I did not go into "Entrapment" expecting too much, and well, there wasn't much. I have come to the conclusion that there are only two reasons why people may like this movie and both have to do with the two leading stars. Sean Connery is universally seen as the best looking older man and his Scottish charm is of course also one of his attractions. Then there is Catherine Zeta Jones, a red-hot newcomer whose luscious figure would make any man want to watch. "Entrapment" is a perfect example of a Hollywood star film, which has the sole purpose of raking in as much cash as possible. Any attraction to the film is based entirely on its stars. I saw the movie with a number of people who liked it, and when I was discussing it with them, all of their praise was based on the two leads.

The director, Jon Amiel is generally an unknown film-maker to most people. He has done "Copycat" and "Sommersby", both of which are average films and whose success can be attributed to the stars. "Entrapment" does not contain any breakthroughs in terms of editing or cinematography, and it certainly does not have an original plot. We have seen the formula that makes this movie many times, perhaps in varying inflections, but essentially the same. So what's left, entertainment value. Many people reading this review may think that I do not look at films in terms of entertainment value. Not the case. There are many films that I have given excellent reviews to based entirely on the merit of entertainment. Two recent examples that I can think of are "Cruel Intentions" and "Go". But "Entrapment" lacks anything close to what might have been an entertaining or interesting plot. The idea of basing a heist that will only work if it is conducted on New Years of the Millennium is a great idea. I would love to see a film about the meticulous planning and the execution of such an endeavor. "Entrapment" tries to accomplish too much and ends up leaving such huge plot holes that the film feels rushed and absurd.

Gin (Catherine Zeta Jones) takes on the role of an insurance agent/undercover thief who hooks up with Robert (Sean Connery) a rich career criminal to execute a couple of huge international heists. They train together in Robert's castle. There are a few scenes here that I enjoyed. I especially liked the scenes of Gin practicing avoiding lasers simulated by strands of yarn

Of course Robert and Gin have a romantic tension that is complicated by the rules of being a thief. You can not trust each other if you're romantically involved, right? At first, they do not seem to get along. Hollywood loves to put together two misfits who have to put aside their differences to accomplish some task. This formula has marked the cop-buddy film for years. Take for instance the first Lethal Weapon. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover at first hate each other. And in "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson did not at first get along, but in the end their differences are put aside and they emerge as friends.

"Entrapment" also exists as a catalyst to Hollywood's ongoing trend to have romantic encounters between young, extremely attractive women, and much older men. There is a forty year age difference between Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Zones. Other recent examples of this trend include Michael Douglas and Gyneth Paltrow in "A Perfect Murder" and Harrison Ford and Anne Heche in "Six Days Seven Nights". This trend is not necessarily a negative thing, but in "Entrapment", it's just too blatantly obvious and cliched.

"Entrapment" is a movie that had potential, but got lost in a number of cliches and its hurriedness. Connery and Jones do have chemistry and look good together, but forget the romantic tension; leave it for romantic films. Forget the first heist; it feels like filler to keep us occupied until the final scenes and climax. A strong film could have been made with the planning of the year 2000 heist. Because it would be the heist of the century, so many ideas could have been developed which would have made for a much more entertaining film.

** out of ****


The Fly II picks up where the first Fly left off. Seth Brundle is dead, and Veronica Quaife is giving birth to their child. We learn that the child has rapid growth disorder, and we skip ahead to when he's 5 years old and a grown man. He is continuing his father's work under the watchful eye of Amos Bartok, a shrewd business man. Unknown to Martin Brundle, he carries his father's genes, and he begins to rapidly transform into a monstrous human/fly abhorration. Everything that made the first Fly so good is suddenly gone in this sequel. Just to name a few things: David Cronenberg, a good plot, good dialogue, good acting. They all decided to leave this project.

The Fly had everything. Tense, suspenseful horror, sci fi, drama, and even a sort of love story. The Fly II has got disgusting gory horror, little to no sci fi, no drama, and the love story is so underdeveloped that you might as well call it friendship with sex. The acting in this movie is so dull and unbelievable that it's pretty bad to watch. The only thing remotely okay in this movie is the FX, even though it's all used to show disgusting gore that the viewing audience doesn't really want to see.

The Fly II should only be watched if you're curious about the continuing storyline, but be warned that it is nowhere close to on par with the original.

2/10


This is bad. Instead of a tragic, scary film like the first we have a gross, stupid film with an unclear and stupid ending. I wish I'd been afraid to see it. Instead I wasted 90 minutes of my life that I could have spent curing cancer.


I've said in the past that David Cronenberg's version of The Fly is a masterpiece. There is not one single line of bad dialogue, not one bad actor, and not one scene not important to the plot in the entire film. The Fly II isn't the astounding train wreck some have made it out to be, but it is a lackluster sequel that is often ludicrously boring.

Granted, the visual effects and gore are impressive, particularly the chap who gets his face melted by fly vomit, but these effects don't manage to inspire the same amount of revulsion the original Fly did. It's just a bunch of flashy splatter effects, complete with the odd makeup or creature effect, that really aren't any more repulsive or horrific than a Dead Teenager Movie like Friday the 13th.

Speaking of, The Fly II might as well be considered a Dead Dickweed Movie, because almost none of the characters are fleshed out beyond being a bunch of absolute wads, and we have to put up with them for over an hour before the main character transforms into a fly and offs them. The plot is rather thin-- Brundle's son is born, son grows up into a fly, tries to find a cure. For a film that's 10 minutes longer than the original, the plot is too simple to be carried that long.

Whereas the original Fly kept me riveted to the screen by throwing in plenty of repulsive effects (the fingernails scene is always a favourite) in between intelligent characterization, The Fly II is nothing more than a vehicle for gore. Considering the vast majority of it doesn't show up until the last act, the film is immensely boring throughout. Martin's transformation is particularly unimpressive; even a scene where he pulls one of his eyes out to reveal an insect eye fails to impress.

The Fly II isn't horrible, but it is quite dull and filled with unlikeable characters that only make the film even more of a chore to watch. As a sequel to a Cronenberg movie, though, it could have been much worse.


A sequel to one of the greatest, most powerful horror films of all time, yet one without the input of original director and co-writer David Cronenberg, was always going to be a hard sell. Unsurprisingly, The Fly II is a disappointment, emerging as a mere exercise in formulaic shocks and little else, as young Martin Brundle (Eric Stoltz) is brought up by the sinister Bartok (Lee Richardson) only to realise his horrendous destiny as dormant genes in his body begin to transform him into a crossbreed of fly and human, just his like deceased father. While reasonably entertaining throughout, this is a sloppy, scrappy film that underwrites its characters, gives them some silly dialogue and then feeds them to the lions in a gory finale that's just like any other in the genre. Stoltz and Richardson are quite good (plus the first film's John Getz makes a welcome return in a cameo role), and there are some effective moments here and there, but this is a totally pointless sequel, one that doesn't even come close to matching the original.


The sequel to David Cronenberg's remake of "The Fly" is nowhere near as entertaining. I felt like they put more thought into special effects than into storytelling. This time around, we are told the story of Martin Brundle, son of Seth (Jeff Goldblum's character from the 1986 film). While the first movie had heart to it, this one seems to lack it. It tries to mimic the relationship from the first movie between Seth and Veronica, this time with Daphne Zuniga as Martin's love interest. Unfortunately, it takes a backseat to the fly transformation and gore effects. Don't get me wrong, gore can be good. Just not when its the centerpiece of the movie. It had been a while since I had last watched it and I had an easier time remembering the elevator death than what the actual story was about.

On the plus side the fly effects were impressive once again. The various puppets they used to bring the fly to life moved fluidly and were more convincing. I didn't really like how the fly looked less human than it did in the first. That was what made it easy to feel for the character and remember that there is still the mind of a man deep in there. This time it looks more monstrous. On the other hand, some of the other telepod mutations came out looking too fake for me to believe. They were like puppets rejected from "Sesame Street" for looking too unfriendly.

The acting really got to me in this movie, and not in a good way. Every character the movie wants us to hate seems almost cartoonish. The scientists working with Martin gave me a Dr. Evil vibe and I half expected them to raise their pinky finger to their mouth and laugh maniacally. Scorby, the head of security at Bartok Industries played by Gary Chalk, oozes with a hatred for Martin from the very beginning that the filmmakers never explain. We got some good performances from the main three actors: Stoltz, Zuniga, and Richardson. It isn't nearly enough to save the movie.

If you were a fan of Cronenberg's "Fly", I almost recommend against watching this one. This movie is best watched with no expectations, except for that of a mildly entertaining horror flick with some good special effects.


It's a shame when a movie tries so hard to be funny but no one laughs at it. I went seeing this with expecting for a couple hours of light, predictable and forgettable fun, but instead of that I got a pointless sitcom that fails miserably at being funny or dramatic.

The main problem with Rebound is that it never comes together; it's that kind of movie that is sorta made by two directors with opposite purposes: light-hearted humor and deep thoughtful drama. So, the whole film is like a struggle between these two visions, and none comes to win. Unfortunately, viewers become the great losers with all this mess.

Megan Mullaly makes a good job of her role, though Martin Lawrence looks uncomfortable and overwhelmed by his. I have read some good reviews about Lawrence's performance, but I have to disagree on that one. I think that this is one of his worst performances, totally unfunny or whatsoever.

For those who defend this film saying that is a kid's movie, I should defend children's rights to have intelligent options, like Pixar and Dreamworks had been doing lately. There is no excuse for showing dull and naive movies only because "it's for the children"...


The filmmakers in Rebound diligently stick to the prescribed "kids sports movie" formula, and desperately hope that Martin Lawrence provides a flicker of spunk.

I can't give Rebound more than two stars, not because it was necessarily bad, but because it was painfully predictable. It dares not stray from the tired but true progression of, "a small team of misfits is matched up with a reluctant savior, who inevitably leads the team to victory only after learning a valuable lesson." In this case, the reluctant coach, Roy McCormick, is played by Martin Lawrence, who attempts to single-handedly provide some unique quality to this film in order to distinguish it from all other kid movies. He fails.

Roy McCormick is a hotshot college basketball coach with an outrageous temper and passion for endorsement deals. The audience is repeatedly shown how out of touch with basketball Coach Roy has become by showing many examples of his advertisements, his flashy car, his expensive suits, etc. We are even treated to the routine clips from "The Best Damn Sports Show," where Tom Arnold proclaims that Coach Roy is losing it. After we have firmly established that Roy is in fact out of touch already, we get the inevitable temper tantrum that results in his expulsion from the league. Coach Roy then reluctantly agrees to coach a struggling junior high basketball team. This brilliant plan will supposedly help him rebuild his reputation, thereby allowing him to gain readmittance to the league. Because apparently, the best way to gain credibility as a basketball coach is to instruct reject junior high kids, at which point one will just be rolling in offers from the NBA.

We watch as Coach Roy methodically teaches the kids how to play basketball, one skill at a time, through a series of over-dramatic techniques. He brings in a weird hoodlum preacher who is not funny at all and looks suspiciously like Martin Lawrence dressed up as a hoodlum preacher. He scours the student body for a very tall kid who is also clumsy in a humorous way. He also recruits a large girl to the team, as she is Susie-Likes-to-Fight, and Roy thinks that if things get rough, he can always channel his inner John Chaney and send her out to pummel someone. The audience laughs because she's a girl! Haha, get itshe's a girl! And all the while, goofy and upbeat music plays helpfully in the background, reminding us that this is a stupid kid's movie.

There's the romance factor of course, with Coach Roy trying to get a date with one kid's mom. There's also the slapstick assistant coach (played by SNL cast member Horatio Sanz), who bumbles around hoping to provide supplemental humor when basketballs slip out of his grasp and fly in all directions; there's the overzealous opposing coach who thinks junior high school basketball is as important as college or NBA--but then again, can you really blame the guy? After all, the film has already established that coaching junior high school basketball is a direct path to the big leagues.

Needless to say, this movie is tiresomely predictable, but not necessarily bad. I know that kids will like it, so I would recommend it as a very family-friendly movie. It definitely has the "cute factor," in that sense, but those of us who are not 13 may not see the same value in Rebound.


College basketball coach Roy McCormick is almost banned for life due to his aggressive behavior, but as his agent finds a clause in the rules that he must have another chance first, he ends up training a middle school team, the Mount Vernon Junior High School Smelters. As those movies go, after a few confrontations everyone works together to become champions. Add a love interest for the coach and some diversity in the characters of the team.

One of the more funny scenes involves shy Wes and over-assertive Big Mac (this time not meant as a product placement I hope) ending up in a romance. Another thing well done is the way the coach instructs his team. Like in Coach Carter he takes time to learn the middle school team about passing, communication and rebounding. Martin Lawrence tries hard but lacks the comedy skills Eddie Murphy has. He even plays more than one character like Murphy did in Coming to America.

Most Hollywood movies only get a bad treatment just because they are made in Hollywood. But Rebound gives those Hollywood-haters exactly the ammo they wish, as it is the kind of formulaic movie that has not a shred of intelligent writing, storytelling, directing or acting to be fond of (and being a kid's movie is not an excuse for that). The story has been told so many times that Rebound is boring to the extreme, as there is total predictability.


This may be a very mild spoiler but yes, this film actually had a script. Even more shocking; it actually had writers. I was originally assuming that someone had watched the Mighty Ducks, and switched hockey for basketball, Emilio Estavez for Martin Lawrence, and genuine entertainment for a farce of a movie. Lawrence can at least half-act, he proved that in Bad Boys. So he has no excuses for this. This brought out every tired cliché in the book and then slowly murdered them one by one. They even had the one training session scene in which everyone remarkably improves, which I thought had been retired forever. Even the obvious love interest was stupidly achieved and pointless. I don't mind a film being a little predictable, but I don't like one in which I can guess at least one in every two lines. This film was purely and simply shocking.


First off let me start out by saying that I am not a huge Martin Lawrence fan. Big Momma's House 1 and 2 were pretty good for some dumb comedy movies (me owning the first one and liking it)but, National Security with Martin and Steve Zahn was passable. OK, now on to Rebound. Hot Head Basketball coach Roy McCormic (Lawrence) gets fired and loses his fame and decides to win the press and basketball league back by coaching a small middle school team called The Mt. Vernon Smelters. So he meets the kids, Keith, best player, One Love, loves shoes, hair and ego, Goggles, best spirit, always hit in the face, Ralph, two older brothers, lots of experience, and Fuzzy, the junk food addict (no offense). So bit by bit he starts to teach them to win and later they add two more players, Wes, the shy tall guy who Roy calls "The Sledgehammer", and Big Mac, the school bully who is not afraid of a fight. They get better and better and slowly make their way to victory. Some of the side joke adult characters such as the principal of the school (Meagan Mullaly of TV's "Will and Grace") and an over enthusiastic competitive coach (Patrick Warburton of (Kronk's New Groove). Overall I thought this movie was good and entertaining. It teaches a lesson to not be self centered. It was very sad in my opinion that the girl who played Big Mac died from a gunshot and was rumored to be in a gang. She would have become a "SuperSta". All and all very entertaining.

2 out of 4 stars


I can't believe I paid full price to see this trash. With Rebound, the newest sports and children comedy, audiences have every right to be upset. The recipe not only hasn't been changed, it's been left in the oven far too long.

That's the big flaw in Rebound -- you know it, all of it. The plot is an updated, lifeless version of Hoosiers, and it proceeds like a "choose your own adventure" story where the answers are given for you. As for the characters, you've seen these people a thousand times before, and as recently as a month ago. Exchange the kids in Kicking & Screaming with the kids in Rebound and you don't know the difference.

I don't think anyone buying a ticket for Rebound is expecting the basketball equivalent of Citizen Kane, but the writers, and Lawrence could have shaken things up. There's no sass, plenty of boring characters, and no chance. Stay Away.


Coach Roy(Martin Lawrence) is a famous college basketball coach who's anger leads him to a indefinite suspension from the league. His life is spirals downhill and ends up coaching the middle school that he used to attend's basketball team.

Once again, Martin Lawrence proves himself to be a horrible actor. I can honestly say I have only enjoyed one of his movies(Blue Streak). And now he takes a totally different approach: The Family Movie. Martin when will you learn? You are not funny unless you are absolutely vulgar! Besides Martin Lawrences performance the movie was actually not the worst kid's movie ever. I laughed at a few of the kid's remarks, just never at Martin Lawrence. The movie can be very closely related to Like Mike(Starring Lil Bow Wow) but the scenes in which they place basketball are not even as exciting. Overall, the movie is not anything worth watching even for a family film.

I do not recommend this movie.


I can't believe the film director and producers would allow this movie in theaters with the microphone showing above the actors heads during the entire movie. My granddaughter was very disappointed. We should receive 3 free tickets from 20th century fox for this shameful movie experience. How many sports stories can you write with the same theme over and over. Losing team needs a coach. Some has been coach is hired and by some miracle they turn the team around. Guess what? the team ends up in the finals with the opposing coach a buffoon and bully. Where have we seen this before. the public needs to boycott these movies.


Most would say Rebound is a good "family movie"...but in my opinion...it isn't a good anything. It is just a pretty bad movie. If you want a good family movie there are so many other choices - everything from The Lion King to Finding Nemo to Back to the Future(well I am not sure if that is exactly a family but it is certainly a hell of a lot better than Rebound). The point is, why see Rebound when their are so many other movies that are so much better in achieving the goals that it Rebound tried to achieve? Rebound is just a cliché, pointless, unfunny, hardly warming, dumb, unrealistic, and flawed film. Just a waste of time and money.

3/10.


Well... granted I think this movie is geared towards kids but for what's it worth, it pretty much stunk. Martin didn't do anything funny besides getting hit by basketballs and this movie accomplishes nothing we haven't seen done better already. Horatio was severely underused for such a funny guy and the kids were just SO typical and predictable.

The plot was garbage and each step was more predictable than the last. In fact, its so bad I was predicting which kid would make what shot in the basketball game. That little brat from Even Stevens is in this movie and his gimmick is that he constantly vomits. I wanted to vomit with rage at the stupidity of the character. Then there's some chick on the team named "Big Mac" and her trademark is that she's a bully, bigger than all the kids on the team. These cliché, overdone characters made for no comedic situations and overall a lousy dose of comedy.

This is just another "the funniest moments were in the trailer" movies. People came looking for a good time with Martin Lawrence and Horatio Sans and got a big letdown. A much better "coach" movie would be Coach Carter, which is just coming out on DVD. Much better spent money and far more entertaining. Overall, Rebound was not a complete flop, but there are FAR better movies out there. Certainly the worst I've seen of Martin Lawrence.


If it is possible to fit more clichés into a movie than should logically fit in its runtime, Rebound boldly has some claim to success. Since I work at a movie theater, I was paid 6.50 an hour to watch this two hour film, and it was barely sufferable. Rebound doesn't really have characters; there are just static, singularly-painted figures that we can't root for because it follows every sports film cliché in the book, meaning the audience knows in the first five minutes how everything will turn out before the characters even get there. Any attempt to surprise us takes the back seat to the tried and true method of formulaic storytelling that ruins this film.

I will admit that the actors and actresses in this film seemed very talented, but because of the absent values of the film, didn't have a good outlet for their craft. The talent (perhaps minus Martin Lawrence) would succeed in a project with more vitality. And periodically, there are one or two funny moments (some of which are accidents like boom mics falling into the shot). But there is absolutely no reason to see this film in light of the other films that are out, including War of the Worlds. If your kids want to see something, at least spare them this and go to Madagascar or something less offensively routine.

Conclusion: Utter waste of money, time, and awkward jokes. You couldn't pay me to watch this again.


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I was originally going to give this movie a two rating..but for two reasons only I bumped it up to a 4 (which is still bad btw) The two characters that made this movie even remotely watchable were Wes & Big Mac. It is pretty sad when two child supporting actors upstage you and put out a better performance Mr. Lawrence. I think I may have cracked a smile twice in this whole film...and only one genuine laugh...in the ENTIRE comedy film. It was awful. How many movies do we have to watch about children's sports that aren't EXACTLY the same thing as the last? This movie has every clichéd element you could expect all the way down to the coach trying to get the class nerd to growl and do the mean face. We have SO seen that before! I also cant figure out where they came up with the music for this movie. I was sure I must have accidentally slipped into a time warp. They had hip hop and I guess u could say rock from th 80's and early 90's...what the heck was that about in 2005!?!? I only heard one song that was remotely recent (last year or two) and it was a crappy played out Outkast song. Bravo to the young actors that played Wes and Mac because they made it possible for me to finish this movie without gorging my eyes out. It was also nice to see Megan Mullally as the schools principal but she was totally wasted in this part. They should have given her something more to her story and some more lines because she is one funny woman and I'm sure it would have improved it some. Overall this movie is dreadful so unless your 8 year old forces you to sit through it I suggest you avoid it like the plague.


Brace yourself for some real truth. As you noticed on IMDb, this movie was advertised as "Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller". The trailer makes the movie look the same. Unfortunately, if you go to this movie with that in mind, you may and should be disappointed. When I see the genre described as it was, I want to see just that. Oh, you can add comic relief, maybe good music, some reasonable horror and nostalgia, but do not do what was done to The Black Dahlia.

They obviously didn't intend to make this a serious movie, but rather it was a cheap attempt to imitate a Film Noir sometimes, a TV mystery sometimes and then other times I don't think they knew what they actually wanted to do.

When I am sucked into a movie that I believe is going to be a mystery, I want to be able to enjoy the movie throughout and get involved in the mystery. In this case, the viewer has to spend far too much time trying to figure out what the movie is trying to do. Just give me the mystery that the movie is about. No one needs to make the movie-making process a mystery.

For those of you who are going just to see Scarlett Johansson, I have to say I am very disappointed in her. Her acting needs a lot of improvement or she needs to find movies that embrace her sensuality. Yeah, she is sexy in this movie, too, but her voice does not fit her actions and her acting is puzzling, not mysterious. I want the Scarlett I knew from "Lost In Translation" and "American Rhapsody" at least she could act and her voice fit her character. Other main characters were just as puzzling, however. And honestly, the best and most interesting characters were treated somewhat like extras, though one of those "extras" was by far the best actress in the movie.

You can call this an imitation Film Noir Graphic Novel that should have taken a more serious approach to even those genres.

I gave it a 4 out of 10 out of generosity.


Brian De Palma's so called "film noir" has all the aspects of a great film: detectives, guns, murder, a beautiful blonde, an Oscar winning brunette, and a boxing match. It involves violence, money, pimps, porn, and "the most notorious murder in California history". Sadly though, the movie just doesn't cut it.

The Black Dahlia isn't about murder, or guns, or pimps or porn. The Black Dahlia is about the new American dream: to sleep with Scarlett Johansson. The Dahlia isn't even introduced until a third of the movie is over, the longest 45 minutes I've ever experienced in cinema. A good hour of the movie doesn't have anything to do with the plot, and watching it is just like watching paint dry. Much of this wasted screen time is attributed to the relationship between Sgt. Leland "Lee" Blanchard (Aaron Eckert) and Officer. Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett), where we see their transformation from enemies to partners to friends unrealistically fast, which is unrealistically cliché.

But the biggest downside of the movie is Josh Hartnett. What Hartnett is doing as a serious actor is beyond me, but his performance is a wooden as they come. It is unbelievable that he was considered for the role of Bleichert, and the fact that he was cast really makes me lose faith in Hollywood's mainstream actors. His noir-ish voice-over was like reading words off the script, making it feel less and less like the artsy film De Palma intended it to be.

The only redeeming feature of the flick was Mia Kirshner who had about one minute of screen time as the Dahlia, but was the most memorable character. Oh, yeah, and we do get to see Hilary Swank's ass.

But overall, The Black Dahlia is just another bad film to cap off the summer. It is extremely confusing with all its pointless sub-plots, and just gets annoying at the end. It's one of those movies you consider walking out of, and I counted down the minutes to what I thought would be a climactic finale, but was just a series of long monologues and unclear speaking. In the end, we learned little about the Dahlia, and were pretty much back where we started, except for a few missing comrades.


"The Black Dahlia" is a long, bloated, confusing, self-important, self-consciously artsy movie undermined by miscasting, absurd plot turns, naive symbolism, an utter disdain for history and laughable overacting that make Robert Towne's ponderous, plodding "Chinatown" sequel, "Two Jakes" (1990), look like a taut thriller.

The most marked difference between "Dahlia" and other classics of the more recent genre is that although "L.A. Confidential" is firmly planted in the 1950s and "Chinatown" takes place in the 1930s, De Palma's film has shallow roots "once upon a time in Los Angeles." Clearly, a movie nominally set in 1943-47 in which the lead characters attend a silent movie ("The Man Who Laughs, " 1928--note that the characters are sitting in the balcony, which was reserved for blacks back in the ugly days of segregation. Oops!) has nothing but contempt for the past, which is reflected in a thousand ways, from male actors' scruffy haircuts and inability to wear hats properly to a laughable lesbian nightclub scene featuring K.D. Lang in top hat and tails singing "Love for Sale," which rather than depicting the classic film noir era is most evocative of "Bugsy Malone," a far more accurate film.

One can find fatal flaws in virtually every area of this movie with little effortin fact the most difficult task in critiquing the film is remembering everything that's wrong with it.

First, there's Josh Friedman's dialog: "She looks like that dead girl! How sick are you?"not quite "She's my sister and my daughter," is it? Then there's miscasting (at 31, Kirshner is much too old to play the 22-year-old Black Dahlia), opulent production design by Dante Ferretti (police officers lived like this on LAPD pay? Who knew?), music (Mark Isham in the entirely predictable "cue mournful trumpet" genre), odd costumingFriday casual for the men, fall collection for the women(Jenny Beavan), down to the crowd scenes, which are busy to the point of distraction. And I wish I had the cigarette holder franchise on this film. I would be a rich man.

Even special effects are misused, with an earthquake that serves no purpose except to underline an obvious plot turn. Granted, the overly complex story is almost impossible to follow, but in this instance, De Palma must assume the audience has an IQ of about 50. And unlike the shocking and painfully realistic nose-slitting scene in "Chinatown," the far worse violence inflicted on the Black Dahlia is amusingly fake. If De Palma was hoping to make a slasher flick, he failed badly.

Nor does Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography escape a rap on the knuckles for a ridiculous lesbian stag film (presumably made at a cost surpassing the combined budgets of all blue movies produced from the 1920s to the 1950s), and a self-conscious and overly elaborate shot in which partners Blanchard (Eckhart) and Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) engage in a shootout, followed by the camera slowly rising up floor by floor of an entire apartment building, proceeding to a befuddling shot of the building's roof before it at last discovers the Black Dahlia's body in a vacant lot in the adjoining block. As visual storytelling, this is a grandiose and miserable failure.

And then there's Fiona Shaw, who chews so much scenery that she must have been rushed to an oral surgeon to have the splinters removed.

For that matterand perhaps this is what makes the heart of the film beat so faintlythere is very little of the Black Dahlia in "The Black Dahlia," who only surfaces far into the picture.

In fact, the first 30 or 40 minutes are devoted to boxing matches between the two detectives, nicknamed "Fire" and "Ice" from the Symbolism 101 school of writing. (I know it's in the book, but that's no excuse).

So where is the Black Dahlia in this confusing mess? She exists entirely on film. Of course in real life, Elizabeth Short never got a screen test or even appeared in a school play, but De Palma gives her one and Kirshner, trying her best at the impossible task of acting 22, makes it as pitiful as possible with an intentionally miserable reading of Vivian Leigh's famous monologue from "Gone With the Wind."

The handling of the crime scene? Ridiculous even by Hollywood's lax standards. Vintage black-and-white police cars swarming the streets and detectives bellowing instructions like some shark-jumping 1970s cop show that any good investigator would already know. Ditto the morgue.

Then there's the contrasting love/sex scenes, and it's obvious De Palma hasn't a clue how to stage either one. The sex scene, between Harnett and Johansson, occurs in the dining room, when, overcome with passion, Bleichert rips away the tablecloth, sending dishes everywhere, and has his way with Lake. Isham's score is lushly romantic, an oddly contrasting choice of music, and amour like this is sure tough on the Havilland china and the Baccarat crystal.

The love scene, between Swank and Harnett, is just as amusing with Bleichert and Linscott having a little pillow talk while she's wearing nothing but huge pearl earrings and a long matching necklace with pearls the size of small onions, ensuring, I would imagine, a rather bumpy ride.

And about those crazy Linscotts. Bleichert knows exactly how to make rich people confess to murder: Use their valuable antiques for target practice. The last time I checked, police revolvers hold six rounds, so unless Bleichert was planning to fight off one of them as he reloaded I can't imagine what he thought he would do after his sixth question. Then again, not everybody can send a crystal chandelier crashing to the floor with one shotsome of us need two.

And while you're at it, Bucky, take out a couple of those clown paintings, please.


I wanted to love it, but Brian De Palma's "The Black Dahlia" is a flat, paceless, uninvolving, constipated bore. It bears few of the director's signature set pieces, and possesses none of the energy of classics like "Body Double". "Dressed To Kill", "Blow Out" and "Scarface". Based on the rambling, seedy novel by James Elroy, which I read and enjoyed very much over a decade ago, this filmization of the novel fails in its casting, structure and set design. Although the film's period Los Angeles has all the trappings of ye olde Hollywoodland, it looks like a movie set. Josh Hartnett is totally unconvincing in his central role, as is the highly masculine Hillary Swank as a "femme fatale" (give me a break! she belongs in an Almodovar movie!) who sucks Hartnett into a convoluted web and her unappealing mouth. Scarlett Johannsen, who looks ravishing in a shot or two, is weak as water, and owns little screen presence. The narrative is unbelievably matter-of-fact and most of the film's surprise "revelations" are plain silly. More conservative critics have focused on the film's "sleaze" and "trashiness". If ONLY there was more sleaze and trash. This is lightweight film noir that will will send most viewers back to the video store to rent the DVD of "LA Confidential", an excellent adaptation of another Elroy novel. This turgid celluloid clunker is something I will soon forget.


Artistically, this movie should get some extra points. The use of color, the sharp contrast of black and white, good and evil, and so on. Based on that, I'd probably give the movie a 3.

However, to put it simply, the plot and acting in this movie is terrible. Here is me fundamental rule in movies: You have to actually CARE about the characters and what they were going through. And, trust me, I didn't care. Admittedly, the introduction was quite compelling, and I was drawn in a bit. However, after the introduction, my mind slowly turned to mush and my eyes de-focused. This is my altruistic warning to the masses: Don't watch this movie.


The Black Dahlia turned out to be even worse than I imagined it could be. Had it not been for the lovely date I had, I would have been angry.

The Black Dahlia is twenty-first century film noir. It is miraculous all the actors made it through the filming without lung cancer. I've never seen more people smoke in one film.

Josh Hartnett is just too boyish looking to pull of the role he played. He is miscast.

Aaron Eckhart is guilty of over acting and over acting, over and over.

Scarlet Johanson seemed to act very little and I feel she was miscast as well.

The brightest spot, in a long, tedious trudge, is Hilary Swank. She is cast to perfection and portrays the nefarious Madeleine, deliciously.

Alas, the poor Mia Kirshner. Her performance of Elizabeth Short is so forgettable, it may work in her favor.

According to IMDb, the budget was $50,000,000. If I had my druthers, I would have rather seen 10 $5,000,000 independent art house movies.

The Black Dahlia appears to be another example of the Hollywood suits' inability to invest huge sums of money intelligently. I suppose next it will be "The Return of the Black Dahlia".


This movie could have been called absolutely anything. It shouldn't, however, have been called "The Black Dahlia." If your going to base a story on real events then there should be at least some similarities to the truth! This movie had no connection to any real events at all (The real life victim never made a film of any kind, porn or otherwise.) And, the fiction story that was presented was not all that enthralling. It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction, which is certainly true in this case. A story based on the real story of the Black Dahlia could have made an excellent movie. But they chose to create a total fiction with no basis in fact at all. I felt ripped off by this Black Dahlia impostor!


I was so excited to see this movie, but when it ended, I was at a whole new level of angry. The film threw so much pointless junk at you, that it was hard to follow the movie. The film is supposed to be about the death of Elizebeth Shore. Unfortunately, they actually focus very little on that topic.

There are about 100 other things happening during the film, and 99 of them are irrelevant. I mean, the writing is terrible. This is another one of those films where third party, completely random characters become the culprits, and defeat the purpose of getting to know the main characters in the first place.

The positive things that I can say is that they do sort of tie some things together at the end (although the results will only serve to tick most people off). Hartnett does do a good job, and the film is visually fun to watch.

Aside from those things, it was bad. Don't see it. Save your money for Hollywoodland.


I so much wanted to like this movie. Even when bad reviews started coming in from the Festival it opened in. I thought to myself "maybe it's just misunderstood to those unfamiliar with Ellroy's novel" But frankly, it just never felt right,,, and then it went more and more uncomfortably wrong; the actors in their roles, the soundtrack vs. certain scenes, the story fumbling it's way around with not enough mention of The Dahlia herself (which really drove the characters in the novel). There were parts of the book that got left out which shouldn't have been, while there we're other parts 'put in' that could've been 'left out'. 'L.A. Confidential' was a longer and more complex book than Ellroy's 'The Black Dahlia', yet Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland knew what was necessary to move the story forward without getting in 'over their heads' in making it a functional screenplay. And that is where this movie fails miserably (along with the other fore-mentioned issues). It is however beautifully shot and lit in many scenes, but even a polished turd is still a turd, and that is essentially what you have here with DePalma's latest offering. This movie could lead to a new future in moving making and subsequent DVD extra's; Alternate Actors, Soundtrack and Screenplay? Because that's the only way this could be saved.


Oh, what high expectations I had. Fifteen minutes into this, I knew I was in for an exceptionally long two hours. I, personally, have researched as much as I possibly could on the case long before the movie came out...and the only thing that actually lived up to true drama of the real events was the crime scene. It was very accurate...but that's all that is going for this film. Throughout, you simply become bored to tears. Most of the time, I was left confused and often amused by the overacting. There are still parts that I can't understand or don't see the significance. The film did not GO anywhere up until the very end, and even the dramatic parts weren't very exciting. This movie had nothing to draw you in, and by the end it leaves one feeling unsatisfied. The Black Dahlia definitely could have been done so much better then it was, it was all just a jumbled mess.


SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE THE DEAD GIRL, YOUR THE SICK ONE-- has got to be the funniest line that was not intended to be funny in the whole movie- I laughed, along with the rest of the theater, for about 2 minutes after that-- and then when the Voice Over comes on and its SCARElett's voice repeating it again, I just could not contain my laughter anymore! Go see it just for that alone! The movie is not great at all- it tries to come across as all serious and drama filled but comes off as a bad Saturday Night Live sketch! Apparently, Josh Hartnett thinks all it takes is a furrowed look with his eyebrows to demonstrate any of his emotions. They should have gotten an actor who is older then Josh- he did not fit the bill as a detective-- he looks too much like 2006, then a character from 1940's. The best acting was done my Mia, who played the Black Dahlia-- she gave a great performance in a limited role. Hillary Swank came off as a bad drag queen impersonator while we find out too late why Aaron Eckhardt's character is in such turmoil over the death of the Black Dahlia. When we do find out the truth, we don't care anymore. Too much happens at the end and it was like a student cramming for a midterm 5 minutes before the test begins. So much is thrown at us in the last 5 minutes of the movie- characters, motives, red herrings, misunderstandings, that I needed a score card to keep track of who was with who and who knew what with who. Its a movie you should rent-- only so u can pause and rewind to understand what was thrown at you in the last few minutes of the movie. It was like the director thought the movie was too long so he just threw everything in at once to tie up loose ends, when all it does is create more questions then answers. Scarlette apparently thinks by smoking a long cigarette and pouting she is transformed to the 1940's but in every movie why does she come across as bored and dull. Will the Black Dahila murder be solved, will the good guys prevail, will Josh Hartnett learn to act, will the scenery hold up after Aaron Echardt's chews threw the movie- acting docile one moment, then out of control in the next-- find out when you see the Black Dahlia.... on video of course, after your friend buys it.


Like many, I had high expectations for this film. And like many other reviews I've read here on the IMDb, I agree that the cinematography was well done, it was ridiculous to the point of comedy and there were a few moments in the film that almost saved it but bottom line up front, it was a huge disappointment. This movie was probably about everything except the Black Dahlia murder or Elizabeth Short. If that's what holds your interest about this movie, read about it in the Crime Library instead, this movie should have been called Boring Love Triangle Story With Quirky And Shocker Parts That Almost Save It But Don't Oh Yeah And Lots Of Eye Candy. The End.


Wow! I never believed I would be saying this about one of DePalma's movies, but here it goes: the is the worst movie he has ever made. Some of this was adapted from Ellroy's 1987 novel of the same name, but all in all this movie sucked. There were too many pieces of the puzzle that tried to fit together but just couldn't. Also it leaves you with asking a lot more questions after the movie than before seeing the movie. You are introduced to characters that have no relevance to the story or do hot make sense as to why they are there. All in all this movie is just one giant mess. I had been intrigued about the Elizabeth Short murder a couple of weeks ago when the Sunday paper I read had an insert that was a reprint from 1947 about the killing of the Black Dahlia. I figured this movie would be shot much more darkly than what I actually did see. But really the movie was just one giant collage: different pieces of the puzzle that you could fit together to express a theme, but as a story it fell far short. My advice: wait for DVD.


Parts of this move kinda make you want to laugh. For instance, seeing K.D. Lang singing lovingly to the audience as the headliner in a swank, upscale lesbian night club (apparently 1947 Hollywood was well represented with swank clubs of this sort), where her entourage sort of melts into a lesbian orgy as part of her act (at least I guess it was supposed to be part of her act).

Or, when poor cop Josh Hartnett and socialite Hillary Swank engage in carnal relations in a seedy motel, and afterwards, as he, sitting in bed, is lighting up cigarettes for the two of them while she cuddles near him, is still wearing his fedora while she still wears her pearls. I'll bet keeping that fedora on must have been quite a trick.

Anyway, the major problem with this film is that it unsuccessfully tries to combine several film noir classics into one movie. For instance, you have the rich father with the two strange daughters ("The Big Sleep"), the seemingly separate plots that may have more in common than at first glance ("Murder my Sweet"), and the character whose obsession may lead toward a certain road of destruction ("The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity"), etc. What you are left with is a hodgepodge of sometimes incomprehensible threads in which some of the essential characters to the development of the story aren't introduced until near the end of the movie! Another problem with this movie is director Brian De Palma's apparent obsession with lesbians. The movie is basically lesbian this and lesbian that; lesbian singer, lesbian night clubs, lesbian stag films (with device), and lesbian confessions ("I only slept with her once. Honest!"). This film, along with "Hollywoodland," seems intent on informing us uneducated hicks from the heartland that homosexuality existed before 1990. Duu-uuh!!! Now, for the good parts and the trivia parts. One scene consists of two policemen staking out a building where they expect to find a child molester. I'm not going to describe the scene, but it is reminiscent of the famous opening sequence of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil." Mr. De Palma filmed the scene right. Impressive.

Though the movie begins to drag when it for too long replaces mystery with romance, the film does have one really good scene of unrelenting Hitchcock-like suspense.

The photography is first rate and beautiful.

The classic cars are a wonder to behold.

Some of the music score reminds one of the works of film composer Bernard Herrman.

Two trivia items: The marquee of one movie theater advertises "The Black Angel," a 1947 film noir based upon the novel by Cornell Woolrich ("Rear Window"), who is considered to be one of the founders of this genre of suspense.

One scene in this film shows the action through the eyes of Josh Hartnett. You do not see him; you see only the faces of those he is talking with as the camera turns from individual to individual, showing us all through Hartnett's eyes. This device was previously used for almost an entire film by Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth's dad) when he played Philip Marlowe in "Lady in the Lake." (No, that inferior, insipid, little horror movie was not the first to use this device. Sorry!) So, I am guessing that Mr. De Palma was paying homage to film noirs of the past. Too bad he didn't wait until he had better material to do it with.

Your better bets: Everything mentioned above.


I'm not sure where to begin. The cinematography/editing of this movie was terrible. Colors were frequently washed out, the 360-degree shot in the briefing room was out of focus, on and on...Continuity/fact checking left much to be desired, too, like the cash register at the diner that clearly shows "4d" on it's "display" (4 pence? in an American diner?) All of the actors were just abysmal. The dialog was laughably bad. And the story: It made no sense, bouncing like a pinball from here to there and then wrapping everything up in a nice, tidy package in the last 5 minutes as if DePalma said "Uhoh, running out of film, let's wrap this up!" There are great movies, good movies, mediocre movies, bad movies, and then there's the Black Dahlia.


I was so disappointed! I had been waiting to see this film for so long, and I think I expected something totally different. I thought the acting was over-the-top and too exaggerated, for example, the swell of 'sexy' 40's era music that played every time Scarlett Johanssen appeared in a scene. Granted, Scarlett was BEAUTIFUL in this movie, she's such a classic beauty, an she was perfect for the time period. However, whenever there was a serious/suspenseful information-revealing type of moment in the movie, the camera would linger on her face for ages while Scarlett's eyebrows furrowed and lips quivered while we waited for her to give a breathless answer of some sort. The love scenes couldn't have had less chemistry, with their contrived spontaneity, and clumsy ripping-off of clothing, and the constant comparison of Hillary Swank's character and Mia Kirshner's character who were supposed to bear an uncanny resemblance to each other in the film, when in reality they look absolutely nothing alike. Not to mention the confusing side crime story that I'm still attempting to decipher three hours after seeing the movie. I will say that the cinematography was great, and the costuming was perfect. But, I was very disappointed with the film in its entirety.


I was so looking forward to this film. What a great cast and director. Well, it was outstanding in the way it looked; beautifully filmed, visually capturing the era and mood. But the script was absolutely awful. I couldn't work up any interest in what was happening regarding the story or characters. Rather than capturing the film noir experience, this film was like a Carol Burnett send-up of the genre without the Burnett humor. The only other positive I can say is that it was great to hear/see k.d.lange sing and Mia Kirshner's Dahlia conveyed the inner sadness of her character very well. Hillary's performance comes across as a cartoon: a 2006 actress dressed up for Halloween as a 1947 femme fatale. Oh, why couldn't the rest of the film match the beautiful cinematography!


The only redeeming part of this movie was the sumptuous cinematography and settings used. Simply breathtaking.

OK, now for the meat of it. It felt to me that Michelle Yeoh was leveraging off her dubious success in Tiger/Dragon and Tomorrow Never Dies to bridge the gap from HK chop-schlocky movies to something passably "international". Boy did she ever set her career back with this stinker. The plot was horribly derivative, and full of holes. The action sequences, albeit nicely choreographed, felt rushed and the fight pacing was jerky and obviously wired. The special effects were second-rate at best, with obvious seams visible and CGI clearly recognizable.

Roxburgh and Chaplin did their best in the movie, and Yeoh was shockingly wooden.

I had an attack of the giggles part way through the movie, and it worsened with the ludicrous plot developments, culminating in a full-fledged laughing attack when the Tibetan monk at the end spoke so badly they had to subtitle him... even though he was attempting to speak English.

In summary, I feel somewhat insulted at having had to pay to see this movie.


After all the hype about its beautiful scenery and background, it was with much anticipation that I went into the theater for this film. Was I ever disappointed.

I will give credit to Peter Pau's artistic sense, and some of the locations chosen for the film were breathtaking. But the good things I have to say about the film ends here. And, in view of this, the film may well serve better as a plug for the Tibetan travel industry than as a proper film.

=== Spoilers ahead ==> Where shall I begin? The plot was ludicrously childish. Not to say that Yeoh and Pau pilferred material from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the entire affair watched like a bastardized version of Indiana Jane, in search for the holy sharrira, with neither the gripping pace nor sense of fun and adventure. The film failed in attempting to be all things all at once. It was neither sufficiently fast paced to be a good swashbuckling adventure, nor slow enough to make the contrived romantic interlude convincing. The plot inconsistencies, some of which plain deny common sense, well, let's not even go there.

There was no characterization to speak of, and the film-maker seemed to think that they can get by simply by conjuring up all the stereotypes they can muster: the Chinese martial arts fighter; the faithful, religious and sagely father/monk, the one-dimensional bad guy (yes, one-dimensional), the obligatory meat heads as henchmen, the annoying comic relief. All of which add up to a garbled cast and a sense of misdirection, and the film never was able to form its own distinct identity. What annoyed me even more was that the producers seemed to think that selling the sense of the stereotypical "mysterious China" would be sufficient, probably thinking that "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" succeeded solely on this (which it did not since Crouching Tiger was a good film based on a good, albeit decade-old, plot and strong characters).

The plot is again a jumbled mix fast and slow sequences, action sequences and supposedly character development scenes juxtaposed, which served only to destroy any pace the film could possible have established. The good guys were simply good, and the bad guys were simply bad, in a very comic book simple sort of way. The audience is, as asked of the leading characters in the film, "believe", since the actors themselves certainly failed to deliver any sense of goodness or badness. Which is completely sad since Yeoh, Chaplin, and Roxburgh are capable of being so much more, as they have shown in other films, and are victims of a daft directing and an even worse story.

I have seen a Yeoh interview in which she stated that The Touch was her way of trying to make a Chinese film for a worldwide audience, in the way that Hollywood makes films for that audience. But what I saw was the juvenile plot and characters that have so plagued Hong Kong films and, IMO, caused their demise. What Yeoh should realize, as any movie-watcher today must realize, is that a film should at the very least have a decent plot and believable characters, or else all the exotic location shoots in the world can not salvage what I have no doubt will be a tanker.


Seeing the commercial for this movie, you know you'll be disappointed with the special effects. If you've never seen an Indiana Jones movie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Seven Years In Tibet, nor any other HK flick, then MAYBE this movie will entertain you. Actually, comparing this to Indiana Jones, Crouching Tiger and Seven Years in Tibet would be insults to those movies. More appropriate would be Relic Hunter, Legend Of Zu, and The Golden Child. The storyline starts out decent enough, but right off the bat you'll see some hokey f/x. For the first half of the movie, the plot unfolds like many Jackie Chan-away-from-HK flix: reluctant hero, naive sibling, overly-evil Caucasian. The next paint-by-numbers HK-flik characteristic: the ol' you-wanna-pull-your-hair-out "why did he do that stupid thing" thing. That leads to the "action" part of the movie and off they go to China ... beautiful scenery a la Crouching Tiger interspersed with Relic Hunter antics. But then the almost-entertaining movie (for a HK flik) just got taken over by people who received new computers for Christmas: it became 98% computer graphics overlayed with the actors swinging on ropes. You'd expect the cheesy latest-tech graphics in Hercules or Xena because they're spoofs, but this $$$ movie ended up like Legend of Zu ... graphics fluff. Oh, the scenes at the end in Tibet? Nice travelogue. Conclusion? (Do you need to ask?) This ain't no Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 2 the Western audience is looking for.


Released in August of 2002, the Touch cannot receive good comment from critics and audience. Although Peter Pau got his first Oscar for wonderful cinematography, his direction skill is not ripe enough. We've got great views from the adventure movie, but a common story and terrible effects. The story has a few logical problems and the fighting need more edition, although I understand Michelle had practiced hard for her own film. It is also odd to Asian audience that all the Chinese in this movie speak fluent English. It could be quite entertaining, but please don't treat your dear audience as fools.


Everyone talks about how the CG is what ruined The Touch. For myself, I could have lived with the crappy CG, if only the story hadn't been messed up so horribly. The Touch has an old, very overused plot. But even given that, the filmmakers didn't even follow through on it in any logical way. I mean, even if they'd just totally copied some old 40s adventure story scene for scene and plugged in some wire-fu the film would have at least made some sense.

Here's the biggest example of what I mean:

The whole freaking premise of the story is that Michelle Yeoh and company have been trained generation after generation to be super-acrobats so that they will be THE ONLY ONES able to perform the near-impossible series of acrobatic feats necessary to get to the secret magical medallion. Right? Well, that's what you're led to believe in the first half of the film. But in the big climax of the story it turns out that ABSOLUTELY ANYONE and EVERYONE is capable of performing these feats, including the head villain and all his henchmen. Every one of them, down to the clumsiest jerk, finds it a simple task to get into the secret cave (or whatever it was). And virtually every character in the film ends up swinging and flipping around in a bad CG conflagration.

What's the freakin' point of building up this entire premise of the super acrobats and then just throwing it away at the end? The movie was full of massive logical lapses like that (similar to those in Jackie Chan's equally craptacular film of the same year "The Medallion.") .

And by the way, when I first saw this a few years ago, I thought that henchman "Bob" was head and shoulders better than anyone else in the film. Now I find out that he was played by rising standup comedy superstar Dane Cook! Go figure!


I had a crush on Michelle Yeoh, I am still a big fan and tries to catch every film that she's in. And with high hopes going in watching this movie, I poised myself for a big let down. Even with gorgeous locations and good castings, this movie always just teetered on developing a good story but did not carry through. Actions and fights were almost actions but not quite. It just everything were "almosts." And one thing about CGs: you can't do CGs on the cheap! It looks cheesy, and any kind of "suspension of disbelief" up to that point goes right down the drain. At the end of the day, it was "almost" an action drama, almost a movie.


I have seen the Touch a few hours ago. I don't know why I wasted nearly 100 minutes of my life to watch this disappointment. Sorry but it is just another predictable and forgettable lame eastern action/adventure/martial arts film. The story is weak, acting is terribly bad (or maybe this movie is without acting at all) even for such kind of movies while dialogs look extremely silly and cheesy. Even special effects and fight scenes were ridiculous and hardly watchable. I really liked Crouching Tiger and Hero but The Touch stands too far from them. Obviously it is not the worst movie ever but I can't recommend it for watching even for free. Watch above mentioned movies or other acclaimed martial marts movies but avoid The Touch.

3,7 of 10


Expensive looking but bloated and dull martial arts fantasy. Film was shot in English with Anglo villains and an Anglo lead, obviously with a hope towards international success. Unfortunately after a strong start the film has a very saggy middle, turning into a second rate Raiders of the Lost Ark wannabe. Many of the fight scenes and effects are also far too digitized, making the film look about as real as a video game. A huge waste of talent and time.


Awful, tedious and utterly ridiculous action flick starring the very beautiful and talented Michelle Yeoh and Ben Chaplin. A script beyond salvation, uninteresting action scenes and terrible CGI make "The Touch" a complete waste with little to offer the spectator. The story makes no sense even though its very obviously inspired (stolen) by other famous movies and uses the same clichés all over again. Even the actors seem as bored as the audience. Not even Yeoh can do anything with such poor material. Chaplin is miscast and Richard Roxburgh is just another stupid villain. Why three talented actors such as these accept such a flawed project may only be explained by a hefty paycheck at the end of the day. It truly is a shame. The Touch is unoriginal, bland and even embarrassing. Stay away.


I want to make it clear to everyone (but it will sound really harsh so please pardon me) This movie is the worst movie in the entire universe. It is that horrible and in my opinion this movie don't even deserve a single point for even an efforts.

Starting from the script, which is so indescribable how bad it is (it was so unrealistic and cheap, very very cheap character and storyline). The casting is terrible and don't to mention the acting even cheaper than storyline.

The CGI is as bad as the movie and I STRONGLY advise any one and everyone not to watch it , it was a total nightmare for me.

I am sorry to say all this but it is that bad .

Rating : 0.5/10


I was really keen on seeing this film and now that i have i'm totally disappointed. The director of this movie is so ambitious to give the viewer a movie of epic proportions that he has just forgotten to put a story into it. Kitano does his best to give his two-dimensional role of the rapist/husband some depths, the other actors are all very good and the cinematography has the charm of photographs of the past but there is no possibility to actually care for any of the characters. The movie is such a bric-a-braque that you won't even learn anything at all about it's narrator, Kitanos son Masao. I have no problem with movies this violent but when you don't suppose to feel anything for the victims it is a waste of time, and for 144 Min. a very long one. In my eyes Yoichi Sai is a bad director because he hasn't put his heart into something that could have been a fascinating movie.


I found "Chi to hone" very boring and repetitive. No back story I could understand. No way to understand the actions of Kitano, or most of the other members of his family.

I thought I was seeing a weird Asian crossing between "Once Upon a Time in America" and "Brutti sporchi e cattivi" (Ettore Scola's "Ugly Dirty and Bad"), without the powerful story those film have, and didn't enjoyed it.

Cinematography is below average, acting is very good, but overall the movie makes no sense. It may be because I don't understand much of Japan/Korea history, but I generally appreciate Japanese movies (from Kitano's to Kurosawa).

It is clear that a lot of time was spend in the sets and the reconstruction of the 40's, 50's and 60's in the movie, and a lot of details looks real. But all seems very pointless.

There are some sexual scenes that are very hard to see, mostly because they are quite repetitive and don't make the story move.

The bottom line: you probably have better to do with your time.


Apparently this movie set out to make its viewers feel bad, and it certainly worked for me. This is one of the dullest scripts I have seen turned into movie lately. Having read sk4ek's comment on this, maybe it would be fair to add that it was made from a novel, and I watched the subtitled version (and I don't understand Japanese), so it seems I probably didn't get a lot of what made the novel good. Anyway, the script is all about what a gargantuan a**hole Kitano's character is, but whatever else happens just doesn't add much to the story. Just imagine the worst things a father could possibly do to his family, sequence them on a timeline, and you have the plot of this movie. But there simply is no character evolvement, no turning point, nothing that gives an interesting twist to things, they only keep getting worse.

***mild spoiler below***

Once I thought the story was going to take off, when another illegitimate son of A**hole Father moved in with the family, finally someone who had the potential to give a swerve to the plot line. After being defeated in a fistfight, he tells the boy who narrates the whole story to study hard, walks away and gets shot ten days later off screen. Segue boring story continued. The cinematography is alright, but not outstanding, and not enough to save this movie.


I had the misfortune to catch the latest episode of this show. I'm a regular viewer of TV crime shows but had never seen this. I was lucky.

Feeble in every department. It looks like it was shot through a filter of soup, the script was terrible - the story was hackneyed, psychologically inconsistent, and dull, the acting was weak. Kris Marshall is particularly unconvincing and looks uncomfortable in the role, even though this is the second series. The world the characters inhabit is a collection of watered down lifts from other shows (the light box they use to view photographs a typical example, ripping off the transparent boards from Waking the Dead to considerably less effect and impact).

Will go out of my way to avoid future episodes.


I know Subiha way back since Eighties. At that time she was a young lady and just came back form Oxford to Karachi. She was engage in a War Against Rape to save innocent women and also joins an Urdu newspaper AMN with us. She was although too young but a brilliant and socio conscious girl. With reference to her film Khamosh Pani I would like to say Weldon Subiha. But my dear you may don't know, today situation in Pakistan is more dangerous than Zia period. Nowadays we are sitting on a volcano that erupts every day some where in Pakistan and take lot of innocent peoples life. Karachi was a modern city by every means in recent past but today go anywhere in this city, it may be a posh area, middle class locality or a slums you will find bearded men and burqa clad women in such a huge numbers that no one could even imagine some years earlier. This huge number of black bearded mullah and black burqa clad women on streets looks to me a black storm which is coming to destroy every thing. Time has come to make a film on this situation, I would like to suggest name of this film '' LAWA''. I think no one but Subiha can produce that kind of a film. I wish you best of luck Subiha. MUBASHIR MANSOOR


The film 'Bra Boys' begins by describing the settlement of the Maroubra area and goes on to detail the often chaotic living situations of some of the areas younger citizens. From then on the story follows the journey of the Abberton brothers - Sunny, Koby and Jai - as they face court cases, gang violence and some massive waves.

While I can appreciate the rags-to-riches story of the Abberton brothers, for me the story never really seemed to hit home. This may be because of the negative stigma that often goes hand-in-hand with the Bra Boys. However, I believe it is much more simple than that: it is a poorly directed and edited film. Too often was I distracted by the uneven sound, sub-par camera work and jumpy interview sequences.

Yet, the film really shines when it is left to people other than the Abberton brothers to describe the various incidents through their own retelling. This balances the film nicely, rather than have Koby or Jai recount their own court cases and possibly omit certain details. Another element that enhances this film is the surf footage, which really is the tie that binds all these 'Bra Boys' together.

But I found that the negatives far outweighed the positives for this film. It provides an interesting insight into one of Australia's most notoriously tight-knit surf cultures, yet the Abberton influence raises questions of bias regarding the various events which envelop his brothers. For me, this film was interesting but far from great.


A lot of stuff about how they have bloodthirsty fights, Some news article about Cocaine, Heroin, not a good influence for kids. Kids may copycat and end up in prison for rehabs. Search for: bra boys heroin in google.com, and bra boys cocaine in google.com, you'd get some news article results. If kids copy them, we'll get a whole generation of homicidal psychos running around all over the world. So, it's not good.

If you want your kids to grow up, keeping away from drugs, homicide, prison, don't let them watch this one. It'll turn them into psychos. PLEASE for humanity. Don't copy them.

Keep out of trouble, kids.


This movie is astonishingly biased and is based on the opinion of gang members rather than true fact.

The movie basically attempts to justify a murder committed by one of the Abberton brothers, who head the group. It also accuses policemen of starting a fight with gang members when both groups were attending functions at the same location.

"Bra Boys" encourages youngsters to leave school and take up a life of dangerous surfing, drug use and crime. The leaders who offer their opinions are ridiculously immature. Its wrong this movie was allowed to be released.

The only good thing about the movie is Russell Crowes narration.


It's 1934, and the Breen Office is beginning to strictly enforce the Hays Code. Originally put in place in 1930, the Code was ignored for years by Hollywood producers, who plied their audiences with immorality and vice. The audiences loved it, of course, but America's bluenoses had had it with drug use, adultery, and hints of homosexuality, and Breen began to crack down. What does this have to with Kentucky Kernels? Well, gone are Wheeler and Woolsey's nudge nudge wink wink repartee, to be replaced by broad slapstick and agonizing racial humor. The result is an unsatisfying mess, with the boys saddled with cute lil' Spanky McFarland for good measure in this tale of fussin' and feudin' in the old Confederacy. The film just doesn't have the saucy joie de vivre of the pre-Code Wheeler and Woolseys, and the presence of poor old Willie Best (here in his Sleep 'n' Eat persona) guarantees 99% of the modern day audience will find offense with this film. There are a few laughs, but you're best advised to stick with the comedy team's earlier output.


To say that the new I've got a secret sucks, is the biggest understatement I have EVER heard. A bunch of idiots took a masterpiece game show, and made it into a mockery. Now I don't know about the panelists being gay, but for sure they are some of the worst panelists I have ever seen. From whats-her-name making inane comments to the 'suggestive' language that is used, they took a family show and made it into some wannabe burlesque strip show, with baggy pants clowns as some of their guests and a wannabe host that doesn't hold a candle to Gary Moore. I refuse to lend this 'show?' any credibility by watching it ... I would rather watch a rerun of the Adam's Family or set through another season of political campaign debates.

The best thing that could happen with this 'new and improved' version of a much beloved game show, is to cancel any more of these programs and to burn any copies of these putrid pretend games.


I enjoyed the original version of I've Got a Secret. When it came back on the air on the GSN I was very pleased. I turned it on recently and was very disappointed to see what they had done with the show. It was a clean show fit for any audience in it's original version, but, the newer version shows men's rear ends and comments by the panel that I do not care for. Perhaps the younger generation might find this entertaining, but to a lady who does not care for risqué humor it is not entertaining. I wish the GSN would also offer the original version for those of us that enjoyed it. Some of the contestants would seem to be better shown on a What's My Line show, such as those whose secret is related to their employment. Regarding the panelists, I have never heard of any of them and do not find them especially entertaining. All in all, I find this a poor imitation.


Silent observer sure has it right. I understand times do change but it is usually for the better! These 'stars' seem to lack some common sense when it comes to the questioning. I see the most intelligence coming from Billy. And they seem to think that every one has something sexual the in the nature of their secret. Some of the secrets have been interesting but ... I also think sometimes the 'stars' don't guess so the contestant can win the $1,000 and the dinner, i.e. the guest from Palo Cedro with the beard made of bees. The last 'star' had it made, easy but wasted time and therefore the contestant wins.Please let them find other worthwhile jobs and bring us the entertainment we deserve.


GSN killed potential long-term viewership of this show by filling the early episodes with butt cheek pencil breakers, nipple enhancement sellers and geriatric strippers. These early episodes also had the panel making forced, out of context, sexual comments. Granted, GSN appears to have learned a little bit from its early mistakes and the later episodes have guests with broader appeal and somewhat toned-down, sophomoric sexual commentary. Still, the all-gay, totally unknown, panel remains a stupid on-going gimmick (Suzanne is a comedienne? when is she ever funny or witty?) and the ridiculously easy clues given to the panel makes viewers wonder if GSN has no budget for winners. This show might have garnered more good will from long time game show fans at the beginning, but GSN teased them by airing a few weeks of the original "IGS" at 3:30 am est and then pulled it to substitute this new, hugely flawed version, which was rerun from its 11:30 pm est time slot. I would give it a chance to evolve and grow up if the original show were replaced at the late night time slot.


I was really looking forward to this program when GSN was teasing it all over the place, (I loved the original) but the whole show is just bad. It's "celebrity value" maintains a deficit, and the quality of contestants are horrible.

Also, who are these people?? I know that Billy Bean quit baseball to come out of the closet, which begs the question to the producers, "Why are all 3 of the male "stars" gay?? Do they have something against heteros? Plus the "stars" are often very inappropriate with the contestants. In one episode, Frank (The fat, bald guy from XM Satellite Radio) said that he and the contestant (a 91 year old water skier) had slept together to get a laugh, and the gentleman was visibly shaken by the comment.

Also, what is up with their prizes?? $1,000 and dinner in Hollywood?? Can they get any cheaper?? Cripes! They should should get that at the very least for appearing, especially having to deal with the no-talent, no-name "stars".

Bill Dwyer is OK, but does not take control of his show. He should watch some of the old game shows, and see how people like Garry Moore, John Daly, Bud Collyer, and Allen Ludden did it in the old day. They dominated the show, and they showed their talent and skill in always being able to reign in the stars as necessary. (Not that Mr. Dwyer has any of those to worry about.) This show had great expectation and falls super way short. Too bad. If the panel members..... oops, I mean stars, would stop being so all over the place, and be a little more respectable, they might make the second season...

Right Now, however, this show belongs on the cancelled list, and I hope it is soon. Bring back Friend or Foe. Hell, I'd even love a second What's My Line there too. That would be fun.

If you've never seen this show, then congratulate yourself. You will always have that 30 minutes to use in life somewhere


This piece of gay agenda driven drivel went the way of the likes of "Brokeback Mountain" and other such attempts of 10% of the population trying to force its agenda on the other 90%. Thank God Americans still have some semblance of good taste and sent this abomination packing. Also, to any one who thinks Bill Cullen would have liked this hijacking of a classic game show, evidently did not know Mr. Cullen. My family knew Bill almost from the first day he was born to the day he died thanks to the close friendship he had with my parents. Believe me, people, Bill was not what you would call "tolerant" of the gay lifestyle. He would have despised this "modern" version of his beloved "I've Got a Secret".


This movie was boring. It was like every bad date I ever had. Every painful date. Ugh! It went on and on through an entire evening of a third date trying to decide whether they should be honest about who they really are or just sleep together and avoid the realities of life. It was painful as he tried to get her into bed. He lost his likability as he kept pushing her into it. I saw no chemistry between them, it's like they had been married forever. Could I relate to this sequence? Yes! But was it entertaining? NO! Sorry, but I felt I wasted an evening on this. And I love Paul Reiser! The ending was nice but it took a long time to get there. I hope this helps someone, I write this because if I had read this, I would have saved my evening!


I am perplexed, baffled and confounded by the GLOWING user comments for this movie.

It completely falls flat. It is at times even awkward to watch. The chemistry between the lead actors is non existent. Martin Short phones his performance in. I also believe he was confused about who his character was even supposed to be. He went from cad to caring and back again SO many times I couldn't keep track.

I think "David" acted like a jerk and didn't understand why "Kathy" would want anything to do with him.

There is NOTHING funny about this movie. "Innerspace" made the same year is a much better choice for a Short flick.


This film is based on a great idea, but could have been done much better, perhaps with a larger budget. It is worth watching, and hopefully will open the door for other films to take on this subject.

The issues dealing with the Kennedy's were a bit generalized and stereotypical and could have been developed more. To compete with other time travel films, I believe the technology could also be stepped up a notch.

While I enjoyed the film, it left me wanting to see a more detailed and better version of it.


A writer should never direct his own movie................................................ Unless the script is actually good........This one is not.

I won't give you an overview of the storyline, since that's been covered in this database entry.

I'll start by saying that I know all too well that writing a good time travel story is not an easy task. "Time Quest: What if JFK had lived?" which also goes by the name "Second Chance" is a blend of melodrama, mixed with cliché and a touch of the occasional "HUH?!". My first reaction to the dual title was that this writer is so self absorbed that he couldn't decide on ONE movie title, because he simply admires every idea he has, so he simply *had* to call it both! If you see this, you'll know what I mean. A lot of story elements were put into this movie that I'm sure the writer thought would be "heart warming", but ended up being a moment to sit back and groan. Without spoiling anything, look for these wishy-washy moments in the movie if you decide to watch it:

1) The time traveler dancing with Jacqueline. Uhm..... was this really necessary? As this unfolds, JFK looks as baffled as we viewers ARE.

2) Robert Kennedy finding the fingerprint on the glass. Would there even BE a fingerprint if time had been altered and the traveler had `never been there'? hmmmm... Granted this movie is about as scientifically accurate as the anatomy of a Barbie doll....but come on!

3) The nifty "elementary school artwork" scene. Wow! The government really DOES keep track of everything! Including those lousy pictures you colored in grade 3!! Wow! How powerful! How deep! How STUPID!

And how about that line "Oh my sweet Jesus, we are at a crossroads here!" as he looks at the newly discovered picture! UGH! Cornball!!

Ok, perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. But the fact remains that this movie was often comical in places that the writer never intended it to be -- taking away from any dramatic drive that even existed in this insipid flick. See this movie ONLY if you are like me, have a love of corny sci-fi and a maniacal need to pick them apart as you watch. Oh, and BELIEVE me, there is so much to pick apart in this movie that it would take me about 10 pages.

My take on this movie is like this: It could have been better if the director would have taken more outside criticism and opinions from other people. Any person (other than the director I would think) could have pointed out the hokey moments, therefore allowing them to be removed and avoiding an embarrassment of a film such as this one.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the sad fact is that this movie had potential --had it been done properly.

2 of out 10 stars.


What a horrible movie. It was just above a community college level film. The acting was horrible. Why can't Bruce Campbell get some projects worthy of him?

As to the premise that had JFK lived, things would have been wonderful, I simply had to gag. Kennedy is perhaps the most overrated person in history.

Only Lady Diana approaches the level of a person being elevated to veneration when in real life they were next to worthless.

The old slur against Hoover is brought out again. There is nothing aside from the last minute allegation of a convicted felon against Hoover to support the contention he was a transvestite. But the liberal community in Hollywood as agreed to run it again and again until it becomes accepted as truth. When you see any film doing this, it lets you know what a joke it is.

Additionally the acting here was sad. Ralph Waite's performance as the time traveler bordered on being so saccharine that I had to check my blood sugar.

Jackie Kennedy is shown as this wonderful paragon of virtue when most comment now on her actual vapidness. I wonder what trophy wife Onassis picked up in the alternate timeline.

This movie was terrible.


Unless you are American or have detailed knowledge of that country's history, this film is best avoided. Initially attracted to it through a fascination for time-travel movies, I ended up disappointed and confused. The use of colour and black and white does not correspond to the periods in time as I imagined initially and I ended up totally confused as to what time one was in. The premise for the film is interesting but the story itself, to me at least, was far from entertaining. There's also use of bad and crude language which I abhor in films generally, unless there is a very good reason for it. Quite frankly, I am not particularly interested in what JFK did or did not do with Marilyn Monroe ..doubtless, those people who are interested in this sort of thing will find some pleasure in the work. I know it is not easy to make time-travel films, a certain logic needs to be respected, but if in addition the story line is confusing for the spectator, there is no hope of salvation. Admittedly if I knew more about American politics at the time, fewer events would have passed me over but as a European, my interest in this particular part of American politics is limited - and even had I myself been a US citizen, I would never never have voted for a Democrat !


An old man travels back in time to save John Kennedy from being hilled, meanwhile in the new present day, Bruce Campbell is making a movie on another conspiracy that transpired on the day Kennedy was supposed to get shot. Low budget crap where none of the actors look or sound anything like who they're supposed to be portraying. It might be a good 'what if', but in execution it's extremely lacking and even the insanely great Bruce Campbell can't save this turkey that comes off as a sub-par episode of "The Outer Limits"

My Grade: D

Eye Candy: Shelley Marks gets topless


What a mess! Tim in Pheonix is right- this is like a community college film project, but by someone who flunked out of community college. My only favorable comment is to the publicist who created the misleading VHS box to make this sound like an intriguing "alternate history" exploration. My hats off to you, buddy - you sure duped me! What I expected to be Oliver Stone meets Jules Verne was more like Oliver Hardy meets the "Hey, Vern!" guy. Too bad all the loose ends in this film weren't a little longer- I could have fashioned a noose and hung myself.

Also includes the worst Kennedy impersonations you will ever hear, and actors supposedly portraying Lyndon Johnson, J Edgar Hoover, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather who look and sound absolutely nothing like them. Didn't even try. To call the characters two-dimensional is to add a dimension.


I grabbed this movie out of one of those value bins. I think I paid about five bucks for it. That should have been my first clue as to what I was getting. The movie sucked big time... I fell asleep twice on it and just what the hell was this movie about??? Daddy Walton looked like he needed a drink... They could have found some better Kennedy brothers. I was let down because I like the whole time travel concepts in films. There were a lot of missing pieces and they asked us, the viewer, to pretty much fill it in. Run as fast as you can from this movie or face the raft of getting sucked in by the VORTEX OF BAD FILMS. Should have had some Marilyn Monroe sex scenes, now that would have been a flick...


This film is surprisingly appalling. Another reviewer states that he does not understand why no-one has claimed the screenplay, but I don't understand the lack of understanding; I can't imagine that anyone would willingly admit to writing this script - however, it seems the director has (and apparently based on Chekhov and Turgenev, no less.)

Then again, it was also the director's decision to include the exposition filled voice-over. (***Possible spoiler, although not really a major plot development as the film does not really contain any***)We know that the voice-over is an older Vladimir, we can see the younger Vladimir (Nick Stahl) following the object of his attraction (Kirsten Dunst), so why does the voice-over tell us that Vladimir is following her?(***) The director should be banned from making films until he learns the rule; show don't tell - or at the very least do not show *and* tell, because that just insults your audience.

There are many unintentionally comic moments and I admit to being so fascinated by the clumsiness of the story telling that I sat and watched the whole thing with morbid fascination.

It is a shame as there are some fine actors in this film. Julie Walters is usually fantastic especially in the type of character that is required of her here, James Fox starred in one of my favourite films, and I honestly used to think that I would enjoy Nick Stahl in any role - he usually brings such pathos to his characters.

I don't think that any actor could make the dialogue believable but it's sad that actors that I usually find believable and watchable are saddled with such clumsy writing and direction.


This film is very strange. It looks picturesque. It moves at the pace of a snail. It mimics great Russian epics such as "War and Peace", but no-one will take credit for the screenplay. Who wrote the story? Is it an original screenplay?

Kirsten Dunst is a Russian Princess who collects a crowd of fawning sycophantic admirers who salivate over her every motion and jostle with each other for her favours. Nick Stall is the youngest and fawns the hardest. He discovers that his Dad is the one who is sampling the ladies intimate delights and tragedy looms. There is never any explicit revelation of exactly what everyone is doing and no confrontation or conflict. Consequently there is no excitement and the story struggles to hold the viewers attention.

The period, incidentally, is mid 19th century Russia at the time of the Crimean War and not Britain as stated in the plot outline. Don't blame the British just because the film is slow and boring!

Stahl looks such a twit in his ensign's uniform with a hat that is seven sizes too big.


OK, to be honest this movie was pretty awful. The first sign that Lover's Prayer was going to be a loser was when I realized that the people who were supposed to be Russian were speaking with British accents. It moves at a painfully slow pace. Also, this director has a great cast of actors and yet they still end up sucking (though I personally don't blame the actors, I blame the director). Well, maybe "sucking" is too harsh, I thought Kirsten Dunst was pretty good.

I found it impossible to take this movie seriously, in fact, I laughed throughout most of it. Even so, since I'm hopelessly in love with Nick Stahl, I have watched Lover's Prayer many times (for whatever reason it on TV a lot!) Sadly, most of the time I was laughing at him ****possible, but not really a spoiler****->(once again I am going to blame the director, with the stupid constant "older Vladimir" commentary!).

In conclusion, if you love slow boring movies, or are in love with one of the actors in this movie, ****possible, but not really a spoiler****->(if its James Fox don't bother, it's only his voice, we never actually see him) or even if you enjoy a good laugh, Lover's Prayer is for you...otherwise, don't bother.


I would compare this film with a painful root canal I once had...but I wouldn't want to insult my dentist.

I base my opinion on the following...the film contains:

- bad acting (and to wit; bad casting) - bad writing - bad camera work - bad directing - bad editing

and BAD accents. I noticed Catherine Charlton was listed as the dialogue coach. she also worked with Angelina Jolie on a number of films. this explains a lot.

if forced to say something nice, I'd have to say that there are nice horsies in the film. yay for nice horsies!

the director of this film, Reverge Anselm, also wrote and directed the execrable "Stateside". I'd appreciate it if he would never be involved in making a film ever again.


Visually beautiful with pretty characterisations and some fine acting particularly from Julie Walters. But I had more interest in the love triangle of the serf's that I did of the aristrocracy. It really doesn't come together, but could have been quite a compelling drama if the story had peaked and resolved itself a little more poignantly. I wouldn't spend the two hours of viewing time to sit through this again because it seem's to have been directed by someone with the emotions of granite. Pity because it's so pretty and romantic in a visual sense. Too few scene's from Ms Walters. The character portrayed by Ms Dunst (Zinaida) irritated the hell out of me. Pity I had to wait until the end for her exit !!!!!!!


By far, the worst hunk of junk in which Kirsten Dunst has ever starred. The true challenge was trying to figure what the hell was the point of the film. And what happened to the woman with the hoe and the husband with one of everything (one eye, one arm, one leg, etc)?


I got a kick out of this film for the first half of it, but it got so stupid with the main characters that I had a hard time finishing it. However, it was still worth a look to see Lupe Valez. I had read what a strange character she was in real life, and that she was sexy woman, so at least I have now seen her. She was a very pretty lady and not shy, either. This film just made it under the wire before the Hays Code came along, so Lupe showed us about all of her breasts. They weren't anything noteworthy, but she certainly showed what she had and a year later, she would have been forced to cover up.

Stu Erwin plays the boxer "Joe Palooka." He plays a really inept fighter and stupid guy in general who is endearing for awhile but wears thin. The same goes for Jimmy Durante's role of fight manager "Knobby Walsh." He really wears thin.

Anyway, this is typical early '30s material which means very corny and dated in the humor and romance department, sometimes hilarious and a bit racy and edgy but one that bogs down midway through.


The Vengeance of She is a badly done adventure movie with elements of the supernatural. It is a sequel of sorts to She (1965), but the action has been updated to the 1960s. The plot is pretty wacky, though it could have made for an enjoyably ludicrous film if handled with a bit more verve (see The Lost Continent for a film which had an outrageous storyline, but worked OK because the makers had the courage to stand by their own absurdities). Unfortunately, in this case the film doesn't really work at all. The story progresses unconvincingly and humourlessly in a very dull, workmanlike manner, with largely unenthusiastic performances, and dated, jazzy music which doesn't suit the events on screen.

A young blonde woman, Carol (Olinka Berova)wanders around the southern part of France, her mind muddled and tormented by recurring dreams. It seems that a strange force is driving her in a particular direction, and only by following this direction can she stop the constant torment. Her dreams are riddled with haunting images of a faraway kingdom, and she repeatedly awakens from these semi-nightmares inexplicably screaming the word "Ayesha". Carol boards a yacht owned by womanising millionaire George (Colin Blakely). One of George's friends, psychiatrist Philip (Edward Judd), is also aboard the yacht enjoying a holiday. Philip is interested by Carol's bizarre condition and tries to help her to make sense of her dreams. Gradually, it becomes clear that her thoughts are being corrupted and manipulated by the denizens of a lost city in North Africa, who are trying to psychically guide her to their land so that she can replace their long-dead Queen of Ayesha (whom she closely resembles).

Berova may be a highly beautiful woman but her acting ability is almost nil, so immediately the film is faced with an uphill struggle since her character is so crucial to all that's going on. Judd also is a very bland, laid-back leading man (he resembles Peter O'Toole, but with dark hair and about a tenth of Peter's acting ability). Saddled with these two uninspiring main actors, the film further digs its own grave by having all the characters from the lost city speak line after line of the most dire mumbo-jumbo imaginable. They talk about magic, destiny, power, mind control and other such stuff, but the dialogue is written in a weird, lofty fashion that comes across like an 11 year old child attempting to imitate Shakespeare. I really wanted to be kind to this film - to give it the benefit of the doubt, if you like - but in the end I just couldn't manage it. As a well-told, well-made film it doesn't even register. But it also can't be enjoyed on the level of a likably oddball curiosity. It's just a totally ineffective, inconsequential and inept dud.