TRAIL OF A SERIAL KILLER is an aggressively bad entry into the serial killer genre, or in this case made for video which means I won't bother comparing the good movies in the genre(Seven, Kiss the Girls) or the bad(Copycat, Switchback) This movie which lurches across the screen before dying of its own nauses would deserve a mantle all its own.

The movie opens with a young girl who leaves a movie theatre(the Paradise none other) and is murdered on the walk home. But wait there's more. The killer takes the girl's picture, tapes her hands and then puts one of those movie notes in her mouth for Detectives Michael Madsen and Chris Penn to find, complete with magazine clipped lettering. It's hilarious, this killer with his sense of all purpose. And of course Penn has a psychological battle with the killer who "he knows" is responsible for this one too. The killer calls him and his family so you see it really is important that he finds this guy fast.

Did I mention the intercut between the shrink (Jennifer Dale) who only sees her crazy patients at night? One of her patients tells her she gets excited by committing violent acts. Is she the killer? Dale holds a meeting at a dark church for her most dangerous patients where we hear dialogue about sex and violence that's so corny you wonder how the actors could even respect the material enough to speak it. The whole movie's at such a garbage level what with the hollow plot and abandoned settings which smacks of four in the morning filming locations shot in warehouses and crackshops. The identikit, do everything killer is so bad it really is funny and Madsen and Penn spend the whole movie being over the top and macho when they should be taking fingerprints and watching smarter, techically competent movies of the genre.

A few weeks ago I was watching a show about killers where the host suggested that murderers like Ted Bundy should kill themselves instead of wasting society's time. You got a murder suicide plot, kill yourself is the point I think. TRAIL OF A SERIAL KILLER wants us to accept a serial killer, a cop, who we're supposed to suspect is crazy himself, wrapped up in a silly, low-rent world to find out who the killer is. Who knows? Who cares?

DG

NO STARS(out of four)


Agatha Christie must be turning in her grave with the recent daft tarting up of her excellent plot, i.e. the reconstruction of the crime in the denouement of "4-50 from Paddington". (I refer to the series "Marple" starring Geraldine McEwan, not to be confused with the previous series starring the excellent Joan Hickson.) To have made this said reconstruction possible the two trains would have needed to be timed to the second, an event I find extremely implausible. Just as Agatha Christie would have.

Even in the Fifties people were complaining of late trains and the British railway system in general.

Geraldine McEwan brings a pleasant quirkiness into the character, and in her own way is quite as good as the aforementioned Miss Hickson, but oh dear, if producers and directors must tart up old novels I wish they would retain the story lines and keep them sensible.


In fact they are all spoilers, these ITV "miss Marple" Americanized recasts - spoiling most work of Agatha Christie. Also this one looks like something dragged in by the cat. Complete with a false blond, French-styled womanizer sporting a thin mustache, cozy police inspector John Hannah who appallingly enough gets the (false) blond, in stark competition with, yes folks, a Hollywood movie star version of an American WWII fighter pilot (from Brooklyn), still in his leather jacket! Albeit, even set in 1951 a bit late, one might think (rather than the original early thirties). All these people gathered incidentally as if there was nothing else around to be put in the stew. Griff Rhys Jones as the family doctor for instance, as if straight from Not the Nine O'clock News en route Three men in a Boat, David Warner, as aged landlord of an odd variety of penniless heirs, from Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, and  amazingly  daughter Emma/Niamh Cusack from Wallace & Gromit! Add a couple of kids from Harry Potter's School of Witchcraft to make it complete.

So it's the wrong set and time  and the wrong war from which Christie so skilfully found people to die and disappear in and cook entertaining mysteries of. Here are no mysteries at all, just cannibalizing on a famous brand name, still selling heaps of untampered paperbacks to be found in most bookstalls. Please read them, instead of wasting time on this crap!


Miss Marple's closest friend Elspeth McGillicuddy (Pam Ferris) sees a man strangling a woman on a passing train. However, as the police can find no trace of a corpse either on the train or by the line side, they dismiss her story as a nightmare. However, Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwen) is unconvinced and conducts her own investigation, which takes her to the estate of the miserly Luther Crackenthorpe (David Warner) and his squabbling family, all of whom are after his estate. The body finally turns up in their stable and the Crackenthorpe's believe it to be the body of a french farm girl whom was once married into their family. However, two more murders occur in the family before Miss Marple can bring the culprit to justice.

Quite dismal adaptation of Christie's whodunit, which had been filmed better twice before as Murder She Said (1962) starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple and later in 1987 as part of the BBC's acclaimed series with Joan Hickson. Here, the script sticks reasonably close to the original, but like the other episodes in this series it is robbed of period flavor by unatmospheric cinematography that seems more suited to a pop video than period mysteries. Performances throughout are wooden and it wastes a lot of good talent such as David Warner and McEwen is miscast as Miss Marple.


In the original novel, Miss Marple is justly outraged by the wickedness of this murderer. For nothing but monetary gain, he murdered his wife (who refused him a divorce) in order to marry a woman for her inheritance. Along the way, he murdered two of his "beloved" fiancée's brothers in order to increase her share of the inheritance. At the end of the novel, Miss Marple declares, while "looking as fierce as an old lady can" that if anyone should hang, it is he! And in fact, to persons of normal morality, he does deserve to hang, since he murdered three people for nothing but money.

In this disgusting new film adaptation, Miss Marple has an entirely new attitude toward this murderer's deeds. She smiles sweetly at the murderer's would-be fiancée and consoles her with the comforting words, "He did it for love, dear." No outrage about three murders for gain. After all, "he did it for love." To hell with the fact that he murdered two of his "beloved fiancée's" brothers, not to mention his own wife. Miss Marple's thought's now run to "love" and how "love" somehow makes multiple murders less wrong. And it was never "love," either. It was just money.

In another film disaster in this series, Murder at the Vicarage, Miss Marple has all the sympathy in the world for an adulterous woman who murdered her husband because she craved a more interesting sex life. After all, women who are married to boring, obnoxious men are fully justified in murdering them, aren't they? Just ask Miss Marple, in this new Geraldine Something-or Other version. After all, Miss Marple herself had an adulterous relationship back during World War One, (didn't know that, did you?) so adultery is, like, cool. So the murderess in Murder at the Vicarage deserves our sympathies, according to Miss Marple.

I hate this new series starring Geraldine Someone-or-other. It stinks, not only because the characters are not what Christie intended them to be, but because the ugly morality of movie makers is substituted for the morality of Agatha Christie.


Oh this movie had so much potential and I still recommend it as the soundtrack rocks and Robbin and Tim are both beautiful and so lovely to watch, but....this is an example, to me, of a good movie just made too fast or something, I was bummed because it just has such great potential, there were just way way way too many inconsistencies and unbelievable situations... i.e. the whole attic/shoot thing she was always jumping around in, the lovers never catching on, the new red cordless at the end of the movie, the wood plank suddenly not on the door just after she placed it there moments before....and the ending? (Spoiler Alert) actually just before the ending the fight with Mr. Psycho...it just didn't seem truthful, but I do like the fact that she took off and didn't get "saved" by her cute man and yet the emailing alludes to the possibility of them hooking up, even if at first he seemed creepy....so what I'm saying, rent it, but don't expect truthfulness to the situation...


The first third of this film was promising, but it got so badly out of hand by the end that I can't seriously recommend anyone bother watching it. I found it really difficulty to be sympathetic to this main character who didn't seem to be affected by the death of a policeman--even if she wasn't responsible. Her main concern during her confinement seems to be how to foil the ankle device, not thinking about her screwed-up life, or how to clear her name.

Worst of all, there is so little motivation for many of her actions that the whole thing just falls apart. The ending made me furious--she goes through a thoroughly unbelievable search for the guy who got her into this mess, uncovers plenty of evidence to clear herself then breaks her own foot to escape! That's not just stupid, that's insulting. Maybe they were bending over backwards not to have her just fall into the arms of her rescuer, but that could have been a far more satisfying scenario.

I really loved "Dream with the Fishes" but after seeing this I won't be so quick to seek out another film by this director. The guy clearly has some issues with stalking women. This COULD have been a really good film, but it ended up just pissing me off.


This movie gives all it has to give in the first 10 minutes. Hackneyed, predictable script exacerbated by unimaginative direction and repetitive camera work. plot stalled between dull fantasy of female hysteria and a condescending out-of-touch vigilanteism. a major psychological turning point for the protagonist involves an iron and her hair style. anything good in it seemed ripped off from pretty in pink, amelie, run lola run, just to name a few. sound track uninspired (even "the wedding singer" was better in this regard).


I had never heard of popples or this show when I was a kid. Thinking real hard about it I might have had one of the toys though, not knowing what it was called, but I'm not quite sure. Anyhow after recently watching a few eps I was reminded vaguely of the "care bears" cartoon. But while I really liked the DIC care bears I did not like this at all. Considering that they had the same style of animation, company - American greetings and the same aim - be cute and sell toys. Yet in the absence of a villain or any lessons to be learned for that matter it was nothing but one long bore. The live action prequel was halfway decent but even it was way too cheesy too me.


To the untrained eye the eighties slasher boom will always be traced back to the template of John Carpenter's Halloween. In reality however, there were three key genre pieces that became the outlines for ambitious titles to follow. The success of Carpenter's seminal flick was indeed responsible for the peak in the cycle, but Friday the 13th must take its share of credit for launching the mass of killer in the woods titles, which included Don't go in the Woods, Just Before Dawn, The Prey and more recently Camp Blood. Another offering that can also be attributed with generating a long line of mostly inferior imitations was Amy Holden Jones' Slumber Party Massacre. Despite being initially received unenthusiastically by critics and audiences alike, Jones' splatter flick eventually managed to achieve cult status and went on to inspire the likes of Sorority House Massacre, The Last Slumber Party, Blood Sisters, Cheerleader Massacre and Anthony J Christopher's Fatal Pulse from 1988.

Sororities were never a safe place during the eighties and Fatal Pulse is no exemption to the rule. After co-eds begin turning up murdered around the campus, Jeff Kramer (Ken Roberts) is immediately put in the frame when it is revealed that he was the last person to see one of the victims before she was slaughtered. Aided by his lumbering buddy Mark (Blair Karsch), Jeff sets out on a mission to prove his innocence and catch the psychopath before he kills again. As the bodies pile up, Jeff begins to realise that his girlfriend Lisa (Michelle McCormick) could be next on the assassin's list.

Fatal Pulse is truly a bizarre movie experience, which combines moments of mediocrity, stupidity, inadvertent comedy and uncomfortable brutality to conjure up a somewhat authentic juxtaposition. The performances were laughably hideous; especially from Ken Roberts, who boasted the expressive fluency of a turnip. Seriously, I have seen wooden bridges with more emotional definition. Michelle McCormick made for an incredibly unapproachable final girl and the whole cast delivered their lines with the conviction of a toilet cleaner on the day before retirement. They were hardly aided by a woefully uninspired script, which added just about every stereotype from the annals of bad-movie obscurity. Brad the obnoxious 'tough guy' was characterised as some kind of odd fifties 'Grease' throwback, whilst the token comic relief inclusion, Mark, was greeted by a peculiar 'boing' effect in the soundtrack upon his every arrival. Strangely enough, this even occurred during a suspense scene towards the film's conclusion. Boing!

Director Anthony Christopher mimics the giallo titans of yesteryear, by conveying every murder scene from the view of the black gloved assassin. Mario Bava was a master of creating artistic suspense in his set pieces, whereas Christopher fails to generate even a millisecond. Despite the disappointedly fast-paced nature of the murders, their merciless brutality does provide a somewhat reverse spiral on the quality of the feature. Even heavily financed slashers such as Friday the 13th failed to add convincing viciousness to their slaughters. Despite being laughably lacklustre in almost every department, Fatal Pulse is surprisingly sadistic to its victims. The electrocution sequence was particularly mean spirited, but any credibility gained is certainly hindered by the fact that *every* victim manages to flash her heaving breasts before being executed. An advertisement for feminism in the slasher industry Fatal Pulse certainly is not.

The score also becomes an irritation with consistent screeching synthesizer accompaniment, whilst the less said about the 'jazz band on acid' intro music, the better. As Fatal Pulse is a bad eighties movie, it characteristically offers its share of bad eighties movie moments, which have become lovably nostalgic for many retro cheese fans. Part of the story involves an un-engaging romance between the two emotionless leads, and there are plenty of inadvertent laughs to be had when the couple go cycling to the strains of an eighties pop monstrosity. Also watch out for a bizarre and somewhat inexplicable scene involving comic relief character Mark (boing) and a Captain Marvell outfit. I won't ruin it for you by explaining it here, but it almost beggars belief.

The killer does have a fairly intriguing motive and to be fair the last 15 minutes manage to add some decent tension to the final chase sequence. But it's tough to recommend Fatal Pulse for any kind of recognition as it is just too poorly conceived.


I usually enjoy these kinds of movies. A masked killer infiltrates a sorority and begins to knock of the beautiful ladies one by one. Movies like SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE and SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE 2 had the cheesy, inept charm that made them irresistible to horror fans. This...is just a bland, badly acted entry in the slasher genre. FATAL PULSE is about a black-gloved killer stalking and slashing members of a college sorority. I can understand why very few people have even heard of this movie. For one, it offers nothing new to the genre, all of the actors are wooden and look constipated when having to display fear. It's also hard to keep track of how many characters there are. They are introduced only to be killed off a couple minutes later. It sports a nice body count, but I just didn't care for any of the characters due to the poor character development. Also, you the typical red herrings. There's Ernie (the oh so wonderful Joe Estevez) a tormented Vietnam vet who owns the sorority house, the leads douche-bag boyfriend and a college professor (I think. I lost track to be honest). Of course, the killer is no surprise. But I'll let you find out for yourself.

Overall, FATAL PULSE is a late, yet woefully inept entry in the genre that has become nearly impossibly rare and to some, underrated. Slasher fans only should seek this out, if only for curiosity's sake. But remember... I WARNED YOU!


I've seen plenty of stupid and utterly worthless slasher flicks,but "Fatal Pulse" manages to be the worst of them all(still I need to see "Blood Lake" and "The Last Slumber Party").It's extremely routine and offers zero surprises.The plot is simple:a black-gloved killer is knocking off sorority sisters...The acting is awful,the gore is non-existent and the killings are lame(the victims are strangled,electrocuted,etc.)However one killing totally cracked me up:unlucky sorority girl has her throat slashed with a record.There is also plenty of nudity to satisfy some teenagers.Avoid this crap like the plague.3 out of 10.Give it a look only if you are a masochist or a rabid collector of low-budget slasher movies.


Just finish watching this film, i had to admit that this film is the worst slasher movie i have ever seen in my whole life.9(As a slasher movie savvy, i watched almost 200 slasher movies total, this is definitely is the worst one, even worse than "don't go in the woods alone". The plot is stupid, the dialogue is silly and the acting is horrible, the actress is ugly and the male lead is total a jerk.i am wondering why this kind of movie could be released in the first place. Vote 1 just because there is no zero, slasher fans stay away from this junk, i warned you, or you will waste 90 minus of your life, and you won't miss anything here.


this is hands down one of the worst movies i have ever seen. its such a simple crappy movie, yet i had no idea what was going on. the video was crap, the audio was crap, the nude scenes were crap, even the revealment of the killer was crap.

i find it hard to believe that anyone rated this as a 3 or above.


This is not actually that bad a film, if you take away the stupid bits and ignore some of the wooden acting. But I'm afraid it hasn't stood the test of time that well, thanks largely to the awful music and costumes on show here. If you can ignore those, the story isn't too bad.

It's always interesting in these types of movies to do the "Hey! Isn't that...!" thing when the actors appear. Here we have Warren Mitchell as the bad guy.....who went on to play Alf Garnett in "Til Death do Us PArt" in the same year as this film, and for many years after. Also here is Catherine Schell, of Space 1999 fame. Of course the main star here, James Olsen, is probably more familiar from his roles in The Andromeda Strain a couple of years later, or the Arnie vehicle, Commando, some time later. Also present is that stalwart of Carry On movies, Bernard Bresslaw.

Of course, this movie has its bad points. The least of which is the music. It's just so 60's its almost criminal. Add to that, the PVC clothes which we all will apparently wear in the future, along with the garish, often lop-sided wigs (which must have been re-used in UFO, methinks) and you have a film which will always be dated to the time it was made.

Other bad points include the acting. I won't go into the many instances but at one point big Bernie Bresslaw (who plays a heavy) has to look bored and almost asleep during the plot exposition by the bad guy's scientist. He does this so well that you think he really is bored of the film, not the scene he's in.

The science isn't too bad for a film of this era. No one wandering about on the lunar surface without a helmet, for instance, or other foolishness.

But unfortunately, the costumes, wigs and music will always make this movie a bit of a chuckle. I suspect this was something of an experiment by Hammer, to see if they could break out of the horror genre. I don't know how well it went down at the time, but I guess it wasn't that well, as I can't recall any other Hammer sci-fi projects.

Anyway, a dated piece, but worth a look if there's nothing better on (or you just want to laugh at 60's fashions).


One of Hammer's oddest films is this one, their sole foray into Science-Fiction, which has quite a maligned reputation but emerges to be reasonably tolerable under the circumstances. It obviously won't stand comparisons with the likes of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), though still valuable for being one of the very first films to exploit the 1969 landing on the moon.

The famed British studio were noted for making expensive-looking Gothic Horrors with limited means; here, however, the low budget shows through as the futuristic sets they came up with are rather shoddy! For what it's worth, the film does contain at least one Hammer-type image involving a space suit found to be inhabited by a skeleton. Incidentally, MOON ZERO TWO has been referred to as a Space Western (in view of its mining, dynamiting, discovery of a priceless mineral, claim-jumping and shoot-outs): so far so goodhowever, having an outer space saloon (complete with dancing cowgirls) in 2021 is beyond ridiculous! Peter Hyams had the good sense to forego such puerile shenanigans when he made his own 'Space Western' with Sean Connery, OUTLAND (1981).

Having said that, It's undeniably superior to ZETA ONE (1969), which I watched recently, though still containing a definite camp factor  starting with the goofy animated credit sequence (accompanied by a decidedly infectious title tune) but extending to hilarious costumes and propsnot to mention the presence of a dapper megalomaniac villain (by the way, as was the case with ZETA ONE itself, the cast features a member of the "Carry On" gang in Bernard Bresslaw, again, appearing as a baddie albeit a dimwitted brute!). Having mentioned the cast, Hammer stalwart Michael Ripper turns up here as well for one brief scene; as for the film's American lead, James Olson (with receding blond hair!) doesn't exactly set the screen on fire. It's interesting, though, that co-star Adrienne Corri would appear in Hammer's more traditional VAMPIRE CIRCUS (though still contriving a twist in its tail) and Kubrick's subsequent piece of sophisticated sci-fi, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, within the same year (1971).


Groovy cartoon to trip out to in beginning and not much else. In this future 70s space sod, big forehead man goes throughout the movie doing various things which aren't important. Plus, he really hates drinking rocket fuel. High point includes fighting in zero gravity and when everyone is killed when the airlock opens (just kidding, though wish it happened). Cringe in horror and feel tension during the moon transport scene. Will the man and the girl make it? I hope not.


Probably the worst movie I have ever seen next to SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. Innovative but horribly done movie about an astronaut forced by thugs to seize an asteroid that is literally one huge diamond rock. What's bad about this movie is not the neat ideas of how the moon was built (a saloon on the moon?? Sweet.) it was how everything was done, especially the acting and special effects. No character had any substance at all and the acting was too routine to give any involvement. I won't say anything more about what's in this movie, but during a time when Neil Armstrong put his foot on the moon, the success of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was still strong, and there was a cold war (see the opening cartoon for what I mean), MOON ZERO TWO was slapped together to cash in on all of it. Save your two hours of life for something worthwhile.


There's an interesting movie to be made about a woman who chooses to work in the adult film industry, not because she's emotionally damaged, but because she likes the money and community she finds there. But this isn't that movie. The lead actress lacks the charisma and talent needed to carry a movie that focuses almost entirely on her. As a result, the movie seems to drag more and more the longer it lasts. The secondary story involving her father never meshes with the main story, and the brief scenes with the lead character's friends sharing conversation at a table don't reveal anything, other than an off-putting smugness in the dialogue. (These moments involving her father and her friends do raise the question of how this movie managed to get James Woods and Rosario Dawson to sign on.) The scenes where the lead character works as a professional entrapper, for lack of a better term, do nothing other than make her look like a fool. (Nobody other than a silent movie clown could possibly possess the sexual naiveté necessary to be surprised at the bad consequences created by this job. Actually, come to think of it, this sub-plot could have been the basis for a pretty funny Harold Lloyd silent, had the Production Code of the 1920s allowed it.) The biggest failure for a movie that clearly prides itself on being hip and sophisticated is the ending in which the lead character is chastised just as harshly as any 1950s heroine who dared consider sexual independence would have been. It's not necessary to endorse her choice of professions, but it's possible to examine the downside of that choice without adopting the moralistic tone used by the filmmakers.

Sadly, an interesting subject doesn't guarantee an interesting movie, as is shown by this dull and dull-witted drudgery.


This is not a good film to come across at three am on Cinemax. It looks like a soft porn film with a fantastic looking-star, opens with a tease of a sex scene, and then deteriorates into a soft porn story-line with VERY little pay-off. Hey, it's got some kinda famous porn stars in it, and the lead character is better looking than any of them, so you might get your hopes up: don't. But the biggest let down is that she ISN'T a porn star, so forget trying to find something more graphic with her in it. Then the guy from Fantastic Four and the Horatio Hornblower movies shows up and it's even more confusing. It kinda reminds me of some of the reality shows they have on HBO sometimes, but this is a made up script. It's also a slow, grinding ride, and not the good kind. This would work better as a real porn movie or if it were about a real porn star's life. (What about a true bio pic about Cheyanne for example?) It's sad fact that most porn stars don't look anything like the lead here, just a bad dye job and a boob job. Ugh, don't waste your time on this one...


The plot: An internet porn-star and her relationship with the world. Doesn't sound that bad, but unfortunately the film doesn't exactly know what he wants to be. A drama? Hm, why is the lead character smiling all the time then? A comedy? No, therefore it's too dramatic. And yes, James Woods is really placed wrong here. The movie has no really interesting or even surprising turning points, no good acting or thrilling music. There seems to be only one thing, that keeps some folks go for it, and that's the fact that this story contains the words porn-star, which indicates some nudity (which you can actually see, at least in an uncut version).


This was an awful movie. James Woods should have paid the studio to not release this film. He must have been desperate for money. It's the worst performance of his career! I can't believe anyone viewing this disaster could consider his performance "brilliant!" I was embarrassed for him! What was he thinking when he agreed to be in this horrible movie??!! I was shocked that Michael Rappaport was in this film. He's a pretty credible actor and his appearance in this movie was surprising. It was a terrible role. He must have needed the money too. The writing is so bad. Although, upon retelling some of the "plotlines" to my husband, as I recounted one of "pops" speeches, we laughed out loud. So, it may play well as a really good, bad movie for some of you. For me, a waste of time.


If Quentin Tarantino and a woman made out of horrible movies had a baby and then punched it in the head a lot...it would also hate this movie. This movie is veritable house of cards constructed of candid "insights" on life (analogies aplenty) and held together by watered down attempts at graphic shock value...also there are some cards.

James Woods' actual talent only serves to accentuate the bear-wearing-a-funny-hat that is the rest of the movie.

Also, this movie offers a rare chance to see Michael Rapaport rape someone on screen (that is, outside of a courtroom environment.) In conclusion, directors should make better movies than this and have two names.


Has no one in Hollywood a vehicle for James Wood? This is tragic, awful, self-conscious soft-porn. Heart of gold, med student, the whole painful project is an ordeal to watch...and I was unable to go beyond a half hour, I confess.

JW: my heart breaks to see what you have cast before salacious trotters. If I were a producer, I'd hire you in a hearbeat. I know you can still menace, can still show depth, can still out-act the handsome rockjaws and the grotesque Brody's every bit as well as Rush or F.Murray ....

No one will see your fine work here- and I'm sure you know that too. God bless, -A Fan


Forgive me but I find it well meaning trash.But it is trash. Of course I feel for everyone and yes its clear the health care system is broken but ultimately this movie is more manipulation than anything. Yes its nice and all but it doesn't do anything. Slanted to a fault (how could it not be) its Moore telling you something is wrong but not really offering any real solutions. (Hi- your house is on fire and your neighbors isn't, you point is what?) I can see why its dying at the box office, there is nothing you haven't seen before or nothing that hasn't been discussed on TV. Fahrenheit 911 at least made you think and laid out why we were in the crappy situation, Sicko is just "This is bad". Like his earlier Bowling for Columbine the film is very much a set up, especially in the second half where Moore's antics or at least his camera crew and presence result in some staged scenes-the whole Cuba thing. My reaction during most of it was "Yes and?" Forgive me but I really didn't like the film much. I don't need a rich film maker telling me "You're doomed" for two hours and then offering no real solutions other than universal health care- which he knows will be difficult to get by congress. What can I say but it would be nice to be able to clip off a check for 12 grand to send it to some one who hates me so they can pay their medical bills.

Its a well made manipulative film, but other than inducing anger and depression it doesn't enlighten or point away anywhere, well it does- anywhere but the US- then again it doesn't show you the downside of not being here.

Is it worth seeing? No, not really. I think you'll get more out of a discussion on a TV news program (so long as its not on FOX)


I adore horror films. I love all kinds of horror films....monsters, ghosts, slashers, werewolves...and I'm even open to a good killer sheep film, BUT this isn't it. It seems that the creators of this film just had an idea....and that's all. the script, the acting...everything about this film is so weak and low grade and it thinks it's so funny....maybe to some frat boy wasted on pot. Don't waste your time or your dime. Rent Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead) or An American Werewolf In London instead. I really feel this film was made by a fan of Pater Jackson's early stuff, maybe this guy loves horror like me, but he doesn't have an ounce artistry or imagination...no offense, but stick to working behind the counter at McDonalds Mr Director.


Maybe this film had some type of humor I couldn't understand, but I found this to be completely disappointing. I've wanted to see this film ever since I watched the trailer, which made me believe it was a lot like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, or Severance. I was wrong. I am a HUGE fan of those films, but this one just doesn't live up to what I had in mind. I thought it would have way more comedy than it actually did. I mean, it made me actually laugh maybe 3 times at most. To me, the only really good parts were when they found Angus with the sheep and, of course, the sheep killing all the people at Angus's presentation. This film, in my mind, could've been made so much better. But it wasn't.


This film would seem to have everything going for it: competent direction, excellent score, effects by the masters at WETA, and carnivorous sheep. So what happened? The acting, while occasionally good, is often terrible. I understand the importance of an all-indie cast, but couldn't they have found good actors? But perhaps they aren't as bad as it seems, what with the terrible script. It appears that writer/director Jonathan King (who should stick to the directing and leave the words on the page to someone else) was trying to make a film like those of early career Peter Jackson (think Bad Taste and Braindead): horrifically gory but shockingly funny; and he failed on both counts. While there were a few moments where I laughed, most of it was forced and often just terrible writing ("The Feng Shui in this room is terrible!"). Sometimes the jokes would have worked if the timing of the actors and the editing was better, but that, apparently, was too much to ask. He should have jumped right into it, making everything gory and shocking and funny at the same time (for instance, there could have been a freaky if hilarious scene where Angus could have mated with the pure white sheep, instead of the one-off "animal husbandry" line). I was really hoping this would be good, but it wasn't. A disappointment.


This movie is not funny or scary at all. It's just boring!

I was intrigued ,when I first read the plot outline and saw the ratings here on IMDb , so I decided to watch it.

I very rarely fail to watch a movie to the end but this time I couldn't persuade myself to watch it entirely. After approximately 45 min , I've started hitting the right arrow key.

The idea is good and original. Zombie killer sheep sounds interesting. But, the story is bad and shallow.

The acting is very bad if not terrible. Characters are really annoying in every sense. They're not funny or convincing at all.

The director did a bad job here. I didn't find any scene to be interesting. Everything is predictable in this movie. There aren't any surprises.

If you like comedies , skip this movie. If you like horrors, skip this movie. If you like bad movies , skip this movie 'cause it's "bad" only in negative sense.

If you like boring movies then I suggest you to watch this movie. You'll be bored to death!


An only moderately interesting idea - killer sheep on a giant Kiwi ranch - turns out to be a far less than great movie. They were obviously aiming straight for cult status here, but you can tell there was a decent amount of money behind the picture - the special effects aren't too bad, except for a fetal sheep puppet that reminded me a tad too much of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, and the makeup is very good. The film-making is quite professional looking, too, and the actors are all fairly good. So you don't get any of that fun cheapness you get from many of the better cult films. You can't laugh at it for being so bad it's good, because it's a little too slick to be that bad. That wouldn't matter at all if the script were cleverer, but there are few good ideas here. It's a horror comedy, but there are almost no laughs to be had. No scares to be had, either. Sheep are about the least frightening animal on the planet, which could make for decent comedy. But the direction is far too unimaginative. The film's worst crime, though, is the constant hippie jokes. Danielle Mason is cute, but you just didn't want to hear her talk, because you just knew she was going to say something stereotypically hippie-ish. At times, it feels like her whole schtick was written by Eric Cartman. Director Jonathan King is clearly aiming to be the next Peter Jackson, but he has started far behind the curve.


I can't believe that the NZ Film Commission puts money into trash like this at the expense of serious film makers, who want to actually make films that NZ film makers an be proud of. The best actor was the sheep dog. Plot was okay, but badly acted, pathetic script writing, and badly directed. Weta of course did their stuff well, but nothing could save this film.

I suspect this has been a case of someone, knowing someone else that could pull some strings to allow this to go ahead. And then putting all their mates into the cast and the result speaks for itself.

Am I the only one with the guts to say this publicly? This is exactly why I have moved to Australia to continue my film making, where it's taken seriously.


This film.. was made for people in the sticks with webbed feet and 6 toes.... not great, bad acting... and an even worse story line. Its like Dawn of the dead meets babe? U get bit by a sheep.. u slowly turn into one? It does not make sense and wont work in any way at all. I would rather watch an old man watching paint dry? A sheep humping a man wearing a sheep skin car cover? Whatever next? Sharing a toothbrush with a horse? No thanks don't like it, its not clever or funny. I wanna know whos lightbulb lit up with "i have an idea, lets make sheep aggressive?? it tickles me to think people spent time and effort on this, and its amuses me more to imagine this film winning an award. That would be funny. Please people in New Zealand... take up a hobby or 2... leave the film making to the masters!


It wasn't stupid, boring, retarded, or confusing. Don't take reviews that say any of that too seriously, because those are all things the movie was going for.

That said, it's also not that good. Mainly that was due to the lack of any plot line at all, and lack of any major action sequences at all.

I don't ask for much plot in movies like this, but a little bit of a cohesive story wouldn't have hurt anything. A little less boring scenes and more actual focus on the sheep and their attacking wouldn't have hurt either. It had an INSANE amount of potential, but it didn't use even half of it. Instead it tried to characterize clichés with legs and tried to have some sort of plot that collapsed in on itself. With such an original premise (well, compared to yet another monster movie) it's just sad to see such clichés.

Funny? Not really. As I said, way too much lame characterization and "What's going on?" dialog.

Gory? Once again, not really. There is one scene with comical mass bloodbath, but other than that the movie is basically goreless. And the gore that is there is so generic and "seen a hundred times" that it's really nothing to get excited about.

Overall, worth watching on TV for free. Maybe worth a rental. I don't see why anyone would go out and buy this, though. It had a lot of originality, but just as much wasted potential.

1/10


My previous review of this film was somewhat biased towards other Horror/Comedy hybrid films like Shaun Of The Dead & Slither.

However, after watching Black Sheep again, I feel a re-write was necessary.

I don't rate this film any higher than i previously did, but did find a few scenes enjoyable and might i add; funny.

I know that the purpose of these films is to have bad acting, bad special effects; but films like Slither had excellent acting with a cast of characters that looked like they wanted to be in the film, putting as much effort in as was possible.

As said previously, the effects were pretty decent for a low budget flick, but i simply cannot forgive a bad script and bad acting; even if the genre allows it. Other films can do it right, why couldn't this one? Watch it if you must, but watch Slither afterwards to see how the genre should be directed.


"Celebrity" is about three childhood friends who are bound to each other for life due to a tragic event which occurred when they were teens.

Each one of them gains a certain amount of notoriety as adults and the viewer just sits around waiting for the other shoe to fall. You wait and wait and wait...and wait. Finally, their past comes back to haunt them and leads to another predictably tragic event.

This mini-series actually got quite a few good reviews when it first appeared on TV. Evidently, it was a lot easier to be entertained back then. At around five hours, the length of the film is excruciatingly long and it easily could've been stuffed neatly into a two hour TV movie.

Aside from the horrid pacing, the fatal flaw in this mini-series is the lack of viewer empathy for the three main characters. You keep getting introduced to interesting supporting characters only to have them completely disappear or pop up only every hour or so. The three men in the lead roles all come across as being dishonest and shallow to varying extents.

"Celebrity" is not a mini-series which has stayed in the public consciousness for good reason. It is bloated and tedious. 1/10


Oh my! What a wonderfully awful film this turned out to be. It even had Troy..er I mean Marc McClure in it. "You may remember him from..." No! No. I'll stop now.

Anyway, Epoch is a film with a simple enough plot. Think 2001 A Space Odyssey, but without any space bits. Basically, an alien artifact appears in Bhutan and a team is sent to investigate. A team which includes the likes of David Keith, Craig Wasson and Ryan O'Neal. Poor old Ryan was looking a little the worse for wear in this one. It's been a long time since Love Story, for sure.

Anyway, the action is pretty lame and I got a good laugh out of the scissor-lift HQ truck (watch and you'll see what I mean). The plot is pretty hokey and has more holes than a swiss cheese. I'd like to give you a spoiler alert, but honestly, I'm not ruining anything by telling you this. The artifact was put here by aliens eons ago. Every now and again, it pops up and, if whatever civilisation is not advanced enough to deactivate it, it wipes that civilisation out completely and disappears for another few millions of years. I can't honestly recall if they said so or not in the film, but the implication was that it wiped out the dinosaurs.

Now, call me picky, but I have trouble understanding just why an alien race would create such a device. Given the timescales involved in life forming and evolving to a civilised state, what do they get out of it? And since the device could wipe out a civilisation just a few years before it was able to deactivate the artifact, surely that would be counter-productive (to whatever motive the aliens had in the first place). Far better to create the device to wipe out any advanced species before it became a threat to the creators. Yet this is clearly not the aim of the artifact.

And what wonderful test of civilisation do our humble human heroes perform to deactivate the device? Perhaps solving some complex alien language and pressing the "off" button? Or simply providing the missing part to some quantum mechanics equation? No, all our heroes do in the end is nuke the artifact. A triumph of brute force over ingenuity. No thought required, just fry it.

The only small ray of sunshine in this otherwise overcast film was Brian Thompson. He regularly plays bit parts in films and TV and usually ends up the villain or goon. Here he plays a Special Forces Captain. But despite his square jawed glaring, even his dialogue and part are dismal and forgettable.

SUMMARY: One to miss.


I am going to have to stop picking DVD's on their cover graphics, which was the case for EPOCH. This is a comedy ? yes ? must be because I laughed a lot. EPOCH is not just a stereotype, but a STEREOTYPE of a stereotype. Lets see what I can remember..... alien chamber with long threads of vapour inside, check. Entities a copy of the ones from ABYSS, check. Ethereal off key male voices, intermittent kettle drums with the odd bass drum to raise tension, check. Thuggish trigger happy US rangers invading a sovereign nation, check. Incompetent officers at loggerheads, check. A nuclear weapon with red number countdown, check. A scientist trying to defuse such bomb with a Swiss Army knife,check. The artifact collapsing with giant rocks falling down ( Indiana Jones, the Mummy etc. ) Aliens deciding that we are worth saving eventually, check. Last, but not least, a virgin pregnancy. I watched it all the way through ignoring the "turkey meter " warning horn. I don't normally do this so it MUST have some entertainment value which I am unable to fathom. Over to you, folks !


Every cliche you can think of is in this movie. A good game to play is 'say the line before the actor does'. Here's your starter for 10 points ... "I'm not paid to think" (hint - a soldier's line). Would probably appeal to 11 year old boys with nothing better to do on a wet Sunday afternoon. The only good thing I can say about this movie is it would be great to show when you have a few friends round so you can pick it to bits for fun.


If you want to see a movie where - the main charachters are flatter than a table - the background charachters are just "background", no emotions, except for some chinese extras that while pretending to be menacing smile at the camera! -the visual effects range from nice CG landscapes to rubber boulders -ANYTHING happening his predictable! -the plot is so silly that "Manos" seems Ben Hur in comparison -the silliest end in all the movies i ever saw: "I'm pregnant!"

than see this movie. I saw it just because i was ill, and it made me sickier...


I just watched this movie on The Sci-Fi Channel.

I found the premise of "EPOCH" interesting, but NOT enough to fully enjoy it. If it had a higher production budget, better Special F/X, A-List actors (such as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford) a top rate director (such as Steven Spielberg, and a better movie title, then maybe this movie could've been put on the list as one of the Science Fiction classics.

David Keith, Ryan O' Neil and the rest of the cast are just NOT to pull this movie off.

Hopefully, in 20 to 30 years from now, a director and some really good actors will do a remake of "EPOCH" and make it great.


Washed up, bloated, Ryan O'Neal is the star of this TV flick, so that should give you enough information to know just how bad "Epoch" is going to be. Unfortunately, I bit anyway. What a colossal waste of time. The plot is transparent; the characters, unbelievably shallow, hackneyed and stock. The actors? I've seen better acting in high school productions. They deliver lines about as well as Ackroyd's Beldar from Saturday Night Live. How the producers and directors could have put their names to this time waster is beyond me. Don't be fooled by the cool production art on the DVD cover. This bomb is of such "Epoch" proportions the fact that it actually was released should be science fiction. I feel like such a fool for having rented it to watch.


This Sci-Fi flick is a mystery. Some well known stars, acting as if in a High School play. The B grade F/X are tolerable; but the story line is where this film falls apart. Trying to use too much symbolism makes it very hard to understand. It is good enough to watch as a late, late show. Cast members of note: David Keith, Shannon Lee, Ryan O'Neal, James Avery and Craig Wasson. This may leave you stranded.


Epoch is a film with an interesting, although re-hashed, derivative premise, harkening back to everything from 2001 to Sphere, this "Made for the SciFi Channel" (!?) film had interesting possibilities, but was unfortunately ruined by acting so wooden that Pinocchio seems downright voluptuous in comparison..

A mysterious "thing" crashes into Earth four billion years ago, and just as mysteriously erupts out of the ground near the Chinese border, present day, causing worldwide electronic glitches, immediately attracting the attention of the shadowy gubmint agency in DC who decides it's their job to find out what it is, send in the G.I. Joes to surround it, call in the world's smartest guy (David Keith??) to figure out its purpose, and make sure the Chinese don't get at it.

How convienient that it appears in some stinkin' desert somewhere, and not in the middle of, oh, I dunno, Cleveland.. this way the cast can be kept small, and the effects a lot easier to accomplish..

Some of the special effects, particularly the long shots of the thing, which resembles a tornado funnel made out of rock, are well executed.

The thing has mysterious powers, seemingly able to bring the dead back to life, and heal the maladies of anyone who gets near it, including the terminally ill character played by Keith.

But this whole premise is blown to bits (eventually literally).. by the horrible acting and dialog that sounds like it was written in a high school class. Ryan O'Neal and Craig Wasson, both of whom have practically carried entire films by themselves (Barry Lyndon and Body Double for two examples).. are totally wasted in minor roles. The Chinese who confront the Americans, both diplomatically and militarily, are cardboard cutout cartoon characters.

And the military sent along to keep the Chinese away from the thing while they guard the scientific probing, and eventually ordered to destroy it, are simply interchangable, unthinking, faceless toy soldiers, incapable of independent thought. This reminds me of the early scenes of the original Stargate film, where, right after being transported to the other side of the Universe, the soldiers accompanying the geek Egyptologist, have absolutely NO sense of wonder and amazement, but rather, they entertain themselves by throwing his research books at him.

Since the time of The Day The Earth Stood Still, when all Klaatu wanted to do was give the Earth leaders a groovy gift and got thanked by having it shot out of his hand, and in a multitude of other films since, Hollywood has taught us that when we are confronted with something of superior intellect, or of mysterious origins, if we don't understand it, if it doesn't look like a fluffy kittie, we are to shoot first, and ask questions later.

"Guns, guns, guns - is the signal we want to send this thing?" Asks Keith early on in the film.. although he is called in to analyze the thing, almost everything he suggests is summarily ignored, laughed at, or cast aside because, well, I suppose your average 12 year old viewer finds constant machine gun fire much more compelling viewing than a lot of talking or philosophical speculation. This is *exactly* the kind of film for people who hated 2001 because they didn't get it.

If all this wasn't enough, Epoch has one of the stupidest, pat endings in my recent memory.

What could've been a fascinating film is thus turned into unintentionally humorous dreck. Will humanity ever learn? Not if Hollywood has anything to say about it..


Ah, the old days when movies were really, really bad. No, wait, this was made this year... Hmm, wow, I didn't think a movie about the great American dream versus the Evil Empire (tm)(c) could hold water -- no longer the evil U.S.S.R, now it gets to be China. Nor one of those shows about how the evil alien which is about to kill everyone in the world and suddenly learns to love us because some w****r scientist kisses some gal in the heat of the moment, and leaves despite the fact that it's been shot full of holes by missles and been exposed to nothing but a constant stream of violence from the majority of the "dominant" human population (remember, we are great, while dinosaurs sucked!). Or one where the military so predictably wants to blow up the thing-we-don't-understand with a nuke ordered by a panicked President even though the resident scientist (who's of course a totally smug jerk) says not to. How do these awful movies keep getting made?? Isn't it possible for someone to present a good, non-predictable plotline to a Hollywood producer and actually have it made? Sigh, not going to happen, I guess...


The idea that a buried behemoth sparked all life on Earth and has been gradually altering the DNA of man ever since sounded promising, but ridiculous logic, conclusions reached without any logical explanation and a flat, cop-out of an ending really kept this one firmly in the "watchable but fairly drab" category.

 Epoch teases the viewer with the feeling that something really interesting is just around the corner. Sadly that something never really comes.


"Epoch" has a pretty good premise, but oh my God does the execution blow chunks. I don't like to use the word often, but this movie is just retarded. The screenplay, the acting, the character motivations -- God. It's like a bunch of kids wrote this movie, giving the characters all childish qualities. The idiot Chinese Government, who SHOOTS A MISSILE at the big black rock thingy, and THEN blames the U.S. Government for their jets getting destroyed! And guess what? Later, the brilliant Chinese sends a division of soldiers to invade a foreign country because that country wasn't "big enough" to have a say about who comes into their country!

What a retarded movie. I swear, I've never used that word to describe any film, but "Epoch" really takes the cake.


This movie (if you can call it a movie) is by far the worst creation on the face of the earth. My home made videos are 20 times as good as this piece of cr@p which is not saying much at all.The story line is just horrific the actors are horrible and the special effects are just downright lame.

This movie deserves the Worst Movie Ever award.

I have never been so disgusted in my life. I just wasted 5.50 cents renting this movie when i could have rented a nice Xbox game.

This movie is cr@p Don't watch it at all unless you want to see how stupid these people are but don't expect it to occupy you for more than 10 minutes.


Ever had the experience of walking into a video store and seeing a box that looks interesting, so you take a risk? You get home, start watching it, only to find yourself being sermonized by some low-budget evangelical propaganda film that is nothing like what the cover suggests. There have been a lot of films coming out like this lately, so I took the liberty of checking out the company that made it to see if it was a coincidence.

The company is called Two Left Shoes Films, which turns out to be a trademark of D.E.J. Productions. D.E.J. productions is a subsidiary of Blockbuster Video and is owned by its parent company Viacom. Its function it to snap up very low-budget films of 1-3 million dollars and market them by contract to, not only Blockbuster, but loads of big chain video stores. Each store dedicates a certain amount of shelf-space to these crummy films using box art and marketing to make them look like normal films. They make a killing at viewer's expense.


This is one of the sillier alien films you'll see. There's obvious attempts to use symbolism in the way that worked for 2001, but they fall flat.

The alien monolith? Hmmmm, I'm sure that's a coincidence ;)

Badly acted and with a silly script, this is a B grader if ever I saw one. One for the late night TV film section I think.


The kind of film that you spend 30% of your life watching, because you can't help yourself... especially when you have nothing to do late at night except to channel surf and watch B movies...

Good premise of a film, got me interested, forgave the cheesy acting, didn't mind the simple FX, but the script was real bad. I could have cried.

If you have nothing better to do, go to sleep.


Vacuous. Stupid. A crime against humanity. Take your pick, it all describes EPOCH to a "T". This isn't a movie, it's just a hodge podge of scenes strung together using the same nonsensical character motivations and stock footages that UFO (the production company) has been stringing together and re-using over and over in every film they've ever made. And yes, almost every film they've ever made HAS been quite, simply put, dreadful.

EPOCH would only work if one were to enter the movie without a brain. Unfortunately a brain is needed to turn on the VCR, or insert the DVD into the player, hence no one will think this movie is anything other than powerfully...turd-like.

1 out of 10 (the only movie I have given a "1" to on this board)

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of the film)


It may just have been a cheep act to make money off of the success of "The Lion King" but it was pretty cool for what it was. What was great about it was how it was everything the movie was not: goofy, silly, bizarre, slapstick style. A lot of it is cliché and boring, but some is very funny and wildly entertaining. Also, some of the animation and painting in the series is beautiful and colorful. Plus, it was fun to see all of my favorite characters,including the Hyenas, Simba and Rafiki. It may be just a cheesy novelty and it might not have been as good as "The Odd Couple", but it was certainly worth taping onto my TeVo.


This television show's been brought back to the Disney Channel. I saw it for the first time not too long ago, and I must say I was somewhat disappointed, though my judgment is biased.(I love The Lion King, so I guess I had high expectations.) But, this show's animation isn't exactly what I'd call good. It's basically Ren and Stimpy, but to my TLK-obsessed dismay, with Timon and Pumbaa.

Criminal Quint is painfully annoying. It's my opinion that they should have used a more Lion King-related villain, such as a lion or hyena, but I guess I'm just being picky.

A few jokes were funny, I have to admit. I just think that it could use a tad less slapstick jokes, and incorporate the original movies a little more.

4/10. I've seen worse, but it's not exactly Grammy material...


Raven(Darlena Tejeiro) & Ashley(Andrea Bogart)just stopped into a bar after hiking a nearby mountain and run into a nasty group of bikers led by TJ(Thomas Crnkovich who overplays the raspy voice and just doesn't provide much menace as the head biker of a band of motorcycle baddies). Stealing one of the gang's motorcycles, Raven and Ashley get run off the road and have to walk on foot after evading the bikers trying to catch them. They found a money bag containing stolen loot which belongs to the sheriff(the corrupt sheriff who gets a cut of a stolen 300 thousand lifted from a location not specified). At a decrepit flea-bag inn, they catch a few zzzz's before TJ and his gang run up on the owner of the establishment, Ned(Joe Goodrich)and his employee, Doug(Stephen Ferguson). TJ wants his loot and Ned decides the money should line his pockets so a shoot-out presumes. What none of the characters know is that an escaped loony, nicknamed the "Axeman"(Tim Sitarz)is on the rampage chopping anyone to pieces he comes in contact with. You have the owner of a bar, Robert(Jason London)who also conspired with Ned for the money. Everyone, including the heroines, want that damn money which results in nearly an entire cast wasted until a few survivors remain.

Ivan, The Axeman is a ridiculous unstoppable killing machine who is stabbed numerous times, shot in the back numerous times, pinned to a stone wall by a truck going really fast, & even falls off a mountain..yet, he still keeps coming! London is dreadful as Robert, the turncoat who seems friendly and courteous but is anything but. In a minor sub-plot, we follow the sheriff(Nathan Anderson;the one looking for the loot that is supposed to be his share)and Ivan's psychologist, Margaret(Fiona Loewi)as they are trying to find Ivan. Bogart is smokin' as Ashley, wearing barely little(exposing her incredibly sculpted figure)and Tejeiro as the main heroine Raven is quite cut as well. They are VERY easy on the eyes and might provide enough motivation to waste your time. No-budget stinker with poorly staged axe-murders. Most hilarious scene..Raven and Ashley, driving a station wagon, can not outrun Ivan who is chasing them on a four-wheeler!


It is a story of an ax murderer that escaped from death row. That is why it says Axe on the DVD cover. I guess that wasn't good enough when it was released in 2004, so they renamed it and brought it out again in 2006 as a story of greedy people after $300,000.

POSSIBLE SPOILER: Everyone, and I do mean everyone, in the movie is after the money.

This coulda been a contenda. I spent the entire movie watching Darlena Tejeiro. I was absolutely enchanted with this beauty. She was a rock climber, but the best mountains in the movie remained covered in clouds, and we never saw the peaks. What a shame! But, I do have to say that she was the best actor in the movie. That doesn't mean I will watch Starsky & Hutch to see her again, but she was good.

The actual ax murders were pretty lame. This could have easily been a PG movie. More thriller than horror.


Two girls, returning from a climbing trip, have a bit of a run in at gun point with a biker gang on dirt bikes in a bar which looks like it's someone's garage. They steal their dirt bikes and end up on the run. The biker gang gives chase, because the dirt bike the girls have stolen from them has a whopping six thousand dollars in stolen money hidden in a pouch (where the money came from isn't explained, or maybe it just wasn't interesting enough to remember?) Somehow this all ties in with an escaped killer called the AxeMan, who is also after the few thousand dollars the girls unknowingly have in their possession. The main biker is a Ted Nugent lookalike with a silly voice, the "biker" gang rides dirt bikes, people are shot with no obvious effects other than having to wear a small bandage, and guns which reload themselves are all on tap in this no budget B movie. The climactic chase has the fat, bald, sweater wearing axe killer chasing the girls on a glorified riding mower- oooh, now that's scary.

This is nothing more than a 1960's biker movie plot, crossed with a female exploitation movie, with traces of a horror movie, which looks like its screenplay was found after it sat in a trash can for the past 40 years, and updated on a minuscule budget. It's too low budget to be a good action movie, but not unintentionally bad enough to be enjoyable in a "so bad it's good" way. Watching Darlena Tejeiro's bouncy tits was probably the highlight of this otherwise unwatchable flick, but there's not enough skin shown either. A big disappointment all around, and a confusing one as well, with too many characters and unanswered questions for its own good.

*1/2 out of ****


Well, if so, have I got a film for you! Actually, even you won't like it. Because this movie is bad. Not bad like week old milk, bad like genocide. Bad like finding out that everyone you have ever loved was murdered by your dog because you gave it rabies. Bad like the Hantavirus.

I hope that gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. I can deal with crappy movies. I can watch underworld 2, so I'm pretty immune to it, but this movie takes crap to a whole new level. First off, the "Main Characters" are mentally deficient ex-porn actresses who happen to ride motorcycles. Or rock climb. Or, I don't know, flirt with each other. That's all they really seem to do. They meet and become fast friends. Then these 90 pound girls insult some bikers. "Action" ensues. Basically, you find out that these girls will steal money, but not motorcycles, because they walk to a hotel. From there they spend the rest of the movie with pretty much no clothes on.

There is horror in this movie, but it's more from the realization that those hillbillies from the beginning were probably related then from the actual story. There is an escaped blah blah blah, evil, blah, scary, blah, probably cries himself to sleep at night. He has a bad nickname. He kills with axes, or whatever is presented to him. He survives being hit by a car. He is just big. That's how scary he is. Big. Right.

So, he chases them, they try to get some money from some bar tenders and hillbillies, they run from bikers. A cop sleeps with a councilor while she leaves the kids at home. All while being painfully aware of their own level of incredible cheese. The actors, minus that one guy who you kind of recognize, are not actors at all. They are the retarded droppings of a Los Angeles nightclub; in other words, they all worked in the "Independent Film" industry before this. Or, at least, they wish they had the talent to work in the "Independent Film" industry. They are so bad.

Combine this with some of the most horrible script, directing, "music", and action scenes ever created, along with the fact that the story is complete tripe, and you get one of the worst movies ever made. Ever. In the entire history of movies. Do not watch it. Do not look at it. Go home and burn a piece of paper with the name of the movie on it in effigy, and then bathe yourself for even associating with the title of this piece of crap.


That's what you get with this movie. That's about all you get with this movie. I am not kidding when I say that two damsels in distress get harassed at a dive bar by a gang (leather jackets, motor-huckle boots, you name it) that has driven up to the bar. On dirt bikes! A hahahahahahahaha! Oh man, I have to give credit where it's due, because when this scene unfolded before my eyes, it was the equivalent of cinemtic masturbatory bliss! I have never laughed so hard in my life! Oh, you also get ATV chases, more dirt bikes, rock climbing, and some escaped ape of a dude who goes around "axing" people. Seriously, if you have somehow stumbled upon the hell which is this movie, watch it just for that scene alone. You'll dig it, man! Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!


This is such a bad movie that it doesn't even warrant a full review. It seems like all the bad indie films in the past 10 years have used the same formula: several opposing groups fighting each other over money. This film is no different than the rest, except for the fact that it may be worse.

In one scene, the two lead actresses are being chased by a biker gang. But I guess the production couldn't afford actual Harleys so dirt bikes were used instead. A dirt bike gang wearing full leather and hitting the bars? Hahahaha! The scenes with the crooked sheriff were very cringe worthy, especially the part where he (rather fake) hits some guy with his (toy) Beretta.

Don't waste your time watching this. It's amazing that the filmmakers actually got funding for this movie.


You gotta see it to believe how bad oh i mean good this movie really is. Trust me rent it and you'll go home p***ed oh i mean happy. Joe Mazzelo does some outstanding acting, as does the rest of this no-name crappy half witted moron pathetic cast, and they call this a movie? 1 out of 10 is the grade!!!


This disaster flick gets an A for effort; but falls real short in the entertainment category. Some of the avalanche scenes, that weren't repeated, were impressive. The acting left a lot to be desired. Two brothers Thom(Adam Croasdell)and Jock(Andrew Lee Potts)Cussler try making a living taking tourist on adventurous snowmobile rides up and down the slopes in the Ural Mountains of Russia. An avalanche covers a small village causing Thom to risk his life in saving buried townsfolk including his brother. Air and time are running out as this lumbering snowbound drama finally ends. Also in the cast: Jessica Kate Brooks, Kate Henry, Plamen Manassiev and Nikolai Dodav.


I like sci-fi and the B movie genre so this movie was actually pretty good considering the obvious low budget shots. The acting was palatable the scenes OK except I got tired to the cracking ice shots over and over again. Typical cliché riddled B movie with a few twists. Spoilt daddy's girl is not a whiny brat and actually has some business sense. Greedy Real Estate Daddy Dude actually listens to the scientist and nixes the bottom line to help save the day. Really big whammy, the Hot dude makes it with the homely scientist chick who only has 6 toes. Yep definitely did not see that coming (toe shots either) cool looking ice bar, dumb tourists. Perfect movie if you can't sleep and are stuck home with the flu for Christmas.....again


Is all I could think about during the first 20 min (that's all I could do) is how much wasted money and energy went into this horrendous film. I know there are good screenplays out there being shelved...and yet we have this dog! It did have humor though..Like how they used every previous avalanche ever filmed and combined the footage. Different lighting...different mountain, different snow, but what does it matter when you get a good chuckle. I have three more lines but cannot think of anymore to say about this film. Awful Awful Awful. Oh, the little village is quaint until it gets hit by what seems to be a large cloud of talcum powder and tapioca. This mystery snow does not effect the trees though, they don't move?


I have to admit I didn't watch the beginning of or even the middle of the movie, I'm glad I didn't for fears of what it would have done to my delicate psyche. All I could think about was how horrible the acting is, I mean seriously some of the most insipid acting i've ever seen it was dull, unmotivated and completely fake i've seen more motivation in a Viagra Commericial. And did anyone NOTICE THE SNOW? Geeees, looked like confetti you bought at the Dollar Store.

Anyhow seriously folks, don't waste your time on this piece of garbage.

I have to say you'll leave the couch or wherever you happen to see this with a fear of horrible acting.


Short review for an undeserving film...I'll try to write ten lines, but I am desperately trying to work out how on Earth to waste that much effort on this movie!

This movie has it all. Bad CGI, bad screenplay, bad story, bad acting, bad dialog, bad characterisation. Generally bad but with a redeeming 'it's so bad it's good vibe'.

Great for a comedown Sunday when you're brain is shot to bits, but that's it.

Check out the polystyrene snow that seems to brain everyone every five minutes. Maybe it's so easy as they're brains are so weak and tiny.

Ben


Nature Unleashed: Avalanche is one of those films that you can occasionally see playing on the Syfy channel at around 2 AM, rounding out another marathon of disaster (both figuratively and literally) movies. If you have trouble sleeping at night, and happen to be up whenever this flick is playing, give it a watch, and I can almost guarantee that you'll soon be out for the night.

Not to say that NU:A doesn't have moments of sporadic entertainment (especially since the titular menace behaves in an eerily similar fashion as the "sentient" tornadoes in the movie Twister), it's just that the package as a whole is bland and uninteresting, much like the snow-covered wastes that make up most of the scenery. Everything you could expect from a made-for-TV natural catastrophe movie is present and accounted for, so much so that even a few minor tweaks here-and-there still render it indistinguishable from the usual early Sunday-morning drivel.

I could go on about the characters and plot, but it just seems kinda moot. Brothers Thom and Jock run a snowmobile rental service in Russia's Ural Mountains, a greedy developer is building a hotel on an unstable slope, and the pleas of a scarred female scientist fall on deaf and money-blinded ears, until disaster strikes! Throw in a few romantic subplots and useless fodder characters, and you get the drill.

NU:A is not a terrible movie, just a very boring one. It's stoically serviceable in every way, but hardly entertaining. If you watch it every night, you'll never have trouble getting to sleep again.


The three out of my four stars for this movie are purely based on the movie's honest and quite successful attempt at re-creating the factual context of the Summit (i.e. scenery, atmosphere, etc.). However, the movie falls short when it comes to telling Team Canada's story and creating an engaging story that tries to explain and uncover the particular dynamics of this great series. The movie focuses on so many different players and team execs on Team Canada that it in fact gives the audience very little insight into how the players really felt. Ken Dryden for instance is depicted as one of the few players that actually seems to have any brains and a willingness to learn from the Russians. And that, I believe, is one of the most important elements of this series; Canadian and Russian styles of hockey are exposed to one another which enabled both sides to learn from each other for the good of the game. The play in the NHL nowadays enjoys both hockey philosophies which has created a much more enjoyable style of hockey. Unfortunately, Team Canada's players are more often than not displayed as goons without much finesse (which we all now is far from the truth) and sometimes I had a hard time sympathizing with the Canadian team. Heck, I even felt like rooting for the Russians at some points (like when Clarke is ordered to immobilize the Russian star forward). Cudos to the filmmakers for including aspects like this which I'm sure most Canadians consider to be unsportsmanlike conduct, yet nonetheless part of the games that were played. However, when the movie already has a hard time explaining why we should care about these players the goon aspect just makes us even less likely to sympathize with them. This movie sadly leaves much to be desired - could have been told so much better!


The 4 is for the dramatic content, historical accuracy, etc. The rest (i.e. : nil) is for the technical aspect of the production. We were very disappointed with the sound and the picture. (Doesn't leave much, does it?)Why the "Blair Witch Project" cinematography? All it accomplished was to create tired, blurry eyes. The sound levels were very uneven, and there were subtitles missing (for those of us who don't speak Russian!). Many scene transitions were very amateurish. In fact, my wife and I thought we were watching somebody's High School project. If the poor quality of the production was an attempt to provide authenticity, let's err on the "Hollywood" side, and come up with something more watchable. Low budget or not, if CBC wants to stay in business, they need to come out with much better material.


I've read some positive, enthusiastic reviews of this final episode of Six Feet Under, "Everyone's Waiting." I'm forced to disagree. I do not wish to discourage others from watching the rest of the series (or this episode, for that matter), which was original and wonderful. But this finale -- as a whole -- was disappointing, especially when the previous episode, "Static," suggested a huge pay-off was on the horizon.

"Waiting" opens with Brenda in labor. The child, a daughter, is born prematurely and her life hangs in the balance, leaving the audience unsure of whether she'll live or die. This is a good start, but, unfortunately, it never really takes off. With a 75 minute running time and no real drama, mystery, or suspense in its future, the episode leaves Everyone Waiting for it to end.

Let me go on to say that I do not disagree with the writer's decision to kill off Nate in the fourth-to-last episode, "Ecotone." Those who watched the series from the beginning, like me, knew Nate was going to die. I figured it would be in the last episode, and why not? It began with his father's death which caused him to return home to the family business and it would have been fitting for it to end with his death. But it didn't and it worked. To see Nate die shy of the series end threw the audience for a tangent and it left them wondering exactly what the last episode was going to be about.

The episode's main storyline, as it turned out, was to be about Claire getting a new job opportunity in New York. This made the fact that the episode was such a lackluster product even harder to bear because Claire was my favorite character in the show. Lauren Ambrose acted with a charismatic brilliance, injecting great depth into what could have been an annoying, typical, emotionally unstable teenage archetype. The result was a multidimensional, conflicted, and often, humorous soul.

But her acting could not save a script that seemed to be ironically killing time to progress to the more satisfying conclusion. Scenes with a wounded David and Ruth suspended in their own grief and pain are uninvolved, slow moving, and uninteresting. Claire bounces through the show with a benevolent optimism (much like the audience) often looking at the other characters as if to say, "Come on. Do something. We have 75 minutes here." Another scene with Ruth and Claire where Ruth tells Claire to pursue her dreams seems forced and unnecessary in light of their heartbreaking exchange of dialog in the final sequence (the only sequence in the episode worthy of the title).

The following paragraph is a product of speculation, not fact. But when a show as maverick as Six Feet Under has such a TV-typical finale, one has to speculate on exactly what caused such a tragedy. In the end, I am forced to accuse Alan Ball of dropping the ball on his own series. Ball's contributions to the show may have been its downfall, certainly it was with this episode. People must remember that the initial concept for the show came from the HBO network, not Ball. And though he created these wonderful characters, it was not his idea to 'kill them off' by showing their obituaries in a future-tense sequence; another writer from the show formed that concept. Indeed, the final sequence of the "Everybody's Waiting" is brilliant; the only sequence in the entire episode that does the preceding series any justice. (I love the line where Nate tells Claire, just as she takes a picture of her family, "You can't take a picture of this; it's already gone.") I'm not out to bash Ball. I know he's talented. But, as Deniro once said, the talent is in the choices. And since Ball got such great creative advice from the top and the bottom throughout the course of the show, it might have been a better choice to have someone else write the Six Feet Under finale. The writer who came up with the ending, perhaps?

Fans of the show, answer this: Would it not have been more interesting if Claire had been injured at the end of "Static," or been pursued by the wild animal in the green graveyard? Could her struggle to survive in the wild somehow be narratively linked to Brenda giving birth, giving the show a more dramatic conflict?

I know Ball, the writers and the cast have commented on how the show had broke new ground, most likely referring to its discussion of issues involving homosexual Americans. That is fine, but I think, at some point, they (or Ball) forgot what the real appeal of Six Feet Under was. It is not a show designed only for gay viewers or only, for that matter, liberals. I, for one, am a political conservative and straight, but this series captured my heart -- not because of its politics but because of its strong characters and rich narrative. This lacking, over-sentimental finale failed to do justice to the characters and narrative preceding it. It is my opinion that "Everyone's Waiting" is perhaps the poorest episode of Six Feet Under.


I had heard fantastic reviews about this film, so I was really eager to watch it. And then... What a disappointment! I liked the minimalistic directorial job and some scenes (particularly the end) were rather interesting, but all in all it's hard to believe this film is from the same director of "Bullit" because it lacks of nerve. It has no momentum at all, due to confusing editing and poorly structured screenplay.

To resume, the main problem is that it loses a lot of time developing subplots of little relevance.

For example, the film begins with the images of the set up for a bank robbery, which is very confusing: screenwriter analyst Linda Seger says that the first images from a film have to transmit us the main concept of it, so the viewer can figure out what is going to be told. But during the first half of the movie we see various shoots from the bank robbery, when the robbery itself has little importance. What is real important here is the act of betrayal, and as long as the relationship between Peter Coyle and his friends is somehow ellipsed, the film's concept has no strength at all.

In fact, it is hard to figure out what this movie is about until it has run a long time. That creates confusion and difficults the viewer to be involved.

After watching this film ask yourself who Eddie Coyle's friends were, what were they like and what kind of relationship Eddie had with them, and then you'll understand what I am talking about.


As with THE SISTERHOOD, ALIENATOR, THE ASSAULT, LADY TERMINATOR, and this lame flick, they prove why you can never trust a box cover! If you really want to get into deadly, lethal passion without the useless nonsense, my suggestion is for you to grab a one-way ticket to China on board the TWA. There, you will find what you want. Remember, your very life depends on it!

Am I the only one trying to preach? Never mind! All of us don't even care!!!


Matthew Broderick plays his usual, disinterested blank-faced self, in the clothes of a new college student who gets himself involved by happenstance with the Godfather himself (Marlon Brando).

The worst thing about The Freshman is that the godfather himself does not do a good impression of the godfather anymore. And i'll give you a dollar if you can understand a single word he says.

The best thing about The Freshman are the jokes about The Godfather: "gee, you look a hellova lot like... ." They're hysterical, and lots of fun if you're a fan of the fim.

Highlight: the film class scene where Broderick's lecturer salivates over The Godfather II as he talks about it, then plays a clip from it, and we see him mouthing the words along to it. Lots of fun. Worth a rental to see that scene alone. This is not a good entry in the "fun situation comedy" genre, however.

5/10.


I'm a big fan of Italian films from the seventies, and I wouldn't hesitate to list the beautiful Barbara Bouchet among my favourite actresses of all time, so I did go into this film with some hopes. However, it soon becomes apparent that this is a largely pointless film that isn't going to go anywhere. Clearly nobody would go into this expecting much more, but the fact that this is pointless gets more annoying when you consider that it's also rather dull and none of the characters are interesting. As the title suggests, the film focuses on a 'rogue'; in this case one that steals, womanises and smuggles stuff. That's basically all the plot that this movie has. The film does have a real 'seventies style' to it and the idea of it all being very carefree gets across well. It sometimes seems like directors Boro Draskovic and Gregory Simpson were trying to put across some sort of point, although whatever that point is doesn't come across very well. Seeing Barbara Bouchet on screen is always a pleasure, and that is the case here too; she's definitely the best thing about the film and the sequence in which she hangs out of a car naked is the best part of the film. Overall, The Rogue will probably have some appeal for people who love the seventies style, but unfortunately it doesn't have much else to offer.


I have been a big fan of MK since the beginning, although I must admit I lost interest in the game series after part III.

Buying MK Deception this past Christmas renewed my interest in the series.

This movie was crap and I can't believe I bought this mess.

Good thing I found it for 9.99 at the used bin, so I wasn't out of much.

I was expecting to see a REAL sequel to the first movie, which I found fairly entertaining.

I thought the first film was very good and does the game upon which it is based some justice.

Not the case with MKA.

The first problem is that they tried to fuse too much of MK2 with MK3.

Then, if you're going to replace a character with another actor (Christopher Lambert), then at least make sure the new actor does a batter job than the first. The first Raiden was a hard-ass, and you knew not to mess with him. The second Raiden was a wuss and every time we saw him he was going through a wall.

Weak portrayals of major MK characters was another flaw.

The actress who portrayed Sonya Blade was nowhere near as good as Bridgette Wilson (the first Sonya).

Same could be said with Cage (Linden Ashby).

What was the point of even having Ermac and Rain in the movie if they weren't going to be referred to? A very weak portrayal of Sindel, Kitana's mother and the actress who played her isn't fit to act in soap operas.

Line example: Kitana: "My mother is dead." Sindel: "As will be her daughter!" Gimmie a break! Stick with the first.


By all that's Holy! A film that made me cringe the whole way through! Dear Lord how the studio bosses must have laughed as they counted the money that they made off this turkey. Now, I thought the first MK was an OK film, great soundtrack, OK acting and plenty of fighting. A good no-brainer actioner. But this....this....defies belief.

How on Earth can you get such a bunch of wooden actors together and still manage to hide all the strings? It comes to something when you look at a film and can honestly say the best actor in it is Brian Thompson! The actors playing the bad guys overacted so awfully it was painful to watch, expecially the centaur guy. He exuded ham to a level I've not seen before.

The special effects were truly special, but only in a "special needs" kind of way. Looks like they were lifted straight from the video game itself. Laugh as you watch something resembling a dragon perform martial arts very badly. Laugh as Brian Thompson turns into a......thing. Laugh at the terrible lack of detail in it all. Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh and laugh again, right up until they slap the straightjacket on you and cart you off to the loony bin. Because only someone truly demented would want to sit through this terrible, terrible film.

Eh? What's that Doc? Yes, I know I sat through it. But it was all in the name of science, you see. I was doing research. By the way, you couldn't loosen this jacket a bit, could you?

Anyway, as I say, the best actor was Brian Thompson. Only he saved it from getting a 1, but even then, the rest prevented it from getting any more than a 2.

Avoid it if you value your sanity!


You know, I really liked the original Mortal Kombat. Sure they ripped off the premise from another movie, but at least it was good (Enter the Dragon). I loved the games until the 4th one and was widely known as being one of its best and most devoted followers. So maybe all this is why my then-girlfriend's idiot stoner brother told me that he heard this movie was incredible, and I excitedly went to see it.

I'm a patient guy, and I have almost never felt the urge to walk out of a movie due to boredom (Tank Girl is the only other one I recall). But MKA here is a joke. If you really feel the need to see this movie and be surprised, then be forewarned because there are spoilers ahead.

Here's one right off the bat. MKA isn't a sequel proper to the original Mortal Kombat. The original MK was, reasonably, based on the first game. A couple future characters made cameos, but that's it. So it stands to also reason that MKA would be about the second game, the one most fans widely regard to be the best. But whereas the MK film was made at the time that part 2 was yielding to part 3, a lot changed in the extra couple years it took for this film sequel. As MK the movie was leaving theaters, MK3 the game was getting kind of a lukewarm reception, and people got sicker and sicker of it by the time MK4 came out. By now the games were in 3d and the storyline had gone from basic Enter the Dragon tournaments to all out apocalyptic robot wars and sorcerors controlling the fates of a bunch of new, generic characters. Until its decent reinventing in 2002, the MK games had hit a rough and oversaturated spot and would take 5 years to bounce back.

So here in this worst time comes MKA, which skips the best chapter of the games entirely and jumps in at sort of a story junction between the 3rd and 4th games, the worst. So we have characters from all 4 games running around and interacting, which is goofy as it is, and things get worse when sense is tried to be made of it. For example, (spoiler), in maybe the first 2 minutes Johnny Cage, a main character and semi-hero of the first movie, is summarily and unceremoniously killed off. My guess for this is because he wasn't in the 3rd game.

Soon after (more spoilers. In fact, there will be several so if you continue, do at the risk of ruining the wonderful cinematic experience that is MKA), robots from game 3 come in, negating the fact that their sole purpose in the games was to hunt Sub Zero, a character killed in the first movie. Leading the attacks by these fiends and others is Shao Kahn, who in the first movie appeared as a giant demonic face in the sky and here appears as....a masculine human being.

Making things moe complicated is that elder God Raiden, played by Christopher Lambert in the original, is here played by someone else and seems to not want to fight at all, as the character has gone from wizardly power god to short haired, weasely Power Rangers nerd, giving up his immortality in the process and teaching our heroes a thing or two about friendship and courage. Huh?

Sticking things out, unfortunately for them, are Robin Shou and Talisia Soto, who play central characters Liu Kang and Kitana and who've returned from the original film. This time, neither of them are allowed to do anything much more than look shocked at the stupid story developments, and Liu Kang engages in a few fights that capture none of the magic or uniqueness of the original film. And in fact this goes for any fight in this film that I care to remember. In the original, the fights were well choreographed and showcased a good selection of acrobatic and martial arts skill. Action was conveyed through close combat, good angles, and lengthy tradeoffs. And at the very least, there was a genuine moment or two where one might say "wow, that was a cool move!". This time, a lot of the action is illusional, with the camera making quick cuts and sudden moves to sort of convey that stuff is going on. There's nary an actual hand-to hand combat scene that lasts more than 30 seconds, and when you see what else was thrown in instead, you'll want to kill someone yourself.

For example, remember the character Baraka, with his beast face and bladed arms? He's here, and in fact is joined by several identical others, who assault Liu Kang with their reflective cardboard blades in a high-flying trapeze act straight out of the circus. And what about Sheeva, 4-armed character that should have been the answer to decently done Goro, 4-armed creature of the original film? Well, whereas he was conveyed through puppeteering and animatronics, here Sheeva is played by a tall woman in generic spandex who tries to look menacing and does a couple unthreatening hops with her cheesy extra special effect arms.

Things (don't) pick up later on, when Liu Kang randomly encounters Native American character Nightwolf, who explains that Liu must harness his "animality" to succeed. Anyone familiar with the MK universe knows that the "animality" was a ridiculous player rumor which supposed that the MK games contained a method of killing one's opponent by turning into an animal and committing not a fatality but an "animality". This dumb rumor was added to the 3rd game as fan service, and apparently delighted the producers of this film enough that it was actually explained as a real, feasible occurence. "Feel your animality", N.Wolf says to Liu, urging him to harness the beast within. Mr. Wolf then briefly shows Liu how to do it, and then asks,

"pretty cool, huh?"

We who haven't left the room yet are saying "no", but oh boy do we still get a fun surprise. At the end of the film, Liu Kang fights with big masculine guy (er, Shao Kahn), and instead of actual wanted fisticuffs, we get to see the two of them feel their animality and turn into giant, god awful stupid computer-generated beasts who do combat with each other. No, I mean it. They turn into giant computer animated beasts. And we're not talking about Gollum of the Lord of the Rings here- I mean big, shiny, plasticy-looking "we know we want to make big magical creatures but don't yet have the technology to do anything but make them eye-strainingly obvious" effects. Liu Kang could reasonably have turned into a cool chinese dragon or something, but instead winds up being this big-nosed, cross eyed, dopey dragon thing. Shao Kahn turns into something equally ridiculous and less memorable and the two have it out. Then at the last minute Shao Kahn's sorceror dad decides he's gone too far, disgraced the family name by becoming a crappy visual effect, and makes him disappear or something. Then everyone hugs, and more or less runs far, far away.

I hope that this has been an accurate rendering of what my feelings are for this film, because I actually haven't seen it in several years. I don't hate myself enough to watch it more than that. But if you want an actual review without the sarcasm, just look at it this way: It is an insult to the MK franchise and its fans, it fails as a follow-up to the fun original MK film, it fails TERRIBLY as a martial arts film, and in general it just is a dumb waste of time, an arbitrary, thrown-together cash-in sequel. Do yourself a favor and just watch the original, and if you still crave more, go play the games. And if you do insist on seeing this movie, then at the very least inject some fun into it like trying to figure out where those Baraka masks were purchased.


MK-1 made by no-talent director Paul Worth..beep..Anderson was really not that crap but this....this.....this......is just unimaginable! Some memorable moments are

Motaro, supposed to be one of the toughest enemies has a visibly fake plastic horn set glued to his head. Even a 2 year old would find that out.

Another opponent, with 4 arms, supposed to be the third toughest, has a 2 second role and dies by a falling object! Johnny cage moves perfectly straight for 100 meters during a kick, touches the bad guy! Dies! What a way to start a movie!

A wise old Red Indian guy says "Pretty cool huh? Its my animality". This guy is supposed to spiritual? He looks like a punk.

Final end for Shaoh Khan? He becomes a box! Originality! The CGI looks like cut and paste from a 1985 modelling kit. And this guy is a caucasian bald guy instead of a mongol.

There's no fighting, the opponents merely scratch each other.

What are the makers trying to prove with this? Was this an intentional parody of the Mortal Kombat universe?


I saw this film at the cinema the same day as I saw Lost in Space (the new one, with Gary Oldman). By comparison, Lost in Space was high art full of deep metaphysical dilemmas. MK:A is terrible.

I loved the Mortal Kombat games, and was pleased to see that MK The Movie was better than Street Fighter II The Movie. Sure, it was a light-on film, but it had some moments and I spent most of my time laughing at the unintentionally bad bits. MK:A makes MK The Movie look sophisticated.

The first five minutes basically drops a piano on the head of the first movie - new bad guy, Johnny Cage dies, new heroes appear, minimal explanation. From then on you have a sub-standard martial arts film packed full of cheap costumes on cheap actors following a cliched script. I know there's not a lot of narrative you can squeeze out of a fighting computer game, but surely the writers could have tried a little harder to make something work. Having gone to the movie with a guy who didn't play the games, I had to explain what the hell was going on for the first half (like why is that guy fighting him?) and gave up after that.

That said, this movie contains the most unintentionally hilarious moment I have ever seen on film. Towards the end of the movie, Raiden moves from having flowing straight white hair to a peroxided flat-top. There's a brief mention of Raiden getting a haircut, and that's it. It makes absolutely no sense, and thinking about it still makes me laugh.


Yeah its flawed. Its idiotic. It doesn't follow the video game well enough. The acting is the worst you'll ever see anywhere. The fight scenes are pathetic and the choreography is even worse than its predecessor. The special effects are terrible and worse than you can possibly imagine. The storyline is nonexistent. There are a lot of scenes and parts which make no sense whatsoever. But at no point is it ever boring. So it is highly watchable despite being a piece of crap. If you be a fan of the MK franchise or are expecting a good movie, watch it to see how bad a movie can get, just for education. It does however take a special kind of talent to ruin a franchise and movie which already has a good plot in place (refer to the MK video games). This movie's entire cast and crew have that talent and so does a retard called Paul Anderson.


This sequel has diminished the image of the first movie, Mortal Kombat. First of all, the death of Johnny Cage in the beginning scene of the movie destroyed a lot of expectations as there were many who became fans of Johnny Cage in particular. In addition to that, the action scenes from Liu Kang were rather fake, in contrary to his action moves in Mortal Kombat. The introduction of Jax was not explained, how did he get into the hospital. Subzero's entry was understandable, but was it the same of Scorpion? Baraka, Mileena, Sheeva, Ermac, Nightwolf, Jade etc. are high profile fighters in the game, but in this movie, they were represented horribly. Sheeva died without a fight, Nightwolf came in just to hit an axe on Liu Kang, Jade was JUST A TRAITOR.

Shao Kahn's acting was the worst. His fighting style lacked the depth and originality like Shang Tsung had in the previous film.

All in all, I would recommend the fans of Mortal Kombat to avoid watching this movie if they want to maintain their good impression of the first movie.


I really enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat movie, I like action flicks that aspire to be more. This movie does not fit that bill. There are a legion of things wrong with this movie, beginning with the death of Johnny Cage, and going downhill from there. Women wrestling other women in mud. Terrible film. I felt like I wasted more money on this movie than any I've ever seen before.