The movie is totally pathetic. The plot is just ridiculous, with very poor selection of "funny" scenes, including some totally displaced "sexy scenes". America is not the greatest place to live, and americans are not the smartest nation on this globe, and this movie is just another proof. I regret having spent $5.69 Canadian to watch another stupid movie about american "heroes". I am completely astonished at how stupid movies have become from our southern neighbours. I really feel compelled to start watching any movie but american.


The two aging irresponsible cops with a "twist" are back to mock criminals, pedestrians, each other and their superior officers, but most of all the audience. I mean the lack of story not very well disguised with a comic undertone takes this to undreamed heights of awkwardness. The two "heroes" start by blowing up a building(and making fun about it), and being demoted to street patrol but somehow, thru a loop-hole in the script find themselves chasing an arms-dealer cop. Along the way they are "funny" as always, they make fun of each other and alongside Leo Getz and new addition Lorna generally have lots and lots of fun!! - but keep in mind they are cops, and Riggs especially goes from funny to frenzied car-chaser in a second-and when that happens, his left behind slow apprentice, the ever-retiring side-kick Murtaugh finds himself shouting on top of his lungs "Riggs, Riggs, wait for me" , reminding me of Daniel-San in Karate Kid calling out for his Master Miyagi for the entire duration of the movie, with a not-so-bright look on his face. -Ah, but then the fun begins again, and they forget about their troubles and make fun of Leo Getz again and the saxophone plays again,and the mood is :)...and then Riggs is a "son of a bitch" again, and Murtaugh in insensitive not to take Riggs in account when he decides to retire for yet another time...?!? and the mood is :(

Oh, what an emotional-explosive roller coaster...give me a break!


I've long hated this film. For a long time I only owned Lethal Weapons 1,2 and 4 and only bought this because it was dirt cheap and people always moaned at me for missing it out, even though they understand that it is a rubbish film.

Shane Black is gone, in fact he walked away from Lethal Weapon 2 when they refused to make it as dark as he originally wrote it. But at least Riggs and Murtaugh were still Lethal Weapons, THAT was the whole point in the films being so called right? Lethal Weapon 3 might as well have been called 'Inoffensive Family Friendly Safety Weapon'. There is hardly any action in this and what action there is is nothing more than very, very boring and unimaginative gunfights. There is not a drop of blood and without the not so abundant f-word there is no reason for this not to be a PG-13.

The bad guy is weak. I'm not kidding you there. His ultimate goal is not world-domination or to seize control of the drug cartels or holding the government hostage. No, Mr Lethal Weapon 3 Bad Guy wants to...build a housing estate. Well, if that ain't the most vilest of all evil plans I've heard of. Sheesh, what a bad man, he truly deserves to die.

The lame plot about the stolen guns is a thin excuse for Richard Donner's anti-NRA propaganda (he used to be a member but turned his back on them in disgust around this point). As well-intentioned as this may be, it doesn't belong in a film called Lethal Weapon, especially when you consider the gun violence in the 2 previous movies.

They try to make it funny, into an action-comedy. But it's absolutely rancid. The witless, irritating dialogue is overwritten and annoying and Joe Pesci's character is in desperate need of a slap. What is with the blonde hair and earring? A lot of this film could have been cut down, at 121 minutes the anorexic plot long outstays its welcome. There are just so many pointless scenes and distractions. The subplot about Murtaugh (the character is supposed to be 55 but Glover was only 44) retiring is just done to death and it's so slow. What is this? Some family drama? And am I the only one who's noticed that EVERY character says 'sonofabitch' about a million times in this film. Plus Danny Glover shouts 'RIGGS' every 5 seconds. And don't even get me started on Michael Kamen's rubbish score. The saxophone thing totally overbears on every scene and becomes highly distracting. And when he's not using this completely inappropriate sound he's nicking music from his own Die Hard score.

It's because of movies like this that Last Action Hero got made.

The new 'Director's Cut' DVD presents the film in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a faultless picture. The Dolby/DTS 5.1 soundtrack is loud and forceful but hardly dynamic. There are no interesting features (not that I care). The R1 DVD comes in a horrid snapper case but the R2 is a sturdy keepcase.


Number 3, why? How far can they wear out this formula? I started routing for the bad guys and maybe this way the series would be finito. Joe Pesci plays an annoying character. It makes me wonder what he is like in real life. This is a typical shootout hollywood ending. It is so predictable. The humor between the two main actors is getting old. 3/10


Poor Tommy Yates (Brian Presley), one of the heroes of the Iraq war drama Home of the Brave, has fallen so far after his return home that the best job he can get is (shudder) working the box office at a movie theatre. He runs into Vanessa (Jessica Biel), who was hurt in the attack that killed his best friend, at the movie theatre; they chat about how hard it has been to adjust. Tommy notes that he sells "stupid tickets to these stupid movies," but he never goes to see them, because they "seem so unimportant."

There are no other scenes at Tommy's place of employmenthe could work at any number of low-paying menial jobs. But screenwriter Mark Friedman works in that little piece of commentary to congratulate both himself and the viewer; the film you're watching is not like all those other "stupid movies," you see. It's important. The problem is that Home of the Brave is an execrable film, so poorly made and obvious that it is impossible to take seriously, no matter how earnest and noble the intentions. A bad film is a bad film, whether it concerns serious topics or not.

Most bad films can be blamed squarely on the scriptand this one's a doozybut Home of the Brave is incompetent on every level: bad writing, bad directing, bad music, bad editing, and mostly bad performances. Director Irwin Winkler started out as an accomplished producer, and bore that credit on many good films (Raging Bull and Rocky among them), but he has yet to direct a good film, after many tries (The Net, At First Sight, De-Lovely, Life as a House). There's no focus to this effort; the pacing plods, the performances are all over the place, and there's not a cliché in the war movie book that Winkler doesn't embrace (when Chad Michael Murray buys the farm early in the pictureto my immense reliefWinkler actually has his best buddy Presley run to him in slow motion, screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!").

The screenplay, by first-time screenwriter (and former Harvey Weinstein assistant) Mark Friedman, is astonishingly bad. Its poor quality sneaks up on you, since there's minimal dialogue before the first extended action sequence (though said dialogue does include the news that this Iraq company will be heading home inside of a week, which anyone who has ever seen a cop movie knows is a sure sign of impending death and destruction). But the dialogue is atrocious, the kind of corny, cliché-ridden platitudes that would get a quick rewrite on your average made-for-TV movie (which Home of the Brave, with its plinky piano music and slo-mo flashbacks, often recalls). For example, when he visits his buddy's widow (Christina Ricci, whose tiny role in a film this bad is entirely inexplicable), she asks, "Was he a hero, Tommy?" He replies, "He died defending his country." The whole script is like that.

And everyone gets a big monologue. Poor Jessica Biel actually has one where she tells the story of how she was injuredwhich we saw, in its entirety, in the opening sequence. Her telling adds no insight or additional perspective to the earlier scene; I guess it's there for people who showed up late (helpfully, footage from the scene is shown over her shoulder, as if she's Katie Couric or something). Victoria Rowell, as Samuel L. Jackson's wife, has a long monologue where she lists all of the things she did for their family while he was gone; he's aware of all of them ("I supported you when you enlisted!"), so this entire speech exists purely for our benefit. And so on. Even Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson gets a monologue, and whoa boy was that a bad idea. I know he's a tough guy (since he'll never shut up about how many times he's been shot), so I'm sure he can take the criticism he'll receive for his performance in this film. He's awful, all dead eyes and mumbled dialogue; given moments that require a real actor (like when he accidentally takes out an Iraqi civilian), Jackson's face registers nothing. Whatever you call him, Jackson or Fiddy, he stinks.

Brian Presley, who probably has more screen time than anyone, doesn't fare much better. The bulk of Presley's resume, according to IMDb, is on soap operas; this is his first major film, and with any luck, it will be his last. His line readings are stilted and unconvincing, his attempts at genuine emotion are laughable, and even a good actor would have trouble delivering his final "Dear Mom and Dad" voice-over well.

Samuel L. Jackson is good enough, I guess, but when is he going to get back to making good films? We've given him like ten years of paycheck roles now; it's time for him to stop phoning it in. He basically has to play the same notes that his contemporary Denzel Washington did in Courage Under Fire ten years ago; that was a brilliant, subtle performance, but even more so compared with Jackson's work here (his drunk act is about as nuanced as Foster Brooks'). The surprise of the film is Jessica Biel, who is actually the best thing in it, proving that her solid (but brief) turn in The Illusionist was no fluke. She has a couple of moments so honest, in fact, that they deserve to have been airlifted into a better film.

Believe it or not, I feel like I'm low-balling the sheer ineptitude of Home of the Brave; it really is inexcusably stupid, a mixture of every bad Lifetime drama, filtered through a hot topic to make it seem timely. And that's perhaps what is most reprehensible about the film: it is a ham-fisted, simple-minded, schlocky examination of an important subject. And for that, the people who made it should be ashamed of themselves.


I am a film student and tonight Producer Rob Cowan came to our campus to show the first advanced screening of this film. Naturally, many students took advantage of this hoping to see a decent, entertaining film... HOWEVER, There aren't adequate words to describe how awful this film is. I knew going into it that this film was probably not going to be some engaging, powerful war drama, but still something to leave audiences satisfied. The reasons why this movie was awful 1. The acting is preposterous, not one character (Samuel L., Jessica Biel, 50 Cent (Obviously)) was well acted in any manner. 2. It is one of the most poorly written I have ever been privy too. Feeding off of the topical debates over the war in iraq, the script is ridden with clichés and feels like a Lifetime Movie gone wrong. 3. The directing to say the least is an absolute disgrace. This film is horribly structured and a complete headache as a result 4. 50 Cent. Going in, I was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt and judge his acting abilities fairly without any prior stigmas. Sadly, The minute he opened his mouth he erased all doubt that he has absolutely no place in this film

Typically, I am not a big fan of completely trashing a film. I believe that my opinion is my own and it is wrong to spread that on others. With that being said, I can say that this is the one film that I have no problem doing so. If in the event you would like to judge for yourself, don't say I didn't warn you when your cursing out the Movie Theatre manager for not giving you a refund.


I've seen a lot of bad "war" movies over the years, but this one takes the cake. I was surprised at how awful this movie ended up being with such a star-studded cast. Sam Jackson, Jessica Beil, Christina Ricci, what happened? Hands down, this movie contained the worst character acting I have ever scene. It was like watching an "80's" after school special. Only instead of teen pregnancy or drugs, it was about the Iraq war. Thankfully there was no political horn-blowing in the movie, but then again, there wasn't any plot either. Whoever wrote this film really missed the mark on reality. Next time, get a real military veteran to review the storyline before releasing such a piece of crap.


This movie was OK from an entertainment standpoint but breaking it down further reveals it to be nothing more than pure propaganda. The four individual stories just seemed out of touch of reality. Wars do suck and soldiers are injured and maimed for life. However, there are a great many of us (I am in the military) that do come back and lead extremely productive lives, just as we did before we left. Why this movie had to take all four experiences and make them negative is beyond me. There are so many cases of men and women coming back who are able to deal with what they experienced. This movie made it seem as if everyone coming back from war is either screwed up psychologically, becomes violent or a drunkard or has to deal with life missing a limb. Furthermore, why was 50 cent in this movie? The clown can't even speak English. He has absolutely no talent when it comes to acting, and when it comes to music for that matter. Jessica Biel was bland and her acting was simply unbelievable. The only bright spot was from Samuel L. Jackson.


I don't like being so negative, but my God, this was bad. I should have researched this before I bought it. It started good. Some nice action and good stuff going on. Then it turned into Lifetime's Movie of the Week. I wanted to see Samuel Jackson kicking ass and taking names. But instead all I got was him drinking and kicking his annoying teenager son in the ass which as annoying as he was, it was nice. Then the other 3 soldiers were boring too. All this was, was a "remembering" the war and how screwed up life is now for them. It reminded me of Dead Presidents in a remote way. But Dead Prsidents was way better. Curtis Jackson is as annoynig as an actor as he is a rapper. This is good if you want film to watch and think "wow, those guys have it really bad". Certainly not for action fans.


While I can't add anything to my summary, it requires 10 lines to submit a rating so I have to add more comment.

This movie is a major distortion of the Iraq war.

It is depressing, bringing out the worst part of any war, and is not representative of what our brave troops do, or what the vast majority of them live with when they return to our country.

It is a cliché.

It offers the worst of what the Vietnam War offered viewed through the Communist propaganda of that time, pretending to be about a war against the Iraqi people.

It is a battle against anti-freedom Sadam supporters and the terrorists that attacked our country. Regardless of our feelings toward Bush, we need to fight Al-Queda there, because that is where they chose, or else we will be fighting them here, in LA, NYC, Atlanta, and Omaha.

It is a FAR left vision of reality- distorted to show the minimum as if it were the maximum.

It ignores the social benefits our troops have supplied to the Iraqi people, and ignored the awful life the Iraqi's had under that awful dictator and his rapist, sadist, boys.

It doesn't represent the accomplishments of the troops at that time and certainly not the major accomplishments reported over the last couple years in the Associated Press or Reuters.

It is, simply, an awful movie that is anti-American, and against our courageous volunteer army.

When will Hollywood learn that insulting the American people will not generate either a great movie, or a popular movie???


this film, at least as far as the DVD jacket is concerned, is portrayed as an action movie about the changes that take place in soldiers seeing combat. Until the battle scene is over and you realize that the focus is instead going to be on their post-combat return to civilian life, you are expecting something unique and insightful. This movie is so cliché' ridden as to be laughable, from the conceit of a short-timer squad going out on one last patrol (yeah, yeah, the same as every 19 year on-the-job cop movie where the sergeant dies the day before retirement, yawn), to the PTSD laden troubles that have been shown over and over in so many movies, so much better, in the past 30 years. I'm truly embarrassed for Samuel Jackson. I would have thought he would have had much better sense in selecting a script. He does great. Can he not? But THIS film? I'm 3/4 the way through and still waiting for just a hint of something original that I have not seen before (employment woes, civilian misconceptions, drug and alcohol abuse, slams against the VA -yawn). And don't get me started on offering a role to an overpaid gangster like fiddy cent to try and lure viewers instead of spending the money on talented writers. Man, this is the first time in my life I have been so incensed at such a misrepresentation of an unoriginal film. I will ask for my money back.


My family rented this film and I was not particularly looking forward to it, what with the negative comments on IMDb. While it's not as bad as declaring 'worst film of the year', it's still pretty lousy. You don't really care much for the characters at all. There doesn't seem to be any sense of direction for this movie, it's just a boring and generally uneventful. And anything that does happen is often ludicrous, especially a particularly stupid sequence with 50 Cent going crazy and holding hostages in a fast food restaurant and then getting shot by a police sniper. It sounds like a bad joke, but it's not. Avoid this one, and go watch 'Best Years of Our Lives' for a compassionate study of what it's like to come home from a war. Winkler should be slapped.


Now, granted i only saw about parts of this film (as it is, my father had it on, and i was in the basement working on a project), from what i did see, it was just so grating.

Perhaps this movie was directed towards certain people so they can have something to watch, and feel better about themselves, or perhaps it was directed towards the normal viewer so they can better understand the plight of the soldiers.

Whatever, and whoever it was directed towards was irrelevant. what kills it, and grates on my nerves like a cheese to a shredder was the endless, and by endless i mean, scene after scene, nonstop cliché'.

I get it, you know, coming back from "the war" and trying to integrate back into society only to find that a vast majority of people don't "get you". my father contrasted it to world war ii when the vets came home to a hero's welcome and star treatment as opposed to what vets come home to now.

I wont get into the fundamental differences between now and then, not that it isn't painfully obvious, but it is true that vets coming home today do not get that same treatment.

Off the plane, cheer and holler, hugs and tears, a week later back to life...

But again, there must be a better way to tell the story without it being one long political cliché'! Either way, i sincerely did not like the movie. Jackson is as Jackson does and can do no wrong when it comes to acting. beil needs to realize that she is best when she is a comic book heroin type, and cannot by any stretch play a normal average house mom school teacher type. she is simply to much of a presence.

Half Dolla'... i don't really have much to say either way cause i do not care for rap, and have not seen him in any movies that i would want to see anyway so i cannot vouch for him.

sorry, 50...

I don't think you can really take this review as the end all be all, because admittedly i did not watch all of it, but hopefully someone will get some use out of it.

hoo...

ray :-) (ps... that was a joke... you know instead of hoorah, hooray!...

never mind...)


I can't tell you much more than this: this film looks as if it has been written by a league of film students who graduated through online courses, the soundtrack has been composed/chosen by a bunch of supermarket execs, and the director's biggest merit so far has been a shampoo commercial.

I do not know what made me rent this film, but I do regret it. A film that's been advertised with names like 50 Cent, Jessica Biel, Christina Ricci, and - above all - the almighty Samuel L. Jackson - does give you the tickles this must be a hoax. And it is. I am sorry, I have a loss for words, but HoTB reaches comical levels on almost every scene, it is just a pain to watch for a cinema lover. Then again, we DO need this kind of horrible mistakes to make us love the art more.

I would gladly label this as pro-patriot, pro-USA, pro-war, anti-intelligent, if there just was enough substance in here to put my finger on. Unfortunately there isn't, so I will just call it another wasted 100 minutes in life, a complete failure & misery and... exactly therefore, a possible future slapstick classic for the history/art classes all over the globe.


At first, I thought this was a sequel to Entre Nous. Many of the same people who made one film made another, they are supposedly written by and about the same people and the character names are repeated. However, those playing the roles are NOT the same (although Jean-Pierre Bacri stars in BOTH films but plays totally different roles). Because of this, some viewers might be VERY disappointed. It reminded me of the movie A Christmas Story. There was a little-known sequel named Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss that had NONE of the original characters or charm--and because of this it was soon forgotten. Now the only difference I see is that both these French films are about equally good. Apart from the many differences mentioned above, this film doesn't seem to have a negative view of men (in Entre Nous, the male leads were all Neanderthals), but portrays the mother in the story as a self-absorbed woman whose kids seemed to be an afterthought--her new boy-toy was about 90% of her focus. Because of this, individuals who watch this film AND have issues with a neglecting mother should think twice before watching--you MAY find this film kicks up a lot of feelings.


I just can't understand why anyone would be willing to have spent all the time, effort, and money it takes to make a film on something like this. It really takes a lot of effort to make a movie. More than a few people in this world felt passionately enough about this thing to write it, direct it, shoot it, rehearse it, finance it, etc, etc. My god! It's not that it's really bad or anything, there just doesn't seem to be any point in it existing. It's a boring movie about everyday people doing everyday crap. Sometimes they hang out at the beach. Sometimes they bicker. There's some kissing. Why? Why not just do nothing instead?


I am an American History teacher and this is the sort of film that causes people like me to grumble and complain because the film bears almost no similarity to the actual story of the founding of the Jamestown colony. But, it is because of this and how widely the movie was loved and accepted that I actually use it in my class discussions--teaching kids that much of our history is distorted or even completely fictional. Like George Washington's "wooden teeth", the "fact" that everyone in Columbus' day thought the Earth was flat and Betsy Ross making the very first American flag (all fiction, by the way), this film is a great example of bad history. Now understand, I am NOT an America-basher or live to destroy our national heroes--I just don't like it when something sacred like our history is treated with such blatant disrespect and cynicism.

While my list would be HUGE, here are a few of the problems with the story: the girl's name was "Matoaka" not "Pocahontas" (this was a nickname, not her real name), she was about 11 or so and Smith an older man and so the romance in the Disney film is either disgusting or false (fortunately, there was no romance according to all but the Disney account), the whole head getting smashed like a pumpkin incident probably never occurred (Smith spoke of this for the first time 17 years after the fact and it was never recorded elsewhere before this--plus Matoaka publicly showed contempt for Smith--something that makes no sense if the story was true), Matoaka was kidnapped by the British and she did not willingly join them (as seen in POCAHONTAS II), and the natives were not "tree-hugging hippies"--but real 3-dimensional people (for good and bad).

If you can ignore all this, you are left with a heavy-handed and preachy film with a lot of New Age mumbo-jumbo about nature and talking trees and all that crap. Pleasant to the eye--but about as deep as Paris Hilton's personality. Bland and only mildly entertaining---and guaranteed to tick off anyone who cares in the least about the truth.


I don't know why they make such a big deal about this film. the sole thing i like about this film was Colors of the Wind. I saw a sneak peek of this film while watching The lion king on video and was excited about an American film, a great break from the recent films where the main settings were in Austrailia, France, Arabia, and Africa. Overall i was unimpressed primarily due to the fact that they try to make it too much of a movie. Later when i learned that this film was predicted to follow Beauty and the Beast's footsteps and Beat lion king, i was increasingly disappointed. There were a few good films during the post lion king years(Hercules, Toy story, Tarzan) but this film started the decline to where Disney animation is today. Could've been better. :[


It could be a nice film, but it was too predictable. The script was shouting it was made for TV. It might be a true story, but at some points it seemed too much that a lot of events were put together just for the dramatical effect of them, and it came out too unrealistic. It was a good thing watching Anna Chlumsky in a more mature role, but I thought that role was tailor-made exactly for that purpose. It was also a surprize seeing the final guest star, playing himself, and in fact a reason for searching IMDb for this movie!


This is a silent film with a heavy overlay of narration, provided by several of its fictional characters, and a cool musical soundtrack illegally swiped from LPs. A short list of composers whose works are featured in 4-D WITCH includes: Mussorgsky ("Night on Bald Mountain"), Wagner (the finale of TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, scored for piano and orchestra), Rimsky-Korsakov ("Scheherazade"), and Pink Floyd (the 1968 studio version of "Saucerful of Secrets").

Basically, 4-D WITCH is just a series of erotic events strung together by narrators. I enjoyed the narration of "Cindy," the central character whose flirtation with sexual witchcraft gives the movie its focus. Whoever provided her voice did a great job characterizing Cindy as a "game young innocent." Dial enough 1-900 numbers and you may get to speak with her yourself.

Visually, 4-D WITCH is a mess, with psychedelic light shows, bizarre superimposed images of masks and frightening faces, and occasional straight shots of the characters that serve as "establishing shots" for the special effects. Everybody seems caught up in a psychic whirlpool, from which the only way out is down, down, down.

Despite its interesting and amusing elements, the film's amateurish editing, the incoherence of the "plot" and the random/shuffle nature of the soundtrack all help 4-D WITCH to overstay its welcome long before the final reel starts rolling. The abrupt, unresolved ending would be confusing, were it not a great relief! Someone should convert 4-D WITCH into a "loop" and send it to Abu Ghraib, where it can be put to its best possible use.


There is a point where one sees things that one can't watch because its so hysterically funny one will die from laughter from continued viewing.

There is a point where on realizes that those who have deemed Ed Wood and his films the worst ever made never looked hard enough. (anyone who starts down the road of bad movies is aware of this almost instantly- but I digress) There are times when you watch a movie you can feel your brain being cut up as it claws in desperation to get out of your head.

Occasionally people can actually release their home movies to theaters and have people pay to see them.

Psyched by the 4d Witch is a prime example of all of the above and more...you'll pray it isn't true but it is...

This is a movie that is rated R, it even says so in the credits, because of nudity and sex. I think its because the film makers were desperate to have a reason for people to see this movie.

This is a movie about Cindy who's a virgin and through the use of sexual witchcraft and the help of a dead ancestor who was a witch is able to have sex and remain a virgin. Oh yea baby.

There is no dialog only voice over as Cindy and two other people relate the story to you over footage that is a combination someones vacation film and the sort of stuff that is worse than what I used to shoot in 8 mm, with the exception that my stuff never had a naked blonde in it. (She's a babe) Adding to it all is a whacked out sense of odd lights and bad Halloween decorations that make a first graders haunted house seem scary.

Words fail me.

The film opens with a woman dancing to the theme song in a style similar to the James Bond films, only worse. Its a moment that makes you say "WTF?" even if you don't use profanity you will as you see this.

After the opening credits we get film of someones trip to a college inter-cut with a naked girl practicing witchcraft. I know this is what she's doing because of the voice over.

Then we get weird lights and masks and you end up on the floor convulsed from laughter wondering how in the hell this ever got released.

The Something Weird website said its from a rare 35mm print, my guess is its the only one in existence. I would hate to think that this was actually inflicted on enough paying customers that they needed more than one print or that it actually had a run in several theaters (hey, I bought this disc used) This is a movie to be enshrined in infamy. This is bad film making as high art. This is get drunk and MST3K this sucker to death.(The only reason it wasn't on the show was that its too easy to make fun of, besides its the movie that probably would have broken the boys) DO NOT TAKE DRUGS WHILE WATCHING THIS FILM. Consumption of mind altering drugs will only result in the movie making sense, and where's the fun in that.

This is beyond bad and twice as jaw dropping. Ed Wood could only aspire to be this awful. Gay necrophilia vampirism with bad teeth are the words of the day.

If you like to see bad. mind altering movies see this...

If you want to laugh at a truly (and I mean that) awful film see this. This is below the bottom of the barrel at its worst.


I watched this movie back to back with "Monster a Go-Go," and haven't been functioning on all brain cylinders since. The plot, or lack there of, was completely incoherent, the camera work was awful, the entire soundtrack was dubbed over after-wards and the acting was down right hideous. Did they think that psychedelic effects, classical music and nudity would be able to get this thing out of the toilet? I guess I know what happened to all of the bad acid in the 60's now, these idiots ate it and decided to make a movie revolving around a witch trying to seduce a young virgin into having fantasy sex adventures. AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.

Words fail to describe how horrible this film was. I would rather watch a documentary on the making of "Manos the hands of fate" than watching this again. Someone is definitely going to hell for having released this into the general public. I take that back, it wasn't released it escaped.

Please, if you value your sanity, don't watch this.


This is probably the worst movie I've ever seen. Mostly it consists of voice-over and randomly assembled footage; the footage is typically a girl undressing and hanging around what is (I think) Los Angeles City College - the pretext involves a Salem witch who was burned at the stake and in the present day of the early 1970s convinces a descendant to embark on sexual adventures. I suppose this premise isn't inherently the worst thing on earth, but the execution is horrendous - it's amoral, boring, and irritating all at the same time, which is a pretty unique combination. It's a rare movie that can pull off this trifecta of awful. For all those people who say that modern mass-market movies made by Hollywood like (just for example) Saw 2 or The Village or Flyboys are 'the worst movie ever made', they need to see this to see how much lower than those bad movies cinema can actually reach; this is a true cinematic nadir.


Putting this film on a DVD with "Monstar-a-Go-Go" was really a stroke of genius for this film's reputation, because MAGG is so awful that it makes this poorly-assembled collection of audio and images look GOOD.

Seriously, I put this film on the TV at a party with the sound turned down, and on that level, it had some merit: flaky, trippy, visuals that lent some visual interest in the background. "What the H IS THIS???" asked more than one person. I was forced to go into an explanation, which left the people utterly befuddled and looking as if they had been struck about the head and shoulders with a lead bong.

On that level, I can not recommend PBT4W, but I hope I have at least provided some kind of scenario in which it would not be a net deficit. Use this information as you will.


Good Lord. I've seen some strange stuff but this one may well take the cake. A woman who is dabbling in witchcraft manages to get more-or-less possessed by a witch named Abigail, and Abigail treats her to all kinds of strange sexual adventures, including seducing her gay neighbor & even her very own Aunt Fanny. All seemingly while "remaining a virgin for her daddy" whatever that means....not sure I want to know.

Eventually this woman's brother is also taken over by Abigail & he's turned into a "sex vampire". Why exactly a sex vampire needs fangs would be something I don't want to think about too long, but this transformation also makes her brother lurch along like Quasimodo, perhaps because he has an erection; again, not something to ponder very much.

This has no dialog, really, it's all voice-over narration, along with a bunch of Halloween masks & people in weird costumes which are supposedly Astral Demons, which flash in and out of the action in "transetheric vision". Not really a film made for watching on acid, so much as a film MADE by people on acid, I guess.

Still though, for all its faults (there's plenty), it's still kind of fascinating at times, in a "why am I watching this?" kind of way. Only something that would be released on Something Weird Video.

Decidedly weird and quite amateur, but maybe worth a look if you're both adventurous & bored. 4 out of 10.


One of the worst home videos that someone dared to make copies of and tried to distribute. This movie (if you can call it that) is full of 2 things -- ethnic stereotypes and racial slurs.

There are no actors in it (and therefore no acting to speak of). There is no storyline or plot so if the direction was sloppy it didn't matter much. It is supposed to be about the tension between newly arrived and settled immigrants with regard to their lifestyles, habits, and so on. And also perhaps about the generation gap between 1st Gen. parents and their 2nd Gen. (or Gen. X) US-born-and-raised kids. Had it been thought out and skilfully done, it could have examined/explored a whole variety of issues confronting immigrants of every size, shape and color. And in so doing, transcend racial, ethnic and other divisions. But it ended up becoming a caricature of US-based Indian expatriates, and a ghastly one at that.

There are many decent-to-excellent options in the low-budget/indie film category that can be viewed as an alternative. A better name for this movie is "Where's the Potty Yaar?".


Philip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Høiner) are friends, both writers, both fans of elder writer Sten Egil Dahl (Sigmund Sæverud). They finish their books around the same time, and dare to submit them only by dropping them into the mailbox at the same time.

While awaiting a reply, they hang out with their guy friends, a superficial bunch of misogynists who think girlfriends are a drag on creativity, free time, and ability to be interesting. IMDb lists Henning (Henrik Elvestad), Lars (Christian Rubeck), Morten (Odd Magnus Williamson), Jan Eivind (Henrik Mestad), and Geir (Pål Stokka), but I couldn't keep them all straight.

Philip's book is accepted; Erik's is not. But while Erik suffers self-doubt and possibly, Philip suffers a nervous breakdown.

A voice-over narrator (Eindride Eidsvold) blames Philip's nervous breakdown on his obsessive love for his girlfriend Kari (Viktoria Winge), who is advised not to visit him in the mental hospital to avoid making him worse. He reminisces about the trip he took her on to Paris, where he tricked her into falling in love with him, as he remembered it.

SPOILER PARAGRAPH: Meanwhile, Erik manages to beat his book into publishable condition, and his editor Johanne (Rebekka Karijord) tries to talk him out of his title, Prosopopeia, which the editor considers too obscure. (The film doesn't ever define it; I had to look it up. It's a Greek word meaning "anthropomorphism" or "personification".) When it sells, he feels obligated to dump his girlfriend Lillian (Silje Hagen), apparently thinking himself too good for her once he's a published author. But he wimps out, and sticks with her.

When Philip has recovered enough to be released from the mental hospital, they go back to their routine with the annoying guy friends. He tries to write another book. Kari and Philip meet up again, and they go back to Paris in hopes of repeating the falling-in-love trip (apparently the "reprise" of the title, which means roughly the same thing in Norwegian).

Near the end, someone dies.

Director Joachim Trier uses a style that is distinctive, but I'm not sure it's good. In most shots with more than one person, he frames the people just a little too tightly, with backs of heads in two-shots crowded out, and people on edges of group shots only half in the frame. Every scene seems to have a desaturated blue color to it. To the film's credit, the shots are in focus, and although most or all shots are hand-held they're steady. I rate the directing fair (5).

The director and Eskil Vogt wrote the script. Although the directing isn't much good, the script is the film's worst weakness. Philip is mentally ill, which could make him an interesting subject for a film, but all the film does with his illness is show him enter and leave a mental hospital, and fail to write a decent second book. Erik struggles with his self-doubt and apparent lesser writing talent, but the film's presentation of him is so vague that his struggles aren't interesting either. Their literary idol is vaguely interesting in his brief screen time, but he's a bit part at best. Their male friends are unlikeable, but not in an interesting way  they're just a bunch of guys who hang around and complain about women.

The most interesting characters are the three women. Kari is the best-developed character in the film, even though she gets less screen time than Philip or Erik. Johanne is interesting because she actually does something other than whine about teen-angst, which the mostly late-20s characters should have outgrown. Lillian is a small part, but she's interesting because the misogynist chorus seems to have a special dislike for her, which could be an interesting story.

One good point in the script is that there are a few scattered scenes that are funny  not great comedy work, but at least it was a break from the tedium. Overall, I rate the story lackluster (4).

The acting is all solid, most notably that of Viktoria Winge. But the good acting goes to waste on a script that is dull, and directing that obscures the performances.

One good point of the film was interesting music, featuring Norwegian bands and various punk rock.

On the basis of the lackluster story, and other elements that don't do much to elevate the film, I rate it lackluster (4) overall.

My wife and I saw this at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival. It was even worse for my wife than for me. She had seen it in Norway, sucked in by favorable reviews. She didn't like it. Then she ended up seeing again, because of an unannounced festival schedule change. I suggested she slip out and shop, or otherwise have some fun, but I figured I'd sit through it to see if it just didn't work for her. But she decided to give it a second try, thinking maybe there was something admirable about it that she missed the first time. No such luck; it was just as boring the second time.


Nothing about this film feels authentic. These guys are supposed to be writers but we never learn what they write about. They easily could've been accountants or insurance salesmen. Designating them as writers seems like a shortcut to make us think these guys are "deep" when in reality they come off like characters from a bad American Gen X 1990s movie. Then there is the music: it's the music I love, the music I listened to in my 20s but I am now 44. I suspect the filmmakers are my age as well and didn't bother to research what young people have been listening to for the past 2 decades. It would be like if a movie about 20 somethings was made in 1986 and the soundtrack were filled with nothing but Black Oak Arkansas, Iron Butterfly and Disco Tex And The SeXollettes.

I really didn't care about any of these banal characters & feel the editing is a gimmick to distract the viewer from the fact that nothing interesting is happening or being said.


Avoid this movie! I saw this film as part of a press screening in San Francisco. At the time of this writing, it had not been released yet in the theaters here. This film will be appreciated by unsophisticated, young, art students with angst and a pack of Gauloise non-filter cigarettes, but not by anyone else, unless they're Norwegian. (Norwegians are so happy to see a film in that language that they temporarily lose their common sense) Beautifully shot and very well acted, this film makes for a frustrating evening spent. The entire audience was muttering as they left the screening. Some were visibly angry for having been suckered into the screening. As it appears to have absolutely flawless accolades everywhere *before release*, it appears that their publicity machine has been working overtime to pump up what is essentially 103 minutes of wasted time. (That actress is quite pretty, by the way. Let's hope that she gets a better script next time)


After watching the Police academy movies over the years (those were not masterpieces, either, on the contrary), I was rather curious if this series was worth watching and if the jokes were good or at least somewhat better then those on the big screen. Boy, was I disappointed! I've seen parts of two or three episodes of this series and all I can say is: painful, gruesome, as bad as it can be! If you don't expect a comedy, the script is actually acceptable. If you see the title and look forward to relaxing and laughing, AVOID WATCHING IT! The "jokes" and "funny scenes" are so bad, they make you cry! I think even a kindergarten kid would have to give his best effort to smile once. Even Police Academy: Mission to Moskow was, as hard as it is to believe, BETTER than this.

5/10 as a series, 0/10 as a comedy series


I can imagine this got produced when a TV exec walked into the TV writers workshop and said " The Brits have produced a great little film called 28 DAYS LATER so who`s got a script about a virus ? " The star pupil put their hand up and replied " I`m working on a script about an evil global drugs company who have got a monopoly on Aids drugs but it`s only half written " to which the TV exec said " Great let`s use that "

I`m not saying this happened exactly or even happened at all but that`s the impression I got watching DO OR DIRE , oopps sorry I meant DO OR DIE . It struck me that it was written with a heavy social message in mind with the country polarised between " cleans " and " infecteds " but there`s been too much studio interference with some people wanting to keep the social message , some people wanting to inject a lot of action and people wanting to cash in on 28 DAYS LATER where plots featuring a virus are all the rage ( Geddit ? ) , but whatever happened this TVM is a bit of a mess with a plot that manages to be both rushed and vague


As a western, this movie was so dull and tedious. It has none of the charisma of Young Guns nor the adventure of the Good, Bad and Ugly. There were no gunfire duals, in fact hardly any guns fired at all. What little action there was just showed people falling down after a few gun shots fired. No blood no wounds. Willie Nelson looked too old and too tired for his role. He looked nothing like the supposed "menacing and bloodthirsty" Barbarosa. My vote a 1 out of 10.


The main problem with TRAVELING TO OLYMPIA is that it can't decide what it wants to be: an indictment of unfair treatment of gays or a soft-core porn flick. It is much too "talky" and "preachy" and it's lecturing to an audience that is already converted. And it's slow. Oh, is it SLOW! There are also numerous gratuitous scenes--such as a clumsy dance by unattractive, would-be cowboys in a gay bar, and a song by a singer whose off-keyed wail is so bad you will reach for the mute button. There is also an interpolated scene with two people we have never met before who have a tender, highly erotic love scene. ("This was your first time, wasn't it?" "Yes.") But we stop wondering who these people are and just enjoy the first enjoyable thing in this movie. As to the main love stories, Justin McFarlane and Michael Harboush are engaging performers and make us care for their final declaration of love. Though it seems odd that someone who has spent from age 16 to 19 in a maximum-security institution would have his navel and both nipples pierced; and someone who is in his early twenties would be a successful attorney. But most peculiar of all is why the cute, wealthy kid played by Donald Allen wants a balding Daddy-figure? (Wealthy Daddies keep cute twinks. Wealthy twinks do not keep old Daddies.) The final annoying thing about this film is that there are no chapters, so one has to fast forward to get to the "fun" scenes. The film means well which is why I gave it two stars, but the scripting, the direction, and the acting (with the notable exceptions of the three performers mentioned) is stricly amateur.


The film deals with gay issues and presents progressive and well thought out points of view but the film really needs the help of a good screenwriter, director and editor. The drama of the situations are robbed of their power by being recounted to us rather than shown to us. Several of the characters tell us their points of view rather than showing us. While I am an avid supporter of gay film, and I applaud this film's good intentions, I cannot recommend this film from a dramatic point of view. The old saw that "exposition is deadly" is proven true in this film.

I do suggest that folks see it as there are worthwhile moments but perhaps you should reserve this for a `double feature' night and make sure that the other film has more of the conventional aspects of a well-told story about it.

I also suggest that other film makers see it as an example of how the excitement can be sucked out of a storyline by too much exposition.


Apart from very bad acting, writing, and direction this movie could not decide what it was supposed to be. Some of the characters were given dialog that sounded like it was copied straight from a community service announcement, then there was the plot which was so thin it was generally hard to find, and when the director seemed to be totally lost, he would throw in a sex scene. Sometimes the two people involved had nothing else to do with the movie. Some of them had no lines. It seems they just had to be willing to take off their clothes, get groped while showing everything. It is really difficult to put two relatively cute guys in bed, have a sex scene which shows everything but penetration and make it absolutely boring. But they did it. There are a few scenes (including one sex scene) that had absolutely no bearing on anything else in the movie.

I caught one of the viewers in our showing checking out his emails on his blackberry during a sex scene. It was just that boring. Then there was the over the top music that at best did nothing to add to the scene, but generally set an entirely wrong tone for most scenes.

The actors would be hard pressed to get jobs in community theater. They would mumble their lines or deliver them like they were stand alone lines that had nothing what-so-ever to do with the other person talking at the same time.

That all being said, it was so bad we found ourselves laughing out loud at how bad it really was. So if you want to watch a movie that has some pretty cute guys (not all mind you) having pretty graphic sex while delivering bad dialog, then this ones for you.


Yes, yes, it's an early gay film and it's a film about AIDS. But beyond that, it's just a so-so film. It's just not very fun to watching people dying... and that's just about what the movie is about. Gay men dying of AIDS. On the subject, I would much prefer AND THE BAND PLAYED ON and other notable documentaries which are more effective.


After reading Mary O'Hara's Wyoming trilogy as a schoolgirl, I was surprised to find out a third movie had been made encompassing the final book. What a disappointment! Even the fine actor Lloyd Nolan is lukewarm as Rob McLaughlin. The plot has been changed so that the story is almost unrecognizable; all that remains is that Thunderhead does steal Crown Jewel for his band and that they are rounded up eventually and Thunderhead is not shot. The book was a coming-of-age story for both Ken and for Carey, who in the book is under the domination of her overbearing grandmother. One of the crucial parts of the book is Carey's final victory over the older woman. Instead her relationship with her grandfather (in the book Beaver is her wealthy uncle) is a plot out of every other horse-racing movie of that era: washed-up trainer getting another chance. Also, in the book Crown Jewel belongs to Carey, not to Ken.


Mary O'Hara's trilogy, "My Friend Flicka," "Thunderhead," and "Green Grass of Wyoming" have been a treasured part of my life since I was a child. However, the three films made from them vary widely in quality, meaning specifically to their relationships to the books upon which they are based. "My Friend Flicka" is by far the best of the three, and "Thunderhead, Son of Flicka" (as it was renamed) was not bad, though each contains minor changes from the books. However, "Green Grass of Wyoming" is a total disappointment. The plot is changed so much that it bears almost no resemblance to its source. For instance, "Crown Jewel" is made into a harness horse instead of a "superb English Thoroughbred," as she is described in the book, and Burl Ives appears in a totally unnecessary role. Forget this film and go to your local library and read the book (if you can find it). This is one case in which the book is far better than the film!


"Captain Pirate" qualifies as a mediocre 85-minute sequel of sorts to actor Louis Hayward's earlier epic "Fortunes of Captain Blood." Not surprisingly, since this studio-bound Columbia Pictures release is based on Rafael Sabatini's swashbuckling novel "Captain Blood Returns," Hayward reprises his role as heroic Captain Peter Blood. The South African native is serviceable enough as Blood, but he lacks the charisma that Errol Flynn brought to the role in the 1935 Warner Brothers picture "Captain Blood." "Lady in the Iron Mask" director Ralph Murphy establishes the setting of "Captain Pirate" with a map of the island of Jamaica behind the opening title credits. As this yarn unwinds, Blood is providing free-of-charge medical attention to a couple of escaped Negro slaves. Blood's nervous pal Angus McVickers (Charles Irwin of "Bomba on Panther Island") warns him that the government has the right to hang him for such treasonable acts. History wise, at the time that this tale takes place, the English were at war with the French. Jamaican authorities arrive at Blood's house and arrest him on charges of piracy for the bloody plunder of Cartagena, a seaport on the northwestern side of Columbia on the Caribbean coast. Everybody recognized Blood from his distinctive blue and silver outfit. Spanish officials are especially upset with Blood because Cartagena is a Spanish port and Spain is one of the Crown's allies. Blood's fiancée Dona Isabella (British actress Patricia Medina of "Botany Bay") is flabbergasted by this turn of events. She rushes to the governor's office and defends Blood. Like the previous Captain Blood movie, this one includes Blood's back story as an imprisoned British subject and his subsequent pardon. Although cinematographer Charles Lawton, Jr. of "The Black Arrow" lensed "Captain Pirate" in color, the flashbacks that accompany Medina's expository dialogue about her future husband consist of black and white footage lifted directly from "Fortunes of Captain Blood." Dona Isabella suspects that Hilary Evans (John Sutton of "Thief of Damascus") of the Royal Africa Company that has a profitable business in slave trading may be behind this ruse to discredit Blood. Later, after she visits briefly with Blood, she sends Angus out to round up Blood's old crew. This brief recruitment episode is presented as a montage with music instead of dialogue. Isabella meets with Hilary once more before he sets sail. Ostensibly, she shows up to apologize for her defiant behavior at the governor's office, but she comes on board largely to distract Hilary so that Blood's men can free their leader. As a result, British authorities later clap Isabella in irons herself and imprison her for her treachery. "Captain Pirate" is one of those buccaneer movies where the hero's reputation is tarnished, and he has to find the rogue who has made his life a nightmare in order to clear his name.

Like Medina, several of these thespians appeared earlier in "Fortunes of Captain Blood." While they play essentially the same characters, Medina's Dona Isabella here differs enough from her role as Isabelita Sotomayor in "Fortunes of Captain Blood" that she must have been playing a different character. Altogether this low-budget movie ranks as just another predictable, uninspired, though slightly more complicated pirate saga, bolstered somewhat by Hayward's agreeable performance. Like "Fortunes of Captain Blood," "Captain Pirate" features a surprise scene toward the end where the good guy pirates turn the tables on the bad guy pirates and pay them back in spades. Veteran villain Ted de Corsia of "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" has a brief role as a slimy pirate who crosses swords with our hero.

The best line of dialogue has Hayward defending his actions to his future wife. He says, "A man cannot live like a man without making enemies."


This is one of the worst movies ever made. To have the slightest chance of having a good movie, you have to start with some sort of story. This movie fails this decent start and embarks us in a long agony of boredom. The only good thing about this movie is that the viewer is not tied to his seat.


When I was 17, I was kind of fascinated by this kind of (typically french) movies. The absence of action in the story telling would reveal some hidden gem, some kind of unknown, deep, mysterious truth, about life and all the unexpected things that could happen. Like meeting someone one evening and then spending the night without knowing anything about each other, without even exchanging a few sentences. Yeah that would appear to be exciting, revolutionary, unusual, unconventional. Now, 36 years later, I've had a few strange encounters in my life (like anybody else, I guess), but then... so what? Nothing to make a fuss about, and certainly not a movie. These moments weren't any deeper or more significant than other events that proved to be far more ecstatic or painful. The absence of any meaningful dialog in a script doesn't make a movie more special or poetic by itself. These long close shots on the actor's eyes don't lead anywhere if the author has no intention, no other purpose but to please himself/herself. After I watched the whole movie, I was left with a feeling of emptiness, that is, the author's emptiness. This film is about nothing, but it tries to conceal that behind smart camera movements, little action and no story. It has nothing to say, but would make us believe it's nothingness reveals something about life. Well it doesn't.


No need to waste your time, skip this unhappening letdown of a movie, Claire Denis is capable of so much more, as shown in (at least) Trouble Every Day, that watching this movie made me upset. All haters of French cinema for the "lack of action" should consider using this "movie" as their pick, truly nothing happens. It's all very nice to make human movies, picturing things as we probably retain them in our non-cinematographic heads, but this is ridiculously lacking in the value department. Cannot believe this was based in actual writing. I insist, don't even bother, this was the last movie I watched at the SFIFF'03 and as such it couldn't have been more representative of the general disappointment that I felt.


I found the movie boring: a self indulgent throwback to the fifties, as interesting as a fall off a bike with much less poetry. Sitting thru it seemed to me as frustrating as being trapped in a traffic jam like the one depicted on screen. Some beautiful shots of Paris and a pleasant score fell far short of redeeming this picture for me.


i love the french cinema, i am not bashing this film because i havent seen alot of foreign films but they have copied the american film industry and made a worthless clone of previous french films. okay maybe i am a little to hard, but when i watch a film i expect certain things and so it should be advertised as an experimental film. there is no drama just two people who have an affair in a hotel, so theres a little mood going on; a night, a transit strike. and to top if off there's even a director's commentary, about what? two people who meet with hardly any dialogue and hardly any chemistry? the dialogue is so muted at times that i couldn't even practice my french. i am so angry after watching this, a film that shouldnt even have been made.


Perhaps I was not on the same wavelength as the director, but I thought it was painfully torpid with little substance. I can definitely appreciate a movie that has a different pace; I was simply not mesmerized by the same elements everyone else seemed to be.


Not sure what a SPOILER for a film of this type would be, so if you're a "fan" or your film or literature teacher or girlfriend wants you to see this picture, you'd probably better skip my comments.

Simply stated, this film literally bored me almost to tears. I kept thinking, "I'm just going to leave," but then I kept hoping that something would finally happen. Thankfully I dozed off, but then, tragically, I started to snore and woke up again.

The local paper said, more or less, that a "Parisian woman gets caught in a monumental traffic jam and gives a ride to a freezing young man on the last night of her single life." Well, the traffic jam goes on for maybe 30 or 40 minutes before she ever meets the man; I was squirming in my seat by then, but determined to see it through. Interesting photography could have saved this part of the film, but the endless close shots of car hoods and trunks, roofs and windows was just oppressive. And the shots of the other drivers, or even the pedestrians were no relief, as they were as uninteresting as any mediocre commute. It makes a statement, but this could have been done in about 10 minutes, with much more time left to develop the relationship between the protagonists, had there been one.

When the man finally knocks on her car window, there's a surge of hope that something is finally happening, but that quickly fades at the lack of chemistry between the two protagonists. The "ride" seems interminable and there's almost no conversation between them, so when they finally begin to show an interest for one another, you may find yourself asking "Why?" The man is not convincingly "freezing," by the way. He's not convincing in any sense. Just kind of lukewarm.

The obligatory scenes of intimacy are poorly framed, as though the director either has no visual sense, lacks interest or feels apologetic about including them at all.

Finally, well over an hour into the film, the couple visits a restaurant to have dinner, and the film seems to acquire some life, as they interact somewhat and look around at the other patrons having dinner. Maybe it's the other diners who contribute the life. Sadly, less than 15 minutes later, the film is over with little sense of completion at all. I don't think the director knew what statement he wanted to make.

What the heck, if you've got nothing better to do, it's a nap!


***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

First: i'm a movie buff... A real one. I watch approximately 12 movies a week. Just to say that i'm not some popcorn eating teenager who wants to see "armageddon 8". If i were, i wouldn't rent this movie. Second: i'm extremely fond of slow and poetic movies. I watch a lot of European and asian movies, because i think overall they take more time to develop the story and do not simply hang on to Syd Fields' 3-act formula.

This movie however was so extremely slow and hollow, that for one of the first times in my life, i really felt sorry for wasting time on a movie. The plot is told in 4 sentences

***EXTREME SPOILERS : entire plot told ***

1. Woman is going over to some friends

2. Woman gets stuck in traffic

3. woman takes a hitch hiker with her

4. woman makes love to hitch hiker in hotel

***SPOILER ENDING***

And yes, i know, almost each movie can be condensed to 4 sentences, but with this movie these 4 sentences really tell the whole plot. There are approximately 20 lines of dialogue. It's like an idea for a short movie is pulled and stretched over 1h30. I really REALLY hated this movie.


What we have here is two ill-defined, unlikeable characters being bounced around for no justifiable reason. The pacing and cinematography are annoying. It all has that been-there-seen-that feel about it. The narrative keeps changing POV for no good reason. And the sex is stone cold.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a trasher of independent French films. I do not _require_ to be entertained a la Star Wars. To be fair, the overall mood and feeling (Paris as the humid, drizzly, polluted wintery-cold nightmare) is well captured. You can smell the stale-cigarette-soaked hotel room.

Compared to other "random coupling" movies (The Lover, Last Tango in Paris, La Desenchantee), this is limp "caca de chien".


This movie starts very interesting and then, around the arrival of Morgan Feeman, becomes almost total crap. What I thought was going to be a supernatural thriller, the way it started, turns out to be a silly sci-fi horror almost as bad as the Stephen King adaptation of 'Sleepwalkers', just to name one.

May be it is very hard to make a good Stephen King adaptation when it involves creatures not from this earth, or in a different time, or et cetera. 'The Langoliers' is another great example of something that starts very interesting and once those monsters appear becomes something stupid. There it took a while for them to appear, here we are only at a quarter of the movie.

The interesting supernatural part I was talking about involves the four friends Henry, Beaver, Jonesy and Pete. As kids they meet the mentally retarded Duddits, who seems to have supernatural powers and passes some of them to the four friends. As adults (they are played by Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis and Timothy Olyphant) they still have the powers and that is where the movie begins. They have telepathic gifts; they know things from strangers and are able to have contact with each other without speaking, and this is demonstrated with the great opening scenes.

When the four friends go to the woods for some hunting things go wrong. With them, and the movie. I will not tell you what happens exactly because you can guess by then. The movie never gets scary or interesting after the opening scenes again. For me the only thing I could enjoy from there was snow falling from the sky and performances that were alright. With two hours and ten minutes the movie is way too long and with a something this stupid and predictable you can only waste your time. Read the book and make your own version instead.


How many times have we seen an 'alien' attack humans? Haven't we seen this story before? Too predictable.

Mr King should stick to themes like 'the langoliers', where you don't see what is coming, or know what is coming. This movie could have been so much more.

It did feel like a B movie. The art on the DVD cover looked inspiring, and I couldn't wait to watch it. Maybe that's why it was so disappointing.

Mr King should go back to 'It', 'storm of the century', 'the langoliers', etc.

Have to say 4/10 for this one.


This probably is one of the worse films I have seen surely the worse of this decade to date.

I mean if you think of the actual story line it only makes sense. Four friends who are all "know it all" meet up in the forrest and they get attacked by aliens. Wow...it sounds like a great movie!!!

We don't get to know why this is happenning how the story started and where it is going. Maybe it is because I slept a bit while watching this.

i thought highly on the works of Stephen King, but this surely is an excpetion.


I love Stephen King - I read most of his books (not this one)and there are some good (and of course some bad) Stephen King movies!

But this movie is really really bad! Made by Lawrence Kasdan and starring some fine actors like Morgan Freeman, Damien Lewis, Tom Sizemore...I expected at least an entertaining movie; but it isn't even that! The acting is poorly, the story seems...... lost in the storm and the special effects look rather silly. The only advise I can give anybody who hasn't seen this movie yet is: try READING THE BOOK because this movie is awful!


This is a terrible peice of trash. The begining starts off promising, it moves in to a beautifully shot hunting trip, and then pretty much when you get to the crap weasels and stupid looking alien its all down hill. The most surprising thing the the steep grade with which it goes downhill. The ending is literally laughable. Donnie Whalberg is putting it all on the line here at least they could have given him something to put it on the line for.

I can sum up this movie perfectly. In the film Morgan Freeman's character says "I'll show you things you wish you had never seen" Basically if you watch this film, thats exactly what you will wish. Theres a pretty simple rule of thumb on this one. If you have to pay, stay away. If you get to see it for free then please, by all means. (mostly for the first 25 mins)


I am a pretty versatile movie watcher, and i am willing to give any movie the benefit of the doubt... but this movie was ridiculous! It was interesting, almost riveting, for maybe a half hour. But as any hitchcock fan will tell you, everything is scarier if you don't know exactly what it is your afraid of! They "let the cat out of the bag" far too early, and the rest of the movie dragged; there was no more suspense! My advice to all of you is to avoid the film at all costs. If you know someone that has seen it, do yourself a favor, and let them talk you out of seeing it. The one redeeming factor is seeing Jason Lee in a role different from his typical Kevin Smith Film roles (not that they're not good too!)

...and that's about all i have to say! Thanks for letting me vent:-)!


I think the only work of Stephen King that I actually enjoyed was The Shining. Apparently, King crammed all the ideas of his previous novels into this steaming pile of dung. We had the "red fungus" which reminded me of the green plant growth from creepshow. The group of friends who all share some trauma as kids, and grow up and meet together every 20 years or so. Remember IT? Telethapy, from The Shining also rings a bell. Ive never seen a movie go in so many directions and end up nowhere, but Dreamcatcher does just that. The biggest thing that I didn't like about this movie was how it was written. They went great lengths to make visual and audible clues to the storyline, that were not needed, not to mention incredibly cheesy. I know books are written a different grade levels. This movie would be like at a 4th grade level. I do have some questions, Why does the alien talk with a poor British accent? If these friends are so telepathic, why would one have to answer a, and Im not making this up, a ringing gun...then talk trough it like it was a telephone!! Morgan Freeman, Jason Lee, and Tom Sizemore, what on earth were you thinking? Boys, I would be firing your agent. Of course this is just my opion...It may be wrong


This must be the worst piece of garbage I have seen for a very long time. Putting it in the context of a Stephen king production it becomes even worse as he usually writes qualitative books which have generated movies worth paying time to watch, for instance the Green Mile. As I havn't read the book I don't know if I should blame king or the director. However; I strongly advise you to avoid this movie.

Reasons to my opinion ?

- The whole idea with alies invading tends to be rather overused and out of fashion. - Of course the director could not do much about that but one can expect him to make the movie engaging and frightening. - It is filled with cliches and nothing new in content.


This Stephen King adaptation tries to be too many things at once. A combination horror/science fiction/thriller, among other things, the film takes many twists and turns with little understanding by the audience. Only gradually do we piece together the significance of the handicapped kid and his relationship with his rescuers. The final surprise, regarding the handicapped kid, is just idiotic. It was an intriguing idea that we were never prepared for in the movie. Events occur in the movie and then the explanations play catchup. The acting and characterization in here was nothing special, as the story shifts back and forth frequently between characters so much that there's no time to really identify with anyone. There are several interesting ideas in here, such as attempting to shield memories in the library mind of one of the characters. However, they're lost in the lack of story exposition, characters without motivation, and overall length of the film. Something tells me that the book is much better than this. I'm not a King fan, but I've seen enough other adaptations of his work to know that this is not one of the better ones. After waiting 4 years, this is a major disappointment from director Lawrence Kasdan. *1/2 of 4 stars.


As I read some of the user comments I see people blaming Stephen King for this piece of drivel. Don't blame him. The move follows the book loosely and many details that would explain the actions of the characters are left out. While Dreamcatcher is not one of King's best books, it isn't the worst. All I could say to my wife while I was watching this was "The book was better."

If you must blame anyone blame the screen writers who took a book with lots of internal dialog and tried to turn it into a movie. Think "Dune."

~~~~~BOOK SPOILER~~~~~ Duddits wasn't an alien. Kurtz/Curtis was crazier. Owen was a bigger turncoat. Duddits was more developed. And a plethora of other scenes were left out.

Once again, take this movie as you will, but don't blame King.


Compared to the book, the movie was a letdown. Many important parts were left out, and the end was stupid beyond belief. Why did the moviemakers feel they had to change it? Did they assume we weren't smart enough to understand?

I was disappointed that the story of the nameless Russian girl was never mentioned or, for that matter, the fate of Richie Grenadeau. I'm no filmmaker -- but I suspect that, with skilled screenwriting, the significance of these events could have been blended into the plot with minimal time added. Another neglected subplot was the riot Henry incited within the makeshift concentration camp. (Oh yeah -- the thought of our government actually committing unnecessary mass murder was probably too politically incorrect to include. Our government would NEVER do THAT. (Can we all say "Sand Creek," kiddies?))

I agree with O'Keefe that Morgan Freeman was wrong for the role of Kurtz (Curtis in the movie). Don't get me wrong; he's an excellent actor. However, while reading the book, I imagined Kurtz to be quite the stereotypical opposite. I visualized this character to be a corrupt version of Rambo's mentor, Colonel Trautman. Freeman was believably crazy, but not quite evil enough -- and I suspect that his being cast in the Curtis role had something to do with why the aforementioned concentration camp scene was cut.

In the novel, Stephen King explicitly suggests Kurtz be played by Christopher Walken -- but I feel an even better choice would have been somebody like Robert De Niro or Tommy Lee Jones. Morgan would have been better as Kurtz' commanding officer, the three-star General -- though I totally understand why he'd turn the role down (fewer lines).

By the way, Donnie Wahlberg was a cool surprise as Duddits.


Technically a very viewable film "Under a Spell" is the case of what a terrible screenplay can do to an excellent story, notable actors and lovely setting. As an adaptation it reminded me of those online translation services that literally show you the meaning of every word you give them...although the translation doesn't make much sense.

I would suggest Carlos Carrera to stick to direction and leave script writing to professionals.

The longest 130 minutes of my life.


It's hard to say which was more toxic: the magma or the camera work in this film.

Endless dart-in's, dart-out's, dizzying pans, rapid-fire jump-cuts, unnecessary point-of-view changes, and so on. It was like some two-year-old kid was playing with a video-cam. Irritating in nature, devoid of purpose, it has become a pandemic in made-for-TV flicks.

Once the bumbling camera movement has you popping sea-sickness pills, the movie introduces you to the same old assembly-line stereotypical characters rehashed on a hundred other made-for-TV flicks. You've got some Einstein-wanna-be scientist causing the menace, a bunch of blue collar heroes that are the only ones who want to save the city, a female scientist that discovers the problem but nobody listens, politicians who are breaking the law and not listening to reason, dimwits in an anti-terrorism unit, and a few extras whose only reason for existence is obviously to be victims. Two of the above serve as the obligatory divorced couple rekindling their romance while people get zapped by lava all around them.

Most imbecilic scenes: some magma burps a skull out, landing near some horrified witnesses, it's still (no, I'm not kidding) smoking like a piece of burnt toast. A guy opens a door, and lava pours out, like storage out of an over-filled closet. A fisherman catches a fish and says--oh never mind; you'd never believe it, anyway.

Anyone with an IQ over 30 would detect about a zillion scientific plot holes. If you want serious fare, skip this movie. If all you want is a cheesy disaster flick, with a lot of unintentional camp, then this one will fit the bill. Just be sure to have sea-sickness pills close at hand.


Someone should write a book on how to make a Sci-Fi original movie. And Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York could be chapter one.

First question to the film makers: there were two fairly good Hollywood volcano movies in the 1990s. They weren't classic suspense / disaster films, but they had some ripping moments, good popcorn stuff. Did you really decide to make DZ:ViNW inferior to those films in every category? I mean, it must have been a conscious decision because that is the end product. It succeeds on not a single level.

Second question: since you have no inkling of how to build suspense, can't you admit that to yourself and give yourself an education; couldn't you at least hunker down with a dozen Hitchcock films and study how a master does it? He doesn't hit you over the head with LOTS of shouting of inanities ("It's going to blow," "We've got to get out of here," etc.) or have music hitting EVERY SINGLE MOMENT with some scene-to-scene scoring? Music is a spice, not the whole meal. DZ:ViNW's use of music is like chewing gritty pepper.

Did I mention "hitting"? My eyeballs were hit and hit and hit again with the most "look at me" use of photographic annoyances extant. Jiggle zoom in. Jiggle zoom out. Jiggle pan. Jiggle. Jiggle. Jiggle. And do it all every single second. It doesn't look like hand-held, either. It looks like the camera was attached to a rock polisher, a cake mixer, a pile driver  whatever was handy that could make the viewer queasy, annoyed, and distracted. So much for mounting tension.

And the poor actors (actually some pretty good actors). This brings me to question three: why not make it a silent picture since you have no ear for dialogue or how people actually speak and act in dramatic situations? Seriously, the best actors in the world can't make lead look like diamonds. Of course, caring about these actors in their roles is a joke. No matter how close they are to searing death, no matter how precarious their emotional circumstances, I could only chuckle.

To summarize: DZ:VINW is really no worse, no better than the other under-shoe feculence of the Sci-Fi Channel (not counting it's rather good series, Stargate and Battlestar).

I'm sure the film makers are nice people and will do good work elsewhere. But there's something about the Sci-Fi Channel that contractually forces talent to make dreck.


Its kind of a cross between "Volcano" and "Armageddeon". A volcano erupts in a major city and the fate of millions lies in the hands of a team of ditch-diggers. This movie was just plain awful, even for a Sci-Fi movie. The special effects were pathetic and the acting was even worse. The very plot of the movie is lost on me and the movie is just impossible. I am a huge fan of B-movies and I am very entertained by some of the worst movies of all time. This movie, however, is just plain stupid. I expected more out of Michal Ironsides (Starship Troopers) and Alexandria Paul. The cast was decent, but the plot, special FX and acting were terrible.


This is about a group of underground tunnel workers in NY who come across some molten lava while digging a new sewer. There's also a mad scientist who's conducting experiments in geo-thermal power which involves digging deep into the earth and using the heat to power a generator or something. That's what causes the volcano to start erupting. The woman who comes to investigate for the government just happens to be the ex-wife of the tunnel digger, and of course we run through the usual cliché of them disliking each other and then getting back together over the course of the movie. There's also a lot of time spent as some federal bureau comes in, shuts down the work of our heroes, and blames the whole thing on terrorists. Yes, someone has to stand in the way of our heroes doing what must be done, if for no other reason than that it's in the handbook of required clichés for disaster movies.

Overall, it's just insanely cheesy and silly, with lines like "They're screwing with the pressure of the Earth's crust". Another scene involves lava erupting out of a guy's house and killing 70 people, but the authorities are apparently too stupid to notice the lava (I would think it would be painfully obvious), so they think it was a terrorist bomb. I also got a kick out of how a wood frame house could contain molten lava - until the guy opens the door! The special effects are funny throughout the whole movie, it adds a certain B movie charm I suppose. I especially liked the part where a single pistol round is all that's required to reroute the lava from one tunnel to another. The acting is pretty spotty, the evil genius guy is prone to scenery chewing, and one of the female characters manages to pull off Mexican, Italian and Czechoslovakian accents over the course of her performance. The two main characters turn in good enough performances.

I say this is not too terrible - for a disaster movie - because there's no sappy melodrama involving kids, pregnant women, sanctimonious paramedics, or inner city gang members. There's no speech by the black or female president at the end saying "we should have listened to the environmentalists". And best of all, there's no little girl looking at a bunch of people covered in volcanic ash and saying "Look mommy, they're all the same color". Oddly enough, for a disaster movie, the "special" effects actually serve as a backdrop for the story, not the other way around. But still it's just so tiresomely predictable that it's hard to make it through to the end.


Such was the question occurring to me as I struggled through yet another disastrously ridiculous SciFi Channel disaster movie. Do they intend for their homegrown movies to be so cheap, so silly, so patently obvious in what passes for plot? I have watched half a dozen of these "SciFi Channel World Premiere Event" movies in the past year and each is uniquely, achingly bad in its own right. Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York, however, brings bad into a new light.

Every hackneyed device of disaster movie development is employed to predictable, hackneyed affect: the hero, a burly tunnel digger, leads his crew of rough-but-capable misfits (Local 147 "Sand Hogs") in a daring race against the volcano to save New York City from certain incineration by lava. Along the way, he encounters his bitter ex-wife, a USGS PhD who, apparently, is woefully unfamiliar with the indications of volcanic activity and must be convinced by Mr. Sand Hog that what has been happening across the city is not actually terrorism. Throw in some incompetent DHS and FBI investigators; an incredulous mayor and his scheming, corrupt deputy; a female Sand Hog whose daddy was a legend among Sand Hogs; a foreman who is overly safety-conscious, except when he's not; and the unfortunate but gruesome deaths of several supporting "color" characters and you've got your standard disaster movie fare, all dressed up with nowhere to go except straight down the tubes.

As seems to be the new standard, the volcano is not itself the "enemy," typically the case in classic disaster movies; no, the volcano is the unfortunate result spawned by a greedy (read: evil) scientist of the "mad" persuasion who has drilled a 7-mile deep hole beneath Manhattan into the Earth's molten core so as to capture the thermal energy and make bazillions of dollars. Really. Greedy, Evil Scientist guy has been able to pull this off with the help of the Deputy Mayor, who has greased palms all over the city in order to keep the drilling secret until such time as the thermal energy could be captured and the resulting power plant used to "open franchises" the world over. Oh, and make Greedy, Evil Scientist guy and Deputy Mayor filthy, stinking rich.

Once Mr. Sand Hog has convinced Dr. USGS that there really is a volcano developing beneath Manhattan, it is up to Local 147 to stop it. Of course. With just 5 guys, two of whom die in the process. C'mon, you know how this goes: the greedy, evil scientist guy dies, the safety-waffling foreman dies, the homeless guy dies, the black guy dies, the Hispanic pyromaniac dies in a column of lava, the female Sand Hog survives and Mr. Sand Hog and Dr. USGS get back together and suck face as the credits roll.

In the 50s and 60s, we were subjected to horror movies populated with monsters created from nuclear testing. In the 70s, disaster movies became an art form, with man struggling - often in futility - against the ravages of nature: no way did George Kennedy try to stop that 1975 earthquake, but he sure managed the aftermath really, really well. We would see disaster as the result of man's folly - think "The Towering Inferno" for example - but also as the quirky acts of nature they are. There is no moral imperative in an avalanche: the best one could be accused of is getting what's coming to them for being in the wrong place, against instructions.

In these modern disaster movies, we are treated to scenarios in which garden variety pests (bees, bats, locusts and the like) become monsters created out of genetic engineering or toxic waste dumping, or the very planet itself rebels against its victimization at the hands of mankind, specifically, Greedy Evil Scientist guys and their investors. That the Department of Homeland Security plays so prominently in this story is, I think, indicative of the scare level living just below the surface of the American consciousness. Perhaps we can console ourselves with thinking that we can have some control over terrorism when faced with the towering realities of volcanic activity. How much more helpless can a person be than in the face of a volcano? Instead, as the FBI and DHS chase their tails around looking for bogeyman "terrorists," science and tunnel workers overtake and control nature. One wonders if the SciFi Channel folks intended for this to be the moral of the story: terrorists, we can't catch 'em but, boy howdy, we can put a hurt on a natural disaster! One doubts that such a "lesson" is the purpose here, as it seems very little in this TV movie is planned out that well. The clichés are working overtime, the special effects aren't, and you and your sweetie can project the plot line almost to a certainty. There are no surprises in Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York, except perhaps your own surprise at your willingness to waste two hours of your life on such dreck. Not a bad way to snozzle away two hours on a bitterly cold Saturday night, but those are two hours of your life you will never get back. If you must watch this movie, invite some friends over and make it a party.


This film has no redeeming value. It's just plain awful in every respect: story, screenplay, direction, acting, jiggly camera work, annoying score, common sense, etc., etc., etc. The Disaster Zone IS this movie!

There's really nothing I could do to spoil this flick. It reeks. But here's just one "spoiler" to illustrate the inanity and nonsense that awaits those dumb enough to watch it:

* 100 homeless people are found dead in Central Park. They died from inhaling poisonous gases generated by the underground volcano.

* Workers and scientists travel through subway tunnels and other confined spaces - within sight of flowing lava!! - with NO breathing apparatus whatsoever. They chatter amongst themselves and rarely even cough. In real life, they would all be DEAD within minutes.


While the plot of the movie wasn't bad and almost plausible, the camera work was extremely distracting and a bit annoying. The camera person seemed to zoom in and out and all over the place for no apparent reason. Saw something similar to that camera work during the 1989 earthquake of Northern California while attempting to film the World Series. Enough to make one motion-sick. Too bad since the acting was okay and the general theme wasn't bad. Special effects were acceptable. The movie was entertaining as far as disaster movies go. Probably wouldn't see it again but worth a peek if you can get past the camera work.


This is the worst type of filming I have ever seen in my entire life. The person who filmed it kept zooming the camera in and out like they were investigative reporters. If you feel you wish to watch this movie, I would strongly suggest saving yourself the 97mins of your life and do something more productive. My personal rating for terrible acting and garbage filming: one(1) out of ten(10).

I had to sign up just to make a comment regarding this movie because I definitely wasted my money and my time on it and here I am doing what I can to save others the time and grief. Good luck! sorry if you feel in any way this is spam but I don't feel to write anymore things in relation to this crap movie. If I get banned/blacklisted, at least it will be for a good cause to warn others before hand!


If it's got Michael Ironside in it, it's definitely going to be bad. He plays a scientist who is drilling a hole 7 miles deep in Manhattan to tap into an underground magma flow for an energy source. On the other side, you've got a tunnel digger and a geologist who just happens to be the tunnel digger's ex-wife and when they meet in the movie for the first time, you've got the sappy music for them. It's got the usual bureaucrats who won't listen to the scientists who are trying to warn of a impending disaster, FBI agents who get all ultra paranoid thinking it's all terrorism and the mandatory love interest. If you're a fan of the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, then this bad movie is for you.


It's a pseudo-science movie airing on the SciFi Channel. Do I really need to say anymore? Oh, I do! OK then.

First off, don't just check your disbelief at the door, check everything....taste, common sense, hat, coat the whole nine yards. Volcano in New York is just abysmally bad. It has every cliché character (and I mean every one) that you'd expect in a disaster movie. Plucky hero, mad scientist, corrupt city official, smart lady scientist that no one listens to, comedy sidekick that ultimately meets a grisly end, oafish law enforcement officer, etc. etc. They're all here.

Add in the stereotypical science project goes wrong plot and "band of everyday heroes" that save the day and you've got a film that you could do yourself the favour and just NOT watch and still know what will happen at the end.

Of course, from the SciFi Channel, you already know that the script will be dire, the dialogue inane and ludicrous and the characters annoying as hell. But the real star of the show are the priceless special effects. Intersperse real-world eruption footage, cheesy "Youtube" quality lava CGI and what looked jarringly like 9/11 footage (I kid you not) and you have an awful mish-mash of effects that fails dismally.

And whilst I mention the 9/11 footage, am I the only one to think that using such footage was just plain wrong? It seems particularly tasteless to me and potentially horrifying for someone who actually went through the trauma of that day, let alone lost someone in the event. To use such footage to "jazz" up a movie seems beyond callousness. What next? A shuttle movie with actual Challenger footage in it? The least they could have done was cut out the three or four scenes from the movie.

So then, rubbish plot, rubbish effects, awful dialogue and questionable stock footage. Anything I missed? Oh yeah. Dire acting. I forgot to mention that, but by now you probably assumed that as a given.

Don't watch this. It's junk.


and I don't mean the sulfur coming up through the vents.

The plot is as thin as the earth's crust after these dweebs drilled. Any death in this movie is deserved due to the bad acting.

The CG effects look cheap and cartoonish, the lame tie-in and obvious shot at the anti-terror task forces are ridiculous.

Other than the fact that the city of New York is facing total destruction, I found little of any redeeming value is this laugher.

Michael Ironside must really be desperate for money. The dude from Galactica needs to rethink his career choices after being pitched as an overzealous government type.


It's a normal day of hard hats and hazards for New York's finest tunnel workers until a group of them are assaulted by acid, sulphur and...lava? Nearby meanwhile, a determined scientist works against the clock to drill through the earth's crust and bring forth what he claims will be a fabulous new source of energy for all mankind. Are the two events related?

The purpose of 'Disaster Zone: Volcano In New York', apart from having an unnecessarily long title, seems to be to convince the viewer that 1997's 'Volcano' with Tommy Lee Jones was a cinematic masterpiece by showing what it might have been if it had been produced by the Sci Fi Channel. This was not a thought experiment that needed to be conducted. This is very much the same film on a budget and economising is evident everywhere, from dodgy cgi to a workmanlike script, two-dimensional characters, plot clichés and badly-matched documentary stock footage. What it doesn't steal from 'Volcano', it cribs liberally from 'Inferno', a classic 1970 Doctor Who serial all about a determined scientist drilling through the earth's crust in search of a revolutionary new energy source. Yes, it was an interesting idea, and it was done better elsewhere.

Nonetheless, you might be tempted to give 'Disaster Zone' a look if like me, you're a fan of both disaster flicks and indeed volcano disaster flicks. Such temptation should be firmly resisted, especially when the worthy name 'Michael Ironside', whose character utters the immortal line in the title of this comment, appears in the credits. That outburst is about as unintentionally funny as it gets. The fact that even his performance is ridiculous suggests that the rest of the cast, themselves largely unknown, might actually be decent actors in another time and place. Therefore, being neither especially good nor especially bad enough to be entertaining, 'Volcano In New York' will recreate a disaster zone in your living room should you choose to follow in my footsteps and be mad enough to watch it.


I started watching this movie when SyFy broadcast it a few years back, but couldn't get past the scene where the guy's intestines literally fell out of his stomach (not terribly realistic, but still a bit upsetting). However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I did sit through the whole thing when it was on a few weeks back. And it did not fail to disappoint.

The story line of this particular offering has to do with a scientist, Dr. Levering (Michael Ironside)who has come up with a plan for tapping into geothermal energy to heat Manhattan much more cheaply than conventional methods. He has contacted city employee Neil Kavanaugh (Kevin McNulty), and the two of them are planning on franchising their method and becoming filthy rich. Unfortunately, instead of tapping into geothermal energy, Levering actually taps into real magma, which starts cropping up all over Manhattan, and wreaking all kinds of havoc. When a crew of employees, lead by Matt (Costas Mandylor), encounters some very suspicious, and deadly, conditions in the tunnels and aqueducts under the city, Kavanaugh covers up the real cause. Geological services comes in to investigate, and one of the investigators turns out to be Matt's ex-wife, Susan (Alexandra Paul). She doesn't believe Matt when he says he saw lava in the tunnels. However, as more suspicious, and deadly, events happen, she reconsiders. By this point, however, overzealous Agent Walters (Matthew Benedict) has come to investigate, and is convinced that terrorism is afoot. Can Matt and Susan manage to stop the volcano before it obliterates most of New York City?

Like most disaster plots, this one's full of holes. First off, our geothermal expert just didn't seem to really know anything about geothermal energy. Second, the implication for most of the deaths in the tunnel was that somehow the water in the pipes had turned into sulfuric acid, although they don't explicitly say so. However, it's hard to believe that the water would have changed to sulfuric acid without coming into contact with the magma, and if that had happened there would have been a huge steam explosion which would have obliterated most of Manhattan anyway. Then there was the homeowner who opened the door of his house only to be engulfed by lava. Why didn't he smell anything burning, or notice heat coming from the ground, and why would he open a door once he'd burned his hand on the handle? Dr. Levering is badly burned, and left unconscious when the volcano starts to erupt at the drilling site. How did he get out of there? And what exactly happened to him in the tunnels? Was he killed or merely knocked unconscious by the steam emitting from the bullet hole in the tunnel wall. And finally, throughout the movie, people are way to close to lava with no problems caused by the hear or the fumes. All in all, it's a pretty poorly written script.

There were some surprisingly decent actors in this movie. Michael Ironside does a pretty good job as the mad scientist, who just gets crazier and crazier as the movie goes along. Mandylor and Paul do okay with the material they're given. Unfortunately, it's just poorly written, and there's only so much they can do with it. Sad to say, the rest of the cast is pretty forgettable.

Is it too much to ask that the people who pen these movies actually learn something of the science that they're using for their plot devices? If this movie is any indication, I guess so.