parade" other than its status as a footnote in gay film history. The performances are competent, although Dickie Moore is a scene-stealer as Lightner's son, and Lloyd Bacon's direction is perfunctory given the restraints of the period. This short comedy will seem to drag on humorlessly for hours to viewers who are not dedicated film historians.


Could Mel Brooks have seen this before he wrote his screenplay for "The Producers"? The two films sure have a lot in common. Unfortunately, "Manhattan Parade" is a shout-fest -- apparently, the movie director didn't trust the microphones to pick up normal conversations, and when the movie was converted from its live stage form, nobody told the actors to stop playing to the balcony. So much is screamed it becomes tiresome quickly. If only the lines were memorable enough to be screamed.

But I liked the moxieness of the wife, the elegant solutions of the research director, and, yeah, the limp-wristed gayness of the artistic director, a walking dictionary of practically every gay cliché there is. All of this stuff became impossible once the Code kicked in, so the movie does have its interests, if perhaps mainly for film and cultural historians.


Decent horror movie about a warlock who terrorizes a town through the body of a scarecrow. It's never boring and the acting and special effects are fairly polished, but the movie suffers from one too many stupid scenes near the end. It also takes a while to explain what exactly is going on, but overall it was enjoyable enough. 4 out of 10.


This is a pretty boring slasher in my opinion, as I was quite disappointed, after reading lots of positive stuff about it. It has some decent gore scenes, but all the characters were very unlikable, and it moved along at a snail's pace, plus the only time it got interesting was the finale, as that was kind of fun to watch. I bought this at a pawn shop for a $1, as thankfully I didn't spend much money on it, plus The Scarecrow wasn't menacing at all for me, as it was just too weak looking. It may be worth a watch for Horror fanatics(like myself), but even then I would have trouble recommending it, and it's badly made and written as well, plus Gary Lockwood played his role extremely well as the prick of a Mayor!. There is one amusing moment, where a couple of drunk guys try to go mess around and pee on the Scarecrow, and things go dead wrong, and I thought the two leads Elizabeth Barondes(Claire) and John Mese(Dillion) hardly had any chemistry together at all, plus as I said the only worthwhile things are the decent gore scenes and the finale. This is a pretty boring slasher in my opinion, as I was quite disappointed after reading lots of positive stuff about it, and I say avoid it. The Direction is not very good. Jeff Burr does a bad job here with dull camera work, using a potentially good setting, only problem is it moves along too slowly, for me to really give a damn. The Acting isn't much better. Elizabeth Barondes and John Mese are mediocre as the leads, and I didn't really care about there characters, they were just there, plus it didn't help that they didn't have very good chemistry together. Stephen Root is OK as the Sheriff, and did his job adequately. Howard Swain plays the scarecrow well enough too bad it wasn't that menacing. Gary Lockwood plays the prick of a mayor very well I hated him. Rest of the cast are mediocre. Overall I'd say avoid. * out of 5


Warlock's spirit, trapped within a scarecrow as his burnt bones lie in a tomb buried deep within the ground of his cornfield home, rises when the erected slab imprisoning his casket is disturbed as bolts of lightning emerge awakening his lifeforce..that's the best I can explain it, folks. It seems that the community founded by the Goodmans needed magical assistance if their unfertile land and people starving were ever gonna yield any satisfying results..in comes the Warlock to fulfill their needs, with his magic book of spells as a tool to help the community thrive and land fertile. When the magician began causing such rampant sin and perversion as his granted freedom gave way to lascivious appetites, those religious townpeople, who haven't succumb to the lusts of the flesh decide to hang him on a wooden cross in the middle of a cornfield, later burning his bones & burying them in a tomb. A scarecrow was erected, as was the slab, over the burial plot of the warlock, reminding the generations of Goodmans of the deeds they committed years ago. Anyway, we are now in the present and the recently awakened warlock uses his scarecrow body to kill various Goodmans(..and others in his path)looking to retrieve his magical book of spells and reunite with his bones so that he can return to fleshly form even more powerful than he is as a walking man of string. Claire Goodman(Elizabeth Barondes)is set up as you female heroine and lover Dillon(John Mese), who works for her pops, Mayor William Goodman(Gary Lockwood, FAR removed from 2001, that's for sure)is the male hero who must stop the killer scarecrow before he is able to become all-powerful.

Supernatural slasher milks the scarecrow idea for all it's worth. One scene has the scarecrow planting a seed within the lusty daughter of Priest Uncle Thaddeus(Bruce Glover, appropriately hammy as a corrupt priest who reads lingerie magazines while alone in his church)as it explodes wooden branches from her skin. Another has the scarecrow sowing Uncle Thaddeus' mouth shut. Oh, and you especially like the scene where the scarecrow causes one poor soul to grow straw from his facial orifices, fingers and torso. One scene has the scarecrow blowing straw into a cop's face like little nails that stab the guy in the face. Lots of WTF? death sequences that cause one to giggle..

Some recognizable faces include Dirk Blocker as drunken Uncle George who gets shredded by his tractor, Stephen Root as sheriff Uncle Frank who receives straw "needles" into his face, Martine Beswick as Uncle Thaddeus' wife Barbara(she likes to sew, so this ought to hint at how she'll likely perish), and John Hawkes as Danny, the nuisance who unearthed the warlock to begin with. Director Jeff Burr tries to inject some style into the incredibly asinine premise, but to enjoy this you'll have to accept the film on it's terms. Judging by the film's user rating, few have..


This movie has no redeeming qualities (okay a couple of inventive deaths but you'll be bored getting to them). Writing a review of it seems to be a waste of time but I've already wasted 90 minutes of my life watching it so if I can stop other people from doing the same then it was worth it. Think for a minute what makes bad horror movies so bad and you have Night of the Scarecrow. The director needs to go back to film school and study suspense again because this movie doesn't have any. Let me say this one last time: gore does not equal horror!!! The gore in the movie is even quite lame. I find Scarecrows scary so I had high hopes for this film but it's just another example of why horror movies get such a bad rap. The acting is mediocre as are the few shocks that the film has. Do yourself a favour and skip this dud. 1 out of 10.


The film is about two brothers who lost contact with each other during their teenage years. The younger brother Josh, live a messy but rather okay life, he hang out with his friends, doing silly things. At Josh 18th birthday his long lost brother comes home... I leave the rest for you to find out.

I think it's a kind of messy movie, it really doesn't tell a story. Not a good story anyway. You can almost figure out quite fast how things are. The acting in the movie was decent, Josh wears the same expression on his face during 99% of the film.

My advice to you, watch it if you're really bored.


I can always seem to tell how good a movie is going to be by the opening soundtrack music. This movie was no exception. I've heard better music on a Casio keyboard pre-programmmed. I watched this based the actors merit only. It was almost a complete waste of time. Only a movie with this thin of a plot could have as many holes. The funnest part of this movie was the word game played with the main character and his girlfriend. I've seen better. Too many to mention. I've seen worse. The only one that comes to mind is From Justin To Kelly. If you want to waste some time at 3 in the morning whilst madly drunk, be my guest. Otherwise, change the channel.


For the most part, the only things that brought me through the whole film are that it was very difficult to get the loan of a copy of the film via interlibrary loan, and it has Rhys Meyers (as he spelled it for this film) in it, who is always nice to look at. Although there is a good premise for an interesting film and story, there was not enough continuity and plot development to keep me interested and engaged. There were a number of subplots and minor characters which and who really didn't add anything of value to the story. I think that if you are a fan of Rhys-Myers or Modine, you may want to see the film in order to get to see them in an unreleased-for-theaters film, but otherwise, it really isn't work your time or trouble. If you're planning to enjoy looking at Rhys-Myers' skin, you can do a lot better with some of his other work. Tangled may not be an excellent film, either, but he drops his pants for you in it, and that is worth something you won't get out of "The Maker."


Here we have the epic tale of the battleship Yamamoto. This ship was eventually destroyed by a U.S. air strike off the coast of Okinawa; well over 2,000 crewmen went down with the ship, and most where new conscripts who were merely teenagers. While adhering to most factual details, the movie embellishes with dramatic tales of family and friends, lovers and mothers, the effect of which is intended to heighten the sense of tragedy over the loss of youthful lives. The viewer also witnesses the brutal discipline of the Japanese military of that era, replete with punishment and beatings for those who fail to meet the exacting service standards demanded by superior officers.

The young sailors are depicted as striving with gusto to serve in the capacity expected of them. The fact that all are deluded into thinking they are serving to protect Japan is left to modern historic sensibilities to recognize. No mention is made of the abhorrent brutality of the Japanese military in Asia. On the other hand, American airplanes attacking the ship are merely an impersonal airborne antagonist; the planes appear as nothing more than menacing vehicles streaming down from the sky in much the same manner as the Japanese aircraft in the American movie Pearl Harbor.

While one might argue the exaggerated masculinity that the Japanese military exhorted its members to assimilate led to the ruin of the young men, and this may be a central tragedy the movie sought to explore, the relish which most sailors seem to take in the fight does little to promote sympathy from the viewer. In cinematic terms, one strong point of the film is the Yamamoto's final battle where a grim and bloody onslaught, reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan, depicts the Yamamoto's denouement.

Another feature of the film: it is told in a limited "flash back" style. It begins with a young woman seeking to find the Yamamoto's grave on the anniversary of its sinking, (There is more than one debt the movie owes to Saving Private Ryan). The movie ends with the young woman and friends in a small boat saluting the dead at sea. While this scene, too, is calculated to yield a strong sentimental response from the audience, its most useful purpose is to show that the issues of World War II remain difficult for contemporary Japanese to accept and resolve. But surely the difficulty is much more than grappling with the results of a failed military adventure.

One very weak point of the movie is the fact that most of it was shot in a studio, something easily discernible. There is no out-at-sea feeling to the movie; scenes are shot too tightly to give the impression of being out in the open on a large vessel. The CGI effects are very poor, with the Yamamoto looking like a battleship on a video game display.

In spite of strong performances by a number of the actors here, the movie cannot escape its own limited scope--it will not attract viewers outside of Japan. It is a movie designed for Japanese, and one that asks a limited number of questions about that nation's tragic march to disaster.


1st watched 12/30/2001 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Joseph Kane): Uninspired early John Wayne western portraying him at his early acting stages where he seems to just be doing the lines without putting any feeling into them. This story could have brought out much emotion(Wayne's character's father being murdered and him returning as a lawyer to do in the killer) but it's pretty much kept at bay so that we're presented with a flat and typical gun-shooting contest. Wayne is a handsome young stud here but not much else and the screenplay comes across like it was written on the way over to the set without much patchwork done to it. I'm sure Wayne's tall good looks and smile kept his contract going until he was able to actually do some real acting later in his career so for this I'm grateful(I guess).


Being quite fond of heist/sting/caper movies this looked like it was well worth a hire at the local DVD store when it came out.

After about 5 minutes I was feeling very confused - I was sure had seen it before but it had only just been released. *light goes on over head* - This is very reminiscent of 9 Queens. Ten minutes later... *light goes on over head* - This is a Hollywood remake of 9 Queens. Maybe I'm the only person to watch the movie that didn't know it was remake.

And that, as they say, is that. If you have already seen 9 Queens then this won't hold any surprises for you. The acting, directing etc. etc. are all fine but then again, it was all fine (if not excellent) in 9 Queens. If you haven't seen 9 Queens then watch that instead because it is better.

It just makes me sad that when there are people struggling to get new interesting movies funded, that it is seen as more profitable to do a remake of a film that is only a few years old anyway. Of course we all know the reason for the remake; 9 Queens is not in English and requires that you read subtitles and the 15 to 25 year old American boys that are the prime target for this type of film can't read and chew popcorn at the same time.

If this film had been an original I would be inclined to give it 7 or 8 stars but because the best part of it (the plot) is lifted (and in the final credits it acknowledges 9 Queens) and also because I am really annoyed by pointless remakes - (Don't even mention Nikita!!) I can only summon up 2 stars. What a pointless way to use a great cast and the film making talent that was evidently available for this piece of work.


I gave this movie a 3 out of 10, and I thought I was being charitable.

I'm normally one who likes con movies. I only have 2 rules. The movie should have a twist that I don't see coming 80 miles away (either the con itself or how the con was pulled off) and that the twist should make sense (you should be able to watch it a 2nd time with a completely different perspective). This one succeeded in the first but only because it failed in the second.

Why throw in a twist without an explanation? May be it was because I hadn't seen "9 Queens," but I really wish they had explained why the twist had occurred by throwing in some more background at the end or something instead of just abruptly ending it with me feeling like I stepped out during the part of the movie that would have a) let me see this coming at all and b) me care enough that it did any more than just the feeling that I had been taken for a confused ride.


i cant remember the name of the main actor...john?james? anyway he is the one with the short brown curly hair. He has the stage presence of a dead vampire wearing a garlic necklace and charm bracelet. Every time he opened his mouth the words just stunk. I dunno if it was the actual writing or if the fault lies squarely with him but the dialogue seemed amateurish and the little tricks of the trade which helped us to understand his character, seemed childish. It's like we're supposed to be thinking "oh my, wasn't that so very clever" but in actual fact, it gets a "meh." This movie sucks. do not watch unless you wanna be shocked that they make movies like this.


This film is based on another film! It's a bad starting point. Now the worst thing is that the original one is far better than this copy. It's much a copy than a "based on" kind of thing.

Don't waste your time and see the original, more details of original movie (Nueve Reinas):

http://www.IMDb.com/title/tt0247586/

with 7,6/10 IMDb votes (over 3500 votes)

This film is based on another film! It's a bad starting point. Now the worst thing is that the original one is far better than this copy. It's much a copy than a "based on" kind of thing.


Someone needs to tell Reilly to hire a new agent. I thought he was above this kind of crap. I begrudgingly sit through 1.5 hours of this only to find out he was being set up by all the but players all along. So we're presupposed to the fact that this was all a master rouse from the start and that John's character just "happens" to find the kid in the cascino as his unwitting accomplice? Give me a freaking break.

I'm all for the suspension of disbelief when watching movies, but this was too much to ask the viewer. There are a dozen other ways to have contrived an justifiable plot without putting the viewers through the ordeal and offering the surprise at the end. This just sucked. I was angry that I had spent my time to watch it- I highly advise that you save yours and pass on this lump of dirt.


God awful David Mamet wannabe is so lame, it is truly a shame to see John C. Reilly involved with this giant pigeon droppings of a movie. Everything, and I mean everything about "Criminal" is totally contrived. The film actually is an insult to the audience's intelligence. Stupidity is piled upon stupidity, until an ending that absolutely confirms that essentially you have just wasted 87 minutes. Zero likable characters, zero believable characters, and a script that never should have happened, unless it's purpose was to leave the audience feeling frustrated, annoyed, insulted, and cheated. Definitely one to be avoided, unless you are a glutton for punishment. - MERK


As I scan the many laudatory reviews of this movie posted above, I find myself asking myself just what kind of movies from the past 30 or 40 years these reviewers have been watching, or indeed if they've watched any. No genre ages more quickly and more badly than the "big con" movie, since the whole satisfaction of the viewer hinges on the big final scene - which we know from every "con artist" movie from "The Sting" to Mamet's "House of Games" and which, inevitably, recurs in every familiar detail as the big closing scene of "Criminal" - in which all the characters who have been presented to us throughout the film as having no connection with one another - street-robbers, cops, "mark"s etc. - are revealed - gasp!! - to have secretly been part of some big coordinated scam after all. In a sense, that scene has been "used up" and dramaturgically useless since "The Sting", and all the subsequent "big con" movies of the 80's and 90's, have had to add some very special extra ingredient - such as Mamet's plumbing of the sexual and psychological abysses beneath the "con/mark" relation - in order to be movies of any even limited note. "Criminal" offers no such special angle or special depth and tries to trade on nothing but the - by now hopelessly threadbare - fascination of lives led according to the principle of the double-double-cross and the "nothing is what it seems". Precisely that, however, is the film's psychological downfall in the face of an audience which is - or which one would have assumed ought to be - as familiar by now with the conventions of this genre as it is with those of the mafia movie. The cinema MUST surely have taught us all enough about the lives and work of conmen by now for us to find it ludicrously improbable that either of the two main characters would be willing to expose thousands of dollars of money already "in hand" in order to secure the alleged "sure thing" of a deal that is to net them many thousands more (after all, it is the endemic idiocy of such greed and of the general greed-driven tendency to forget the "bird in the bush" principle that is the very basis of a conman's livelihood). Around this central crying improbability there cluster a dozen others, hardly less egregious: The John C. Reilly character would really have agreed in twenty seconds to the offer of the currency expert not to reveal that the note was a fake in return for a share of the money? Hardly, since it is hard to imagine a simpler way for the mark to find out that the note he was buying WAS indeed a fake than to send the currency expert along with just such an offer? Would he really have permitted any arrangement which might even possibly result in his parting with the note and having in hand, in return, only a CHECK which needed to be taken to a bank and cashed? The idea is ridiculous, since it would clearly involve running the risk of there happening what actually does happen at the bank in the penultimate scene. It seems that filmgoers and DVD-viewers are so desperate for that ever-more-elusive "wow-I-didn't-see-THAT-coming!" kick that large numbers of them are willing, these days, to bring their own willing paralysis of basic cogitative capacities to that "walking dead" genre, the "grifter movie". Well, at least I'll be spared hours of head-shaking incomprehension when I read on here in a couple of months rave review after rave review of a new mafia movie which features a scene in which the rat receives with relief and unconditional enthusiasm the message from the boss: "Sure, I know you helped set up the hit on my kid brother, and I'm not too happy about it. But I really need someone to help me watch out for the arrival of a drugs shipment down at the docks at 3 am tonight, so I'm willing to say: 'let bygones be bygones'. But remember to bring a couple of bags of cement so we both have something to sit on."


A collection of poorly acted parts, with Diego Luna the only positive of any note.

How anyone can think this film is any good is beyond me. The plot is disjointed and random, the casting is terrible, the storyline is uninteresting and to top it all, the ending is ridiculous in the extreme. Never have I seen so many people walk out of a cinema early. Maggie Gyllenhaal, usually so good (Donnie Darko, Mona Lisa Smile) was wooden and her character lacked any credibility; John C. Reilly is atrocious, partly at least due to a pitiful script whose only goal seemed to be to pad out the minutes before the film got to its end; Diego Luna was likable and moderately adept, but couldn't make a difference to the film on his own.

This is the worst film I've seen since Antz... and that was animated!


I didn't see this movie at all. But i'm writing this comments just to make sure that tiger user (the one that left a message before me) don't make the mistake again of telling people that NINE QUEENS was a British movie. Nine Queens was a great Argentinian film, and then there were, of course, remakes of this first movie because of it big success. But all the credits are Argentinian's. I'm proud to said this and i don't want people to think that is from a hole other country. Well, that's all. I don't have anything else to say, except: You have to see the original one. That was a hit. There are some things you may not understand, because are local people codes, but everything in the Nine Queens movie is excellent, from the scrip to the finish song and the titles; everything.

PS: Sorry about my English. I hope i'd understood what i said.


"Nemesis 3" featured so much recycled footage from "Part 2" that the story didn't seem to progress at all, and the result was an essentially pointless and useless movie. So Albert Pyun attempted here to drive the series to a different direction entirely. Problem is that by now few viewers still had the patience to follow his "vision", that had strayed so far from the original (and, by comparison, very entertaining) "Nemesis". Anyway, when a movie includes flashbacks to earlier films and lengthy closing credits that replay many of the "best" scenes we just saw and STILL runs only about 77 minutes, you know something's wrong.

Sue Price's rippling muscles are the sole point of interest in this ultra-cheesy, badly acted production. (*1/2)


Anyone who has seen this film will surely not give it 9 out of 10 or even 3 out of 10 lest large amounts of liquor mixed with unleaded gasoline are involved. We as viewers are subjected to empty scenes filled with not only bad direction, but terrible dialog all set in a landscape that almost has nothing to do with the past films in this series. It's hard to find a place to start with such a terrible film, so let's go with the lead actress Sue Price. Though her acting has improved from the previous films (due to large part of her being voiced over) she still looks like she has nothing better to do then pace around in a scene to waste film and expand the films running time. Now, I will be the first to say that she has wonderful muscular body which I am sure took years of passion and hard work to achieve, but that is not enough criteria for her to be placed into a film wearing a white ala Marilyn Monroe dress and made to walk around the ghettos of Bulgaria. In her past incarnations of this character she was placed in South Africa, which in some strange way was at least passable on screen even if the story and direction was so bad that Roger Corman would look at it and say, WTF. We began with a tribal African warrior, genetic mutant chic from the future to a neo-German trash naked killer who likes to liftweights in the film because it helps her think. Beyond the crap setting of the film and ridiculous makeup, along with horrible special effects (what little there were) there is huge amount of nudity. Okay, Sue Price has an impressive body but I don't want to see it every other scene, or for that fact ever. There is a thick line between sexy innuendos in a movie to blatant nudity for no reason what so ever. One scene actually has our heroine strip from head to toe right before she knocks out another bad guy. Once he has been incapacitated she stands above him naked, get this - lifting weights!?! This is not art; it's an attempt to show skin for the foreign fetish market. I don't even want to mention how she has needles that come out from his chest to finish off her victim. (I thought she wasn't a cyborg to begin with?) Whatever lost clever moments that might have had a chance from Nemesis 2 and 3 are replaced with quickly filmed garbage, with a script that from what I can tell was written on a cocktail napkin, vomited on and then given to the actors to read as the scene was being filmed. This film couldn't float on water even if they were made of air. One line states "do you hear angels crying?" I would say no, but there is no question they are laughing.


I saw this film not too long ago. I borrowed it from a friend who bought the DVD in Canada. I thought 'Well? Let's see what this film is like..' To tell you the truth, I think director Albert Pyun's fourth Nemesis installment has sunk more lower than a submarine. Hitting the ocean floor or the abyss. In this film, there's so much talk and less action. I couldn't believe what Sue Price has got herself into. Stripping nude in the film as she carries gun, kill a few guys and that's it! Although she maybe good in the film.. I would've thought there would be more action. But it seems that Albert Pyun decided to tone it down in this crappy flick. Obviously the movie itself was set in 2080 AD. But it seems it's set in the 90's in some ghost town with nobody there. There was a scene where Sue Price's character, Alex fires one shot at a helicopter which was totally out of proportion. I thought Mel Gibson's character of Martin Riggs of Lethal Weapon would shoot the pilot dead within 3 shots. Anyway, this film is not as good as I thought. It was terribly done. Shame this fourth Nemesis movie really ran its course. I don't blame Sue Price. I hope in future, she gets better and decent roles than this. So for Sue Price, 10 out of 10! Well? You do the maths.. As for the film? 0 out of 10! Not my kind of film! Sorry..!!