The Ring Two joins the new breed of "Who-dun-it" mysteries... "Who-dun-it first". For example: Creepy Kids... Who-dun-it first? How bout the Sixth Sense, The Shining, the Omen and the Exorcist... A desperate ghost hoping to manifest itself into physical form? Just watch Child's Play and, oh yeah, Ghostbusters II (Veego's even creepier than Samara at times). There's even a taste of Jurassic Park believe it or not. But most of all Who-dun-the-entire-movie first? Of course its predecessor, the Ring.

The Ring Two is of course the sequel to The Ring. To refresh your memory The Ring was genius. The creepy video tape. The mysterious deaths. The deep history of Samara and her family. And of course the infamous phone call warning you that you will die in 7 days. The first Ring movie was deep. The focus being on the video tape, which is much like the creepy chain letters you get in your e-mail, and the suspense of Rachel (Naomi Watts) dying in 7 days. And finally you get your cheap thrills, which Gore Verbinski accomplished masterfully making The Ring a new legend for our generation.

If The Ring is deep, The Ring Two is a kiddie pool. With all the things that went on during the first Ring movie, there was nothing left for the Ring Two to do but MORE cheap thrills in between borrowed gags from other thrillers and horror flicks. Verbinski left the director's chair and passed it back to the director from the original Ring Series, Ringu. This was proving to be the most anticipated thriller this year. I was real disappointed to find that the Ring Two simply shouldn't have been made.

The Ring Two is about Samara who comes back and wants to be human again. Who does she choose? Conveniently the son of Rachel from the first ring.

If you notice there's so much more to talk about concerning the Ring but all it takes is a couple sentences to sum up everything in the Ring Two. That's because there's not a whole lot that goes on. In this movie, plot line wasn't as important as the cheap thrills. Even with the mentality of wanting to be scared, The Ring Two doesn't deliver as well and leaves you thinking "ehh... that could've been done a lot better". The opening sequence, for example, could've been a moment in the movie that all moviegoers will remember just like in the first Ring, but instead it was in short... stupid.

There's nothing new in the Ring Two. Everything is either recycled from the first movie or reused from other movies. There are three types of movies: good movies, bad movies, and movies that should've never been made. The difference between a bad movie and one that shouldn't have been made is that the latter has a lot to live up to and has the pressure of satisfying the fans of the story, whether it be a sequel or an adaptation from another text. The Ring Two dangerously ruins the mystery behind the first movie which should've been left alone.

Everyone should just watch the Ring One, get scared, be happy, then burn every copy of the Ring Two. That should put Samara away for good.


I had high hopes for this, as I thought the original was very innovative. Here, we get more of "kind of" the same, but not always. First, I thought the premise from the first movie was that in order to save yourself, you had to make a copy of the videotape.

***POSSIBLE SPOILER***

I'll have to go back & review that part, because that wasn't necessarily what was implied in this film.

There were some very good scenes, especially the one involving deer (although I have to say, at one point I was reminded of the deer scene in "Without a Paddle", where a deer suddenly seems like he's growling at the actors!). Still, many things just didn't add up.

***SPOILER***

When Aidan leaves the hospital, that's the last we see of any hospital involvement. They have a sick child missing & a dead doctor, & no one comes to the house looking for him or his mother?! It's like they introduced the hospital scenes solely to have Rachel accused of child abuse, & then they just drop the point.

Also, the whole premise of the first movie was that it was watching the videotape that caused death. Yet, other people die without having seen the movie. If Samara was that powerful, why did she wait so long to come after Rachel & Aiden? I thought Sissy Spacek was great (but then, she usually is), almost unrecognizable in fact. All in all, first half of the movie was very good, lots of tension; it just didn't seem to be able to sustain the plot or the horror. I give it a 4.


At First it was BORING but I started to like it as they got more more into the mystery of the tape.It did need little bit more but it was GREAT!

They Need more people and needed to MAke more and more of the tapes till it goes international and Racheal and Aiden has to stop it before everyone sees it.

I would say go see it if you like mystery that is not that Gory,Bloody Has lots of language, and Not that Scary. either see it by yourself or with a friend.

But it Was Great!


I normally don't post a comment, because normally it all has been said pretty much. I was so unmoved by the squall that I felt moved to add my two rings worth.. The beginning of the movie starts out to look promising. The middle(longest part by a long shot)is so incredibly lacking in feel and scare factor, I was bored to death. The third part almost started feeling like they were going to leave us with a heart ripping adventure in to Samaras world. Only to be another boring, uninspired, and barely scary rendition of a scare movie. One part that should have brought a jump and a scare made me laugh and shake my head and say to myself, the scare is gone. Such a bummer this film was so poor. The first film was truly scary, and kept you on the edge of your seat, and when the end came it ripped you out of your seat. The Ring 2 makes you want to get out of your seat and leave. Too Bad..


I wanted to walk out of the theater and demand my money back...

...but then I suddenly realized that I was working there.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's simply that bad. Not since The Blair Witch Project 2 has there been such a predictably terrible horror movie.

I'll really NEVER understand the public's high expectations for horror films. It's perhaps the most difficult genre to craft a "good" movie in, and sequels....well, sequels in any genre usually suck.

This is no different. But, expectedly so.

I would recommend a re-watching of the original, or perhaps checking out the various Japanese versions and sequels, because it can't get ANY worse than this.

-Frank


4 screens for this movie and 1 would have been sufficient.. this has to be one of the Worst movies i've ever seen. Save your money... it would have been a better flick if more answers had been given about samora or however you spell her name.. OK i'm trying to fill up space since i Must write a minimum of 10 lines of text.. the only good thing about the movie was i liked the view of the harbor from her house.. and the faces of the dead people reminded me of the movie Scream for goodness sakes.. there really was no suspense.. everything was predictable.. as i said sequels are rarely good.. i'm sure i'm making a mess on this review.. i just had to say why i gave it a rating of 1.


***SOME BIG SPOILERS - so read with extreme care (or with extreme gratitude that I saved you 2 hours of your life that you'll be able to better use in benefit of your family, your community or place of worship).***

"THE RING TWO" is is truly one of the laziest horror films of this or any year. It shamefully exists only for the sake of milking another $10 out of the poor saps who enjoyed (or understood) the first film.

I had no expectations for this movie, but say what you will about the first film - it did maintain a creepy tone through most of its running time, and its goofy psychobabble was at least palatable in the whatever-it-takes-to make-this-work mode. The sequel unfortunately, has no desire to flesh it's bare-bones plot out or explain anything that happens outside of it's narrow focus of two main characters.

Is this the best sequel idea the screenwriter could come up with? Naomi Watts again stars as Rachel, the lone survivor of an evil videotape who, by merely watching what's on that tape, kills its viewer. Part Two actually dispatches that gimmick with 20 minutes of its opening (!), and instead cobbles together what amounts to a backstory piece that picks up with Rachel and son Aidan's move from Seattle to picturesque Astoria, Oregon to start a new life. Soon though, the undead spirit from the first film reappears to lie claim to Rachel's son through a series of not-entirely-understandable "shock" sequences that lead to a cyclical revelation of horror repeating itself.

Logic seemingly goes out the window as soon as the Dreamworks logo appears on screen. With "The Ring's" evil specters again unleashed, wouldn't any of the locals in the small town - that one character describes its most newsworthy events as "...a school board meeting, a car accident or a cat up a tree..." - be all a-twitter? Considering that the body count increases as the film progresses in highly public places without so much as a police investigation, front page headline or a neighborhood revolt is the kind of lame bedrock this film is built on. Watching this, I saw huge dollops of "Poltergeist 2: The Other Side" in this with its journeys into the spirit world - and a sequel to "Poltergeist" isn't exactly a hotbed of movie concepts to begin with. If you were at the screenplay-regurgitation factory, why not at least crib a good scary premise from a good film, say like "Videodrome" or something and build on it? Even "Halloween 3" could have given this film's screenplay a few more scary beats than it has.

Characters do audience-insulting, idiotic things as crutches to ratchet up some tension - such as leaving a lethargic child alone in a tub AND THEN LEAVING THE HOUSE (!) or taking plenty of time to stop and watch a herd of deer attacking you in your car... over and over! Instead of capitalizing on the original's spooky teaser premise of the possibility of a worldwide pandemic of "Ring" video viewing - as well as that film's not-so-subtle commentary of the unknown evils that flow into your living room through consumer products - the sequel goes off in borderline-tasteless takes on the serious malady of post-partum depression and child abuse. Some fun.

This movie has no shame whatsoever. It contains absolutely NO scares, and in fact goes out of its way to throw in every cheap "jump" in the book just to make it "feel" like it's a horror film. There's the surprise-scare-from-behind, the it's-only-a-dream, the it's-not-dead, the jump-up-corpse... you know, every hackneyed trick in the book. The special makeup work provided by effects master Rick Baker gets two or three-second PG-13 showcases that don't titillate, but confuse. In a fright movie like this, you do have the license to linger a little longer on the macabre, right? Not in this movie - the scares are safe enough to guarantee that your little sister and her friends can see this on Saturday night and not have to sneak in from "Ice Princess" next door.

"THE RING TWO" is all over the map acting-wise. Watts seems to be catatonic through most of the film, with a range that goes from confused to pretend-scared, while her overly-pancaked son Aidan played by young David Dorfman seems both possessed and cardboard all in the same go. The film tries to "class" itself up by throwing in cameos by legitimately fine actors like Sissy Spacek, Elizabeth Perkins and Gary Cole for one or two scenes that are as distracting as they are embarrassing to watch. Did these actors really need to be in this film? What was the director's motivation for hiring such good actors for such insignificant parts? I hope the three got paid well for the one day each put in and maybe did something fun with the cash.

Yes, it's only a movie, but the resulting "product" does the unconscionable: it rips it's audience off and sends them out the other side poorer and less entertained - suckered in by the goodwill earned from the first film. It also manages to give sequels an even worse name than they already have. Burn its audience with a few more of these and maybe Hollywood will be up for making some original, challenging and thoughtful horror films again.


This was just another horrible horror film that made no sense in the long run. After a half hour I wondered if it was gonna go anywhere. It had a couple of creepy looking scenes and that was it! Most of the computer generated characters looked so FAKE it was hilarious. Did anyone else think the deer scene was outdrawn just a bit, yeah we got the idea...END IT! They discarded the whole premise of the story after the first 15 minutes, the tape if you're wondering. I was bored of the story way before it got close to ending. Please if the sequel is not gonna connect with the first film, don't make it. This was just a complete upset and the acting was something to be desired. I was very disappointed and I can honestly say this is probably where the rest of these horror films are sadly headed towards...disaster!


This movie was so disappointing. I could not believe how bad this was. I don't know about the theatre you were at, but at the one I was at, the whole they're was LAUGHING. It was so fake and hi-tech to be a horror movie. This is definitely a sequel that you MUST see the first one to understand the second one and this is a sequel u DON'T NEED TO SEE. I couldn't believe it. There was only two victims who saw the movie and had to pass it along, and right there was your climax. It was too dull and not enough information. Aden(the young boy)is too weird in this one and makes it too obvious of the outcome that I won't share with you if you haven't seen this movie. I recommend not going to this AT ALL! It is sooo bad...I expected SOO much better. **out of **********


I think something got lost in translation. I'm pretty sure Hideo Nakata, director of the original "Ringu," was hired to make a scary sequel to the hit 2002 horror movie "The Ring," but... he didn't. In fact, what he did deliver to the powers at Dreamworks was an absolutely terrible comedy of horrors that undoes everything in the previous movie while simultaneously making the audience wish that they themselves were drowning in the bottom of that damn well. "The Ring Two," titled such because Nakata evidently doesn't know that you can use a single character to depict a number, starts off exactly like the last one, with two bad actors plugging in the infamous videotape where at least one will eventually die. The horrid death, which conveniently isn't shown to us for the sake of a PG-13 rating (yet more was shown in the previous movie, which was also rated PG-13), just happens to occur in Astoria, Oregon, the far and distant land where Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and her son Aidan (David Dorfman) have escaped to all the way from Seattle. A good two hour drive from the place where they almost perished under the hand of the creepy Cousin It ghost in the first film, Rachel is looking to start a new life. Unfortunately for her, Samara (the creepy Cousin It ghost) has found her and has decided that she should be like every other creepy kid ghost in the history of cinema and possess Aidan. The rest of the plot really doesn't matter, since none of it makes any sense and "The Ring Two" is easily one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. Watts does an adequate job in the lead, which is about the only highlight of the entire film. Unfortunately, since "The Ring Two" is rated PG-13, there should be no expectations that she will do any of the stuff she did in "Mulholland Dr.," even though she does tease all the guys in the audience by asking her son if he wants her to get in the tub with him. Unfortunately, while her performance is bearable up until the climax (and definitely not during the climax), her character is so freaking stupid it's amazing she doesn't die in the first five minutes. After all, she knows Samara has returned for them, yet when Aidan has a nightmare that he refuses to share with her, his temperature drops five degrees and he starts acting really weird, she still is entirely clueless to what's going on. Of course, little Mr. Dorfman is weird and creepy anyway, so maybe that's her excuse. No excuses can be given for Dorfman himself, however, who is absolutely terrible here. He was okay in the first "Ring" and I liked him in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," but he is ridiculously God-awful in this sequel. It doesn't help that the screenplay gives him the worst lines of dialogue known to man, many of which involve saying his mother's name over and over again. Yes, he says "Rachel" exactly 5,432 times in the movie. The most blame has to be placed on Nakata, film editor Michael Knue and the special effects team responsible for the truly horrific visuals in the movie. Nakata has quite possibly put the final nail in Asian horror for me, as I have completely lost interest with the flash-images-until-we-get-one-that-scares-some-idiot-in-the-back-row method. "The Ring Two" is slow, dull and uninteresting, with a plot that seemingly has no connection to the original and editing that exemplifies the editor's experience - let's see, he's done such great movies as "Bones," "Highlander Endgame" and "The Crow: City of Angels." Had Knue successfully edited 100 minutes out of the middle of the movie, "The Ring Two" might have been halfway decent. Despite its badness, "The Ring" is tense at times. The first twenty minutes are mildly engaging, although even then it was quite apparent things were only going to get worse. However, there is one pivotal moment where "The Ring Two" changed from a lackluster sequel to an all-out piece of sh*t. The deer. There are deer in this movie - a whole lot of them. Unfortunately, they're all computerized, they all look really fake, and they all attack Rachel's car. Yes, a bunch of cheesy-looking deer attack the car. Instantly, I lost all interest in the movie and began to see it for what it really is - an unintentional laugh-fest. Yes, most of the audience laughed at the deer. And yes, most of the audience laughed at the scene where a very fake CGI version of Samara floated over the bathtub. And yes, for the last half of the film the audience was checking their watches, their cell phones and even sun dials in hopes that their misery would finish sooner than later. Sadly, it was not to be. "The Ring Two" is one of the worst big budget horror movies I have ever seen. Boring, stupid and hardly scary, this is not a good first step for Nakata in Hollywood. In one scene, Samara forces a psychiatrist to inject herself with air and thus kill herself; by that point, I was jealous of the psychiatrist. I wish my fate was as pleasant as hers.


With all the potential this movie had, they allowed this to be the final script for their movie. I honestly would compare this to the likes of Caddyshack II or Jaws: The Revenge. This was the boringest movie I've ever sat through but it's certainly not the worst. I remember liking this movie when I first watched it but when I bought both DVD's of The Ring and Ring 2 I actually fell asleep, and I've never fallen asleep during a movie. I do not recommend this movie for sh*t. It was so bad and I felt like I was losing IQ points during.

Overall this movie was a disgrace and the biggest waste of time I've ever bought. 1/10.


Let's talk child actors. There have been many over the last century, Mickey Rooney, Shirley Temple are possibly the best known and most successful. Others like McCauley Culkin were in the right place at the right time and couldn't make the transition to adult movies. I put Haley Joel Osment right up near the top of the tree. He went on to be brilliant in Sixth sense & extremely good in A.I. He is also the best thing about this movie. He has a wonderful ability to act with his eyes, this makes his performances so much more credible. This movie has some humorous moments, but is actually rather sad & full of people searching but not finding their goal. Whoopi Goldberg didn't really add a dimension to performances we've seen dozens of times from her and Gerard Depardieu was OK but unspectacular. There's definitely a message in this movie and the whole topic of imaginary friends is a fascinating topic to explore. I'm not sure that this movie managed to hit the mark, mainly due to the disruptive and slightly confusing on occasions use of flashbacks & fantasy.


[SPOILER AHEAD]

This film is my candidate for the most exact title of a movie (and will continue to be so until someone makes a film called "This is a Total Turkey"!)

The absolute low-point comes at the funeral scene, where the kid throws a tantrum because everyone's crying at his mother's death (?!), so he runs off into the countryside, stops in the middle of a field and looks up weirdly into the sky. It's so nauseating it'll turn even the strongest stomach.

A bogus movie? Definitely! In fact, to borrow the quote from most critical reviews of The Stupids, "Well at least they can't be accused of false advertising!"


Wildcat is a typical B-movie of the 40's. The plot is straight forward and largely predictable. For those not familiar with the term, wildcat refers to someone taking the risk of drilling for oil in unproven areas.

While there are no major stars here, there are some recognizable faces. Richard Arlen made a career of B-movies and plays the lead here as an endearing hustler. His main antagonist is Buster Crabbe of Flash Gordon fame. William Frawley (Fred Mertz of I Love Lucy) plays an unscrupulous card shark, that eventually shows some heart. Toss in character actor Arthur Hunnicutt, who is best known as a crotchety old-timer from westerns and 50's TV. Overall, a decent cast that does a fine, if unspectacular job of delivering the goods.

The dialogue is snappy in parts, but also lame in places. There are enough conflicts and action sequences to keep the story moving without bogging down. The characters cover a wide range. There is the flawed hero lead, the conniving femme fatale, a naive youth, a cold-hearted antagonist and loyal associates.

While this movie is mildly entertaining, there is nothing spectacular here. While the movie is shot in the present (1942,) it has a western flavor to it. So if you enjoy any of the actors or just want to see a "modern" western, it's not a bad way to spend 70 minutes.


News of an oil strike stirs trouble in a western town.

Flat broke, Richard Arlen (as Johnny Maverick) drives west, picking up, and partnering up, with prospecting hitch-hiker Elisha Cook Jr. (as "Chicopee"). Almost immediately, the two discover oil, on land owned by the country bumpkin "Smithers" family. Mr. Arlen writes John and Martha Smithers a check, to buy their oil-rich land, then schemes to cover its cost. But, old enemy Buster Crabbe (as Mike Rawlins) isn't about to let Arlen strike it rich without a fight. Additional arrivals provide further intrigue (William Frawley) and love interest (Arline Judge).

While "Wildcat" Arlen and many of the supporting cast are pleasant, this is an mostly dull story. An exciting scene occurs early on, which prematurely kills off the film's most endearing, up to that point, character. The tragedy is necessary for subsequent plot developments, which are anticlimactic.


Reba's role as "Burgundy Jones " the owner of a brothel and admirer of Mr. Hawke's poker skills, steals the movie with the sexiest leather cowboy duds ever. It is very highly improbable that this leather outfit could have been made in this time era, never mind that a cross-dressing female would be allowed to wear these masculine leather garments during this time . Reba does save the life of Kenny Rogers(Hawke) from the Mexican gallows when wrongly accused of cheating at cards. Reba gives Kenny the chance to represent a girl group with their financial backing to enter a big poker game with the world's best players in San Francisco. Kenny comes through; surprise ! Reba as Burgundy , didn't get to strut her stuff enough in her cowboy leathers as she should have don, she was shot and never wore her sexy leathers again. Linda Evans re-appears in this "Gambler" sequel dressed in another cowboy outfit.This black cloth outfit is unlike her first cowboy outfit she wore in her first "Gambler" episode. Linda as " Kate " the bounty hunter is now a locale sheriff dressed like Gene Autry in his movie fancy duds. Kate has tight rodeo riding pants tucked into her cowboy boots with matching jacket and Stetson hat. Kate looks great with her cowboy gun belt slung around curving hips.


This reviewer attempts to describe something of merit within each work under consideration, but with this wretchedly made film, one must slide by the woeful efforts by those who generally provide audience enjoyment, i.e., director, screenwriter, actors, editors, et alia, before finally recognizing the customary able efforts from crew technicians as the sole evidence of adequacy. In a plot seldom coherent, Theresa Russell, billed second, is cast as Alex Canis, A.K.A. "The Dove", an entrapment specialist employed by the National Security Agency (N.S.A.), who gathers her information through acts of prostitution, with a specialty as dominatrix, her clients being Federal government officials, and blackmail undoubtedly a goal for her unit, a "covert section" of the N.S.A. that collects photographs of her activities. Since Alex has written, for therapeutic reasons, a not-for-publication autobiography, her supervisor, after learning of the opus, determines that she must be eliminated, and during her flight from homicidal pursuers, she unites with a discredited demolition expert, Will Rickman (Scott Glenn), who is fighting a lawsuit originating from two accidental deaths within his most recently demolished building and the pair exchange sexual bouquets when not avoiding being killed. In his only stint as director of a feature, Steve Railsback, although a charismatic actor, obviously lacks those skills requisite for guiding other players, since he merely turns Russell and Glenn loose to fish for whatever they might find of worth within a sloppily written screenplay and as these two happen to benefit from a strong director, their mannered performances must rate at the bottom of their portfolios. The liberal footage of amorous thrashing about between Alex and Will is a clear attempt to add mustard for the largely incomprehensible proceedings, but the result is more silly than sensuous, and gives only momentary surcease for a storyline that has more flaws in continuity than can be found in any average score or two of other films, to a point where one feels simply embarrassed for all involved.


This is one of Chan's Hong Kong-movies, and it seems to lack much of the basics that makes his better movies, well, better. When it comes to the fighting scenes, they aren't that bad. They are typical Chan-fighting scenes which involves many items in special ways. They are also funny, and especially one of them lasts long. Apart from that, there are nothing good in this movie. The story is nearly non-existing. This comes as no surprise, especially when we know that the story got changed from the Chinese to the English version. I really have to warn people from watching this movie only based on the film's cover. Here's why: There's a black man on the cover. Where the heck was he in the movie? I didn't see the blonde girl on the cover in the movie either. And military airplanes? If you haven't guessed it already: There are no such planes in the movie. If the movie had been any good, I guess they wouldn't have to make a halfway fake cover like they have.


I had heard good things about this movie and was very psyched to check it out as I love Chan's easy going humour and mad fighting styles. But as I saw it I got more and more frustrated - where were the people on the cover and where were the jets and parachute people? Silly as it is with things on the cover that aren't in the film, the dubbing is utterly painful - totally out of synch - and when the story is as fragmented as is the case in the version I saw, one has to wonder if the dubbing missed out things, or if the Danish version has been cut, because the storyline is pretty much impossible to understand.

Jackie has some good moves and there are a couple of very pretty gels to look at for a few moments, but that is about the qualities that are to be found in this movie. The storyline in the Danish release is impossible to understand for anyone with a normal IQ, as is the character progression, and the quality of the effects are below par for what can be expected.

All in all this version is a sorely disappointing flick and not one that can be recommended, unless you are a hardcore Jackie Chan fan.

4/10


I have been watching Jackie chan's film since I was small. Well I must admit that his shows are rather interesting, coupled with great and well choreographed fighting scenes. But this latest offering from Jackie is rather dull, with little action scene and hardly any humour in it. The only part which is interesting and funny is the part when he's naked and running around, fighting the bad guys. This film is way below the average Jackie Chan's film and being the most expensive film made in Hong Kong, it certainly fails to live up to its expectation.

Not recommended by me but I'm sure there are diehard fans out there who will still watch this show.

4 out of 10.


If Jacky Chan wanted to make a commercial, he should have, but not this movie full with promotion of the companies who sponsored him. Beside that the film is to long, with an unnecessary long ride in the truck, and a stupid ending in Italy. It is not exciting, it is not funny, and it never should have been made.


Terribly Boring. I almost fell asleep. If your going to rent a jacki chan movie rent rush hour. Do not see this movie!


I attend the school where the gym/dance/locker scenes this movie was filmed at. Granted, it doesn't make me an overnight expert on this movie, but as consumer with some sense of savvy, I have to say that this paltry little tv-movie fails across the board. The flat acting (and bad stripping), the inane and contrived plotline (avenging angels anyone?), the amateurish directing (including the clumsy use of slow motion during the clumsy and fatal let's-all-fall-into-the-pool scene--which was hilarious, though I do believe it was meant to be heart-wrenching or somesuch), and just the utter ridiculousness of the thing. Try again, Mr. Frakes. These teen angel movies (so original as they are, of course!) aren't reviving your post-Star Trek career.


I remember one time reading a remark from Robert Mitchum who was discussing how he came to play a certain part after several of the leading men of his generation turned it down. He was quoted as saying that the producers figured "that bum Mitchum will do anything for enough money".

If that was the case Mitchum hopefully got a hefty paycheck for his part in this slasher flick where he's on for the last 15 minutes or so as Mark Hamill's shrink. Midnight Ride stars Mark Hamill as the psychotic serial killer who runaway wife Savina Gersak picks up as she's leaving workaholic cop husband Michael Dudikoff.

Dudikoff is not operating either with a full deck, maybe his broken leg is warping his judgment. Anyway he's after her and not particularly concerned about how he gets her back. But as it turns out Gersak's jumped from the frying pan to the fire.

I'm not sure if Dudikoff's injuries on Midnight Ride were real or not. Certainly a healthy Dudikoff might have taken Hamill out before the film was halfway over. The American Ninja versus Luke Skywalker, what a concept.

Which I'm sure was on the minds of the producers of this travesty in getting these two stars passed their box office prime to star here. Robert Mitchum barely can contain his boredom, his famous rumpled eyes barely register a movement.

When the force is not with Luke Skywalker, a one legged American Ninja can take him.


Spoilers? Maybe...

OK! Take a good company, darken the room, get some popcorn, and you will ready for the most incredible journey of your life! Imagine a chase begins by car, continues by truck, and ends by wheelchair.(Yes, I wrote: wheelchair!!!) This is one of the funniest movie, I've ever seen. Well... the only problem is, it isn't supposed to be a comedy! But if you have some free hours at night (at night the movie is better, remember: "Midnight Ride"), and you want to laugh with some company (three or five, maybe six people), try this film! Company is necessary, not because of the thrill, or something like that, just because if you're alone, nobody will believe you! So try it!


Michael Dudikoff stars as a police officer who spends the entire woman stalking his estranged wife (Savina Gersak), who is in the clutches of psychotic hitchhiker Mark Hamill, seems Hamill wants to go to the loony bin and wants Gersak to be his wife (This movie is so silly.) and during the movie Dudikoff is tied to a hood of a car, while Hamill drives, Gersak screams and Hamill twitches in front of the camera while Robert Mitchum cashes an easy paycheck as he barely looks at the camera as he plays Hamill's doctor. Midnight Ride has all the elements there to be a decent movie but in the hands of Bob Bravler this is all ridiculous with no stab in credibility what so ever. For instance Dudikoff is crippled in the beginning of the film (My guess is that he broke his leg doing one of the stunts for the movie) and yet despite this he still manages to outdo his American Ninja styled heroic actions with plenty of gusto to spare. Ever sprain an ankle? Well you can barely walk, now try imagine trying to beat someone up at the same time? Oh and consider that breaking your leg is much much worse than that. More implausibilities play out. The climax in particular is so ridiculous that it becomes obvious that there is no attempt at credibility to any of the action sequences. What is even more amusing is just how misogynist this flick is. The woman in this film is put through an ordeal because she had the audacity to leave her husband, Hamill's mother was a psychopath (Hamill's sister had an affair with him), another female victim talks back to her boyfriend and the first female victim is shrewish, hence these women are either killed or put through an ordeal. The film also never notes the sharp irony that Dudikoff really is not a good guy, in that he's just as insane as the villain of the movie. Dudikoff refuses to let his wife go as he takes off after her. He offers stock apologies that seem manipulative, he steals cars and furthermore seems to rescue his wife out of jealousy rather than actual love. Of course reading too much into a flick is somewhat pretentious even for me, but there is no doubt that that this thing is somewhat sexist. This of course didn't bother me so much, as the credibility of the action sequences and story. Plus the acting is not very good. Dudikoff comes off the best which says something considering who he is. Mitchum seems embarrassed, Hamill is hammy and Gersak is a rather weak heroine. However the most annoying thing about this movie is just how many times Hamill keeps picking up Gersak. It happens at least 3 times and each time the explanation is absurd. Movies like Midnight Ride live and die by their director's execution and in Bob Bravler we have a guy who has no real sense of distinguishable style so the action sequences are only okay, making it easier to point out flaws in the credibility of how such action sequences are conducted. Therefore the audience sees through the plot and realizes that this far fetched thriller is hardly thrilling.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)


This movie starts with a good sense. Savina Gersak left her husband for some period. But her husband followed her. She gave ride to stranger. In the first look itself, the stranger looks creepy, but for her (Who is mad on her husband) he is like her brother. She is expression-less in most of the movie. At some point she was crying and there was no tear in her eyes. She did whatever Justin (The Stranger) asked him to do, never resisted. She became the hostage.

Another thing, the cops are also not treated nicely in the movie. The villain took care of all cops except hero (husband of Savina Gersak).

In the movie a continuous race is going on. People are left behind and they change vehicles but still catches another person. How come? After living here in US, I got to know that it's very difficult to chase another person if he is 1 hour ahead on the highway, but according to movie, it looks like that it ain't difficult. The villain changed vehicle from Laura's car to Bus, then ambulance, but Hero recognizes every vehicle. Again how, nobody knows.

Plot was OK, but never got executed well.


This movie is characterized by gratuitous (and very excessive) violence. It's also graced by a dumb plot, and bad acting. Skip it. It's a waste of time.


STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits

A cop (Michael Dudikoff) is experiencing marital problems with his wife (Savina Gersak) who becomes estranged from him during the night, driving off and out into the night. A seemingly innocent hitchhiker (Mark Hamill) jumps on board, and this is only to be the beginning of a night of terror that will bring husband and wife back together for a blistering ride.

A far wiser action movie lover than me told me that Michael Dudikoff once enjoyed a screen career at least as great as Dolph Lundgren's. I can't remember this (but, actually, I suppose Lundgren's always been a video star too) but I've certainly seen a few of his definite video stinker works. And this is one of them.

The very set-up of the film is naff. The wife just letting a guy like that jump in just seems unlikely from the off-set and, as a result, it's hard to buy any of the character's as real and so it's really hard to care about them. On the performances front, Dudikoff's his usual self and Gersak is an annoyingly wooden actress with a weird accent. And then there's Hamill, who'll always be remembered to everyone as Luke Skywalker. But he didn't enjoy much of a screen career after that and, on the basis of this, I can only assume it's because he's really not a very good actor. Screen legend Robert Mitchum is drafted in at the end as a plot device, and ends up as the most sorry sight out the lot of them caught up in this poor man's Hitcher imitation. Avoid. *


When RKO released "Betrayal from the East," World War II was into its waning days. Nevertheless, the Japanese are portrayed as vicious, omniscient antagonists with the Nazis running a close second in this tale about pr-Pearl Harbor espionage. A couple of Americans in Tokyo have gotten hold of some volatile information about high-ranking Japanese military officials in the United States, but they are killed before they can get the information to U.S. military intelligence referred to here as G-2. One of the Americansa leading newspapermandies from a mysterious fall while the other vanishes into the ocean on his voyage to San Francisco. It seems that the wily Japanese want information about the Panama Canal so that they can shut down the canal and prevent the U.S. from shipping men, munitions, and ships through this important point. That's when carnival barker Eddie (Lee Tracy of "Bombshell") finds himself lured into the story. The Japanese contact the wise-talking Eddie and he assures them that he was not only stationed in the Canal Zone during his six years in the Army but also that he knows a sergeant who can get him to the plans to the zone. The Japanese pay his expenses on the way south to the canal. Before they set out for Panama, they show him what they do to double agents. We see a gardener that the villains have captured and Eddie watches for a moment or two as they try to sweat information out of him then approach himthe gardenerwith the glowering end of a steel rod. Later, Eddie learns that an attractive clothing designer that he met on the train trip to L.A. was another agent. Although he has made a deal with the Japanese, Eddie goes to G-2 and they reveal that they have been tailing him the entire time. Despite the threat of torture and execution, our intrepid hero decides to play along with the Japanese. Unfortunately, the scenarists have written Eddie as a dim-witted idiot who finds himself in over his head and makes virtually every mistake that can be made. Meanwhile, the Japanese villains are portrayed as experts and nothing is too devious for them. "Betrayal from the East" is the kind of Hollywood propaganda that the studios churned out to the chagrin of the U.S. Office of War Information (O.W.I.) during World War II that painted the Japanese as double-crossing, back-stabbing dastards. Along the way, the clothing designer Peggy Harrison (Nancy Kelly of "Tarzan's Desert Mystery") falls in love with Eddie and stages her own death to protect from the Japanese. Actually, the Japanese placed a camera in Eddie's apartment so they knew that Harrison was a U.S. spy. When Eddie reaches the Canal Zone, he meets with an Army sergeant (Regis Toomey) who is impersonating the Eddie's fictitious friend and they arrange to pass the Japanese false, out-of-date Canal Zone defense plans. Prolific scenarist Audrey Wisberg and director William A. Berke then pull a real boner by reinserting the Harrison character back into the story in the Canal Zone (much to Eddie's surprise and consternation as a woman with impeccable credentials who is a Nazi agent's girlfriend. The Japanese suspect the Harrison character from the get-go as untrustworthy and eventually the Nazis come around to their way of thinking. Peggy blows her cover when she warns Eddie about a plot to murder him by his Japanese employers. Yes, Eddie is so incredibly cretinous that he does things that a four-year old would never do when he tries to outwit the Japanese. Now, "Betrayal from the East" not only kills off both Peggy (she dies in a sauna bath) but also the chief Japanese villain (Chinese actor Richard Loo) kills Eddie just as G-2 breaks down the door. Journalist Drew Pearson appears in a prologue where he warns Americans that this kind of treachery must never happen again. Actually, if you want to see this story done with great credibility and more dramatic impact, watch the Warner Brothers 1942 release "Across The Pacific" with Humphrey Bogart where he strings along with Japanese saboteurs who want similar information about the Canal Zone.


Hype can sell anything. I tried to watch this boring, stereotype-pushing piece of poor cinema three times before I could make myself sit through an entire episode. The actresses in this show have proved that they are limited to TV celebrity status. None of them have ever been in a movie where their acting has shown (sometimes their bodies are shown in such movie classics as Heaven's Prisoners and the Cool Surface). Also, Tango and Cash, that was a great cinematic moment. But playing across from Stallone? That is better than playing across from Newman or Steiger when it comes to bringing out true acting talent.

The obvious, over-the-top hyping of this show on Good Morning America is a true ipecac. Every Friday and every Monday Charlie, Diane, and Robin talk about the show as if it were the most important news item of the day.

If DH were a magazine, you would find it in the grocery store checkout line over the tic tacs and next to People Magazine.

Real art and talent deserves to be recognized. This show deserves to be canceled.

However, given the garbage on TV, this show ranks about in the middle.

Where are the Seinfeld's, the Bob Newhart's. the Cheers, the Taxi's? Will we ever have a really good TV show again or will we be force fed this soap opera debris and told that it is great and nod our heads like so many marionettes in agreement.

The real allure of the show? Sexy middle aged chicks pretending to have sex.


Desperate Housewives began with a bang in season 1 but with a revolving door of cast changes starting in season 2 and the 5 year time jump, Marc Cherry might as well drive a nail through the series coffin. For the past 2 seasons, the series has had a number of recycled stories. The latest falls on Susan Mayer who is once again unlucky in love and having issues with her love life. Tom, Lynnette's husband is once again finding ways to liven up his miserable existence to his miserable hag of a wife. The show needs to end this season or next at the most. Further delays would severely cripple what remains of this one time hit.


When I enjoy a new show for a season or two but then find it growing stale or repetitive or degenerating into self-parody, prompting me to stop planning to see it and eventually to turn it off when I happen across it accidentally, that's a show that I will give a vote of 3 and then write a comment explaining that I'm not panning the entire run of the show but only the later seasons. Unfortunately, in this case, the 'earlier seasons' means the first half of the first season, so I'm only giving it a 2. It wasn't that I didn't think it was funny, it was more that I could tell most of what would happen each week just by watching the commercials. And because the story lines are convoluted and intertwined, I can't just watch it once in a while and enjoy it either.


Now that the second season is concluding, I want to say that I HATE this show, which gives off a bad vibe spreading like a plague. Thanks to Marc Cherry, we will be living with these dumbfounded housewives for the next few years, unless people get their brains checked, which is unlikely to happen! This show is an advocate for woman to watch 4 overrated actresses (not including Felicity Huffman, the only good one) to go through all these dumb stories that would better on "Days Of Our Lives" I can't stand it, I hate it! Most the cast is really bad too. Especially Marsha Cross, she is so ugly, and her head looks like a golden egg, or something all shiny and tight because she is so stupid and concerned about a single line that she is willing to look inhuman to fix it, and her acting is total crap! Avoid this junk!


Like most television these days, this show thrives on three things: Male bashing, naked women, no plot that takes some thinking to make. What happened to the days when shows like MacGyver and cartoons like Duck Tales were on television? What happened to normal shows like Highway To Heaven and Full House? Movies and TV in the last 10 years has only been able to make junk things. This sickness seems to pervade all facets of TV. Even advertisements have this problem. Desperate Housewives is a show that takes little thinking to make. It takes little thinking to follow. It takes little thinking to watch it. It's time to ditch these garbage shows and get something that we can call 'normal'. Because this show definitely belongs in the dustbin!!


Gabrielle said a comment that made me very disappointed in her. I have watched Desperate Housewives and sometimes they have shows that have a good moral to it and sometimes are funny. It is, I think, very well written. But over the past couple of episodes, I have been disappointed. When Gabrielle said that virginity went out of style in the 1950's, I wanted to tell her that I hope she knows she just convinced a lot of teenagers to go and commit adultery. Living in this world is already hard enough with all of the pornography and drugs out there, we do not need someone encouraging people that they would be cool if they were not a virgin. I am only 15 and I wanted to tell you that I will always be a virgin until I am married. That comment that she made has a huge impact on this world, and it is not a good one. I know it will cause a lot of sorrow in this world with the people because they will find out it will not bring happiness. I will never watch Desperate Housewives again unless you take that comment back!


I'm a really big Veronica Lake fan, but even she didn't keep my interest up in this movie. Perhaps it's just dated, but not one of her best.


Stars Pat O'Brien and Bette Davis have not near as much time as juvenile actor Junior Durkin in this one. It's another sociological drama from Warner Brothers about juvenile crime.

Junior Durkin is fresh off the farm in every sense of the word. The film opens up with Junior's Mom killed by a hit and run driver. Junior goes off to the big city to live with uncle and aunt Charley Grapewin and Emma Dunn.

They have conman boarder in Pat O'Brien and Junior falls for his spiel, hook, line, and sinker. O'Brien's a bootlegger and when his warehouse is raided, Junior takes the fall because he won't rat out his pal.

Junior goes to reform school where the conditions kind of open up his naive young eyes a crack. I think you can figure the rest of the plot.

Granted that things were more innocent back then even in Hollywood before the Code. But I have to believe that even audiences in 1932 had trouble believing this kid could be that naive. Also the beginning scene was totally unnecessary with Mom being killed. That storyline was left hanging. I was waiting for the driver to be caught and dealt with and he never was. Bad editing to say the least.

Warner Brothers got things a whole lot better with James Cagney in The Mayor of Hell the following year and then in a whole series of films with The Dead End Kids. Bette Davis is totally wasted on a thankless role.


This story is about a teen orphan who goes to live with his aunt and uncle. They have a blow-hard boarder, Pat O'Brien, living with them and the boy idolizes and believes in this man--even though practically everything he tells them is pure bull. O'Brien gives the boy a job working in a warehouse answering the phone. The boy doesn't realize that the warehouse is stuffed with illegal alcohol and after the police get a tip, they raid the place and jail the boy. However, the boy foolishly believes in O'Brien and keeps his mouth shut and is subsequently sent to reform school. Here, the kid finds out that reform school is not a very nice place (big surprise) and much of the rest of the film is an indictment against the juvenile justice system.

Despite all this, the boy remains convinced that O'Brien is his friend--even though at any point O'Brien COULD have gone to the police and told him the truth and had the boy released. Eventually the boy escapes because he's trying to get medical help for his buddy, Shorty. The press find out about the boy as well as the truth about his incarceration. O'Brien finally admits the truth and the boy is released--but it's too late for poor Shorty. Despite being dead, Shorty returns for an amazingly sappy and stupid conclusion, as we hear his voice saying goodbye to his friend in the final frames (gag me)! This general theme of kids unfairly treated in jail was repeated many times in the 1930s--some times with the Dead End Kids and some times without. And, considering how lousy the acting and dialog is in this movie, you might be best served to watch one of these other films. Plus, the boy, at times, just seems too dumb to be real!

Also, while Bette Davis is in the movie, she's largely given an unremarkable and bland role. Several years would pass before the quality of the material given her would improve. Poor Bette!


A young scientist is trying to carry on his dead father's work on limb regeneration.His overbearing mother has convinced him that he murdered his own father and is monitoring his progress for her own evil purposes.A young doctor uses reptilian DNA he extracts from a large creature and when his arm is conveniently ripped off a few minutes later,he injects himself with his formula and grows a new murderous arm...Admittedly the special effects in "Severed Ties" are pretty good and grotesque,but the rest of the film is awful.The severed arm is behaving like a snake and kills few people.Big deal.The acting is mediocre and the climax is silly.3 out of 10.


A young scientist Harry Harrison is continuing his late father's scientific research into limb regeneration with flying colours, but his interferingly dominate mother and her doctor lover want to sell off the serum. When he finds out, there is an accident involving Harry losing an arm. So, he tries out the serum and what eventuates is a genetically deranged arm that has a mind of its own.

Oh we've seen this oh so many times before, but what lifts this very campy and quite rubbery shonky junk is the performance of movie icons Elke Sommer and Oliver Reed. Actually it's not a bad flick by Fangoria films; just there are better ones out there, which are similar in vein. "Servered Ties" simply lacks it own distinctive style. The oddball nature and unpleasant splatter resembled "Re-animator" and even a touch of slapstick stuck out like something from "Evil Dead 2".

The comic story is truly whacked out with it's black humour, but it can get melodramatic and a bit in dry in the fun factor. Surprises do crop up, especially the flick's final outcome. Which is well accepted, as I thought it could have copped out with something more accessible. For a low-budget production the FX makeup can look rigid and very goofy, but there's some grotesque moments that will make you smile than actually cringe. Even a brush of sexual tension streamlines the story, thanks to Elke Sommer's sternly juicy performance as the mother. Oliver Reed is quite humorously deadpan in a wicked sense and he pulls it off extremely well. They were both immensely diverting as the couple you loved to hate. Billy Morrisette is delightful in a erratic performance as Harry. Director Damon Santostefano briskly paces the film and orchestrates some stylish scenes of gripping and bamboozling horror.

Yeah it's juvenile and basically silly nonsense, but you got to hand it to it for some undemanding entertainment.


The TV guide described the plot of SEVERED TIES as thus : " An experiment on a severed arm goes awry " so right away I thought this was going to be about an arm that`s got a mind of its own as seen in THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS or THE HAND or someone getting an arm transplant as in BODY PARTS . Both premises are tried and tested , or to be more accurate tired and tested so I was curious as to how the producers would approach the story . I actually thought they were making an arthouse movie like PI down to the use of B&W photography at the start of the film but the makers seemed to have tired of this approach after 20 seconds and decided to make a splatter comedy similar to THE EVIL DEAD . I`ve very little to say on this except that I disliked THE EVIL DEAD movies and I disliked SEVERED TIES and it seems really unfair that films like this use an obscene amount of rubber when the third world is crying out for condoms


Writer-director Blake Edwards helmed this disappointingly flaccid fictional murder mystery featuring true-life players. Miscast Bruce Willis is entirely inappropriate as silent screen cowboy Tom Mix, here befriending James Garner's Wyatt Earp and together solving a baffling Hollywood murder. Edwards' screenplay, from an original treatment by Rod Amateau, has a fun set-up, and Garner is certainly game, so why isn't this a galloping romp with suspenseful underpinnings? Could be due to Edwards' lackluster direction, the mostly uninterested supporting players, or the ham-handed attempts at nostalgia. Too bad; this scenario, with Mix and Earp in Lotus Land, had promise. Unfortunately, "Sunset" fades fast. *1/2 from ****


While not actually awful, "Sunset" (1988) is unexpectedly bad considering what it has going for it. Bruce Willis plays Tom Mix and James Garner plays Wyatt Earp; in truth they just play themselves (their standard characters) and because they are both very likable and have decent chemistry together the film has a strong foundation. Writer/director Blake Edwards gets his chance to make a film about old Hollywood movie-making, a project he was passionate about and worked hard to pull off. So it should work yet it doesn't even come close.

It's a crime thriller with comic and buddy picture elements set in 1929 Hollywood. With the sound era just dawning, Tom Mix is making a picture about the gunfight at the OK corral. An aging Wyatt Earp is hired as technical adviser on the film and the two become pals off the set. They stumble on a murder and work to solve a mystery involving a corrupt studio chief and his wife, sister, and son. His sister is nicely played by Jennifer Edwards who is best known for her title role in the controversial "Heidi" remake that interrupted the Jets-Raiders game back in 1968. Edwards gives the only really convincing performance. On the other extreme is an appearance by Mariel Hemingway that is so bad it might have been what inspired model Kathy Ireland to give acting a try.

The studio chief (played by Malcolm McDowell) is a kind of demented Charlie Chaplin; apparently Blake thought Chaplin was the only early Hollywood producer anyone in the target audience would recognize. But the characterization is incredibly lame and in the end nothing about the guy adds up.

Along those same lines the story is hopelessly contrived and generally moronic; more characteristic of a bad 1980's made-for-TV movie than a theatrical feature film. At one point Willis and Garner go to a club that specializes in girls who look like famous actresses, an ill-advised idea given that 1988 and later viewers have no idea who the sexy Hollywood personalities of that era actually were. Edwards is reduced to using Greta Garbo and Mae West as his examples; Garbo was just breaking into American cinema and West was three years away from making her first picture.

Contributing to the made-for-television feel is an extremely artificial production design on about the authenticity level of television's "The Time Tunnel".

So expect to enjoy the buddy picture antics of Willis and Garner but don't expect to be able to suspend disbelief long enough to get into the story or care anything about any of the characters.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.


I would rather be stretched on the rack than sit through this atrocity again. Blake Edwards, the very talented comedy/musical director who gave us The Pink Panther and Victor/Victoria, lays an egg with this unbelievably stilted attempt at a mystery/comedy/film noir/western. Maybe that is one of the main problems, that Sunset never knows exactly what it's supposed to be.

A (barely) pre-Die Hard Bruce Willis wanders around aimlessly trying to find some chemistry with a good-natured James Garner, who plays an impossibly young-looking Wyatt Earp now on the prowl (such as it is) in Hollywood in the late 1920s. A prostitute is brutally murdered (hilarious, ha ha) and naturally nobody knows who did it...hmm, you don't think it's the Malcolm McDowell character, who aside from playing his role from the pure Snidely Whiplash school of acting, has raped and/or murdered every female character in the film. Gee, Bruce and Jim, do you think you MIGHT have a clue here? After various grisly rapes, murders, shootings, a bashed-in nose with a frying pan, etc., the "heroes" put together the clues served to them on a silver platter and quickly get ready for the climax, which is about as surprising as the sun setting (no pun intended) in the west. By this time no one in the audience gives a damn who did it (they've known for the last 40 minutes), and one is left with the valiant hope that something dreadful will happen to the "heroes" before they mount up and ride off into the...well, you get the idea. Blake churned out a bunch of crap in the late '80s, but "Sunset" is unquestionably the nadir of his decline. Thinly-plotted, badly acted, and incompetently written, it's sad to see such a great director sink to these depths.


You're not lucky if you watch this film. Incredibly stupid comedy really stars Edward Tsang (in his stupid mode)and Anita Mui.It has something to do with an accident giving one of two brothers the ability to go into peoples dreams. Somehow Chow Yun Fat figures into the mess as a cop investigating a murder that he really committed and wants to keep covered up. Its awful, even by Hong Kong low grade humor standards with Tsang's mugging bringing everything down lower than it all ready is. Think sub low rent (homeless?) Lou Costello. Trust me you're better off not seeing Tsang dressed as a robot in the hopes of seeing girls naked. Avid this film


This is not only a dreadful movie, it is confusing, and has the feel of several movies stitched together sloppily. I watched it at 1.5 speed and still the pain did not end quickly enough.

What was real? What was dream-state? I still don't know; worse, I don't care.

I don't know and cannot imagine why Chow Yun-fat made this movie (he does not appear until more than 50 minutes into it) because he was successful already...he should have done commercials and sold floor wash or denture cleaners, done anything except this movie.

If someone offers to give you this movie, decline politely.


Ugh. I hate this movie. I hate the fact Chow Yun-Fat is in this movie. If there is one film I wish I could obliterate from my consciousness, this would be a Top Ten candidate.

In a rip-off of a number of Hollywood movies, Miu Kiu Wai plays a guy who has the ability to enter the dreams of others. This is how he twigs to the fact that there is a crooked cop on the force. While mucking about in other peoples' dreams he encounters vampires, monsters and just general stupidity.

Eric Tsang, surely one of the most annoying individuals ever born, portrays the trouble-magnet buddy as well as a salacious robot. He looks like a demented Tele-Tubby.

Chow Yun-Fat plays the cop. Anita Mui plays a reporter with a boyfriend who should know not to eat birthday cake with a hunting knife. Emily Chu Bo-Yee plays a piece of wood. Well, it just seems that way.

Terrible, awful and good only for making fun of at parties, this film is solidly in my list of CYF's Bottom Five movies. If you must see this one, try and get a friend to spring for the disc so you won't feel bad about wasting your own money on it.


"Alien from the Deep" is dull and dragging a horror/Sci-Fi from the usually great and reliable Antonio Margheriti, who admittedly already had to be retired around the time of release.

Two young environmentalists venture to an island resort to battle against a chemical plant company that dumps its barrels of radioactive waste straight into an active volcano. You've got to admit that's a pretty clever type of shenanigans if you're a ruthless and power-greedy businessman! The two get caught, however, but the girl escapes into the island jungle and finds rescue in the arms of a lone snake farmer (what an awesome profession that must be) and together they attempt to stop the illegal dumping. But it's too late, unfortunately, as the years worth of industrial dumping spawned a hideous monster. You'll have to be very patient and tolerant if you want to see a monster or alien or menace of any kind. We're far beyond the 50 minutes mark until there's a bit of gore and at that same moment the director thankfully reminds us that this movie is actually supposed to revolve on a monster of any kind with the discovery of a giant claw. Luckily from then and onwards, the pacing remains steadily fast, the atmosphere becomes grimmer, the make- up effects are satisfying and even Charles Napier's supportive characters  which until then was a dull persona  becomes sleazier. Still, "Alien from the Deep" takes itself far too serious, what with all its environmentalist lessons, and even has a certain aura of pretension hanging around it. There are some nifty miniature settings to recreate the destructive sequences that cost too much to film with real equipment and the monster  when you eventually get to see it in all its glory near the very end  is quite a massive and reasonably admirable construction.


Antonio Margheriti still is one of my favorite Italian directors (thanks to his 70's & 80's films), but the mix he presents us with "Alien From The Deep", he has done before and much better already. "Killer Fish" mixes a heist movie while cashing in on Joe Dante's "Piranha". With "Hunters of the Golden Cobra" he gave us a hero with James Bond allures in a film reminiscent of an Indiana Jones adventure. In a way, "Aliens From The Deep" fits in perfectly with all other blends of Margheriti entertainment. It's not on par with the films it borrows from, but it tries to redeem itself by going over the top a little further.

So what kind of blend does Margheriti present us this time? Obviously, the Italian title "Alien Degli Abissi" (which roughly translates to "Alien Of The Abyss") tries to cash in on James Cameron's 1989 hit "The Abyss". But that's where the comparison ends. Most of the film can be categorized as some type of 'adventure on a tropical island' film. Some military/governmental facility is dumping toxic waste into the earth. Some noble people try to expose this and ultimately stop them. Some action & some shooting. Fair enough.

Now what's with the alien-aspect of this film? Well, we have to wait a good 50 minutes for it to show itself, and it's not really an alien, but some mutant giant monster (basically formed by toxic waste, creating a symbiosis of organic material & scrap metal  I know, that sounds way too smart for a movie of this type) emerging from the bowels of the earth. It somewhat looks like a black giant crab-robot monster of sorts. It just gets thrown into the movie's third act so they could rip off the climax of Cameron's "Aliens". Remember Ripley fighting the mother-alien in that yellow robotic worker-unit? Well, it's here too, only it's some type of bulldozer.

So "Alien Degli Abissi" is just entertaining Margheriti nonsense (featuring yet again fun miniature effects) and nothing more. It's sub-par, as to be expected, but thankfully it's not boring. Oh, and it has Charles Napier running around in it, mainly behind computers. Other than that, he seems to have little else to do.

Good Badness? Yes, fair enough fun & inept action/adventure/monster fodder. 4/10 and 6/10.


Tirelessly prolific veteran Italian exploitation picture director Antonio Margheriti's cinematic oeuvre is a very mixed bag, running the gamut from delightfully sleazy ("Cannibal Apocalypse") to nice, spooky, dripping with sepulchral atmosphere fright film fun ("The Virgin of Nuremburg," "The Long Hair of Death") to entertainingly goofy sci-fi ("The Wild, Wild Planet," "War Between the Planets") to pleasingly tacky spaghetti Westerns ("The Stranger and the Gunfighter," "Take A Hard Ride") to the unavoidable occasional dud.

This sci-fi/horror/conspiracy thriller sadly constitutes as one of Margheriti's dullest and least satisfying features, mainly because it's crucially bereft of the gleefully trashy verve which distinguishes his more enjoyable efforts. In its place there's no sex or nudity, mild profanity, tame violence, an interminably draggy pace, a wearily drawn-out narrative, and tepid action sequences; in short, everything a solid, rewarding little B-movie needs to seriously smoke is noticeably absent here. The blah plot offers a tediously trite'n'tired mishmash of boringly overused clichés, centering on your standard evil corporation illegally dumping radioactive waste into a dangerously volatile volcano located on a remote obscure island. Two wet-nosed bleeding heart liberal limp dishrag Greenpeace workers discover the pernicious goings-on and spend the rest of the film being hunted down in the dense tropical jungle by the usual assortment of greasy company flunkies. Oh yeah -- and there's a lethal, clawed, slime-drooling, steam-expelling extraterrestrial subterranean creature the pair also uncover and do their best to protect from the conglomerate's vile, greedy clutches. Token semi-name rugged, craggy-faced, firm block-of-granite character actor Charles Napier portrays a typically malevolent nasty army colonel on thespic automatic pilot throughout, wearing a fixed scowl on his puffy, roughhewn mug and grumbling all his dialogue in a deep, earthy, barely audible rumble mumble. Napier's given precious little to do that's worth seeing, an unfortunately malady that infects this dismally dreary clunker as a lethargic whole.


I am a huge fan of Dragonball, love that stuff, but after watching "The Tree Of Might" Pioneer's Dubbed version I found that it wasn't anything special at all, I mean don't get me wrong there were a lot of good fight scenes here and there, but yet again, the ending was SOOO predictable! they use Goku's Spirit Bomb too much. I must say though the sound effects for when they are fighting are top notch, the sound effects are so crisp and satisfying and ACTUALLY sound like punches not "PHsHHH" slashing noises from FUNImation... also out of the 3 Pioneer movies "Dead Zone, The Worlds Strongest" and "Tree Of Might" this one has the most stupidest lines! Even though this one was an hour it still did not feel like it, this one isn't even as satisfying as Dead Zone or The Worlds Strongest go watch those instead.


I love Dragon Ball Z but the first three movies they produced were not great. This the worst of three. I honestly was out of the phase of Sayians being the villain. After Vegeta, there's no other good villain that's a sayian besides Broly. When I think evil, the word Turtle never comes to mind. I also don't like the voice acting. Just not the right people for the job. I'm so glad that the voices and the type of drawing changed after this movie, I'm not sure if I could have taken another one after this sad little movie. Also knowing that Super Sayain already existed while I watched this movie, made Kaioken just seem a stupid technique.


Entertaining. Didn't have a lot of substance, but it has a lot of good animation and fighting action. The plot is halfway decent, but don't even try to fit it into the DBZ timeline...apparently this is after Frieza, but Goku can't go Super Saiya-jin. I think. In any case, the fights are excellent, the dubbing is pretty nice, and this film really shows how exciting DBZ could be if they cut the trademark DBZ Long Stalling/Charge-up Sequences out of the cartoon, and maybe half the episodes...anyway, in general, it's pretty nice.


Someone actually read the script for this and then persuaded investors to put up the money? The bigger question is how did all these presumably intelligent actors get hooked into this? When did the FBI start driving black Humvees with no license plates? Some scenes looked like the camera crew accidentally left the camera running while the actors were just goofing off. What other purpose was there for the sequence concerning orange baseball or potato cannons? Come to think of it, what was the purpose of the entire hazardous spill and explosive cola? And I know any time I ask the FBI what's going on, they always have a red-covered EPA manual to give me so I can look it up myself. Note to auteur (and actor): If you are trying to leave town on your ALL TERRAIN VEHICLE, and the FBI (using both their Humvees and all their personnel) stop you at the only road across the absolutely flat, featureless desert, why not simply go a half-mile away and drive your ATV across the other-than-only-road-out-of-town terrain, like the flat desert, on which you so-desperately want to race tomorrow? But then you can always come back tomorrow and get shot, so you can ride to the trailer-house clinic in the paramedic ambulance that seems to be in every shot. A few more questions. Why does a town of 87 people have both a sheriff and a deputy? How exactly does one get promoted from deputy in a tiny town to sheriff in a larger town? Sheriff is an elective office. Why do the sheriff's vehicles have civilian license plates? The good thing about child-filmmakers is that they don't care about such things, and rich investors gleefully hand over large sums of money to make movies like this, and then lose their money. Just what they deserve.


Any town that needs a giant ice cream cone to put it on the map, has to be a pathetically boring place to live, so why make a movie about boredom? The end result is a well acted, but totally pointless film. You need more than a bunch of quirky characters trapped by a hazardous materials spill doing essentially nothing that creates interest. Even the truck crash, occasional pyrotechnic explosions, and a shooting, are done off screen, further contributing to this pointless and extremely shallow movie. John Heard has made some terrific films (see "Cutter's Way"), unfortunately "Desert Blue" would not be among them. You have been warned. - MERK


What really had the premise for being a great "who-done-it" mystery, falls flat with a script that waned toward the end. The predictability factor came in heavy around the middle, and the plot of using a dupe to do ones bidding is pretty formulaic. Lou Diamond Phillips, who is a super and intelligent actor, can't carry the picture on his presence alone. Madchen Amick also performs greatly, yet can't save the script, either.

While certainly not a turkey, HANGMAN never realizes its full potential, and the supreme lack of urgency or suspense didn't help. What the viewer is left with is a story that probably sounded good on paper, but fell far short on actual, physical execution. No pun intended. Recommended, but just barely over the mediocre hump.


Hangman is a somewhat interesting thriller with some good things but too many horrible mistakes that completely bury any enjoyment from the viewer and most of all any value the movie could have.

The main interest lies in the two `big' names of the cast. Cult favorites Lou Diamond Phillips and Mädchen Amick hold the movie together and through their solid acting prevent things from going just too ridiculous. I always though Diamond would make it big and it's a shame he didn't. He had the talent and charisma. Amick is still one of the most beautiful and sexy actresses around and one of the most underrated too. Too bad these people are stuck in this type of movie.

The script has its moments with some nice suspense but then it tried to be too smart for its own good and the plot turned unbelievable, dumb and a complete mess.

The ending however is what really turns Hangman into a bad joke and a waste of time for the public. This has to be one of the most idiot endings I ever saw even in a bad movie. Trust me its awful! There's no payoff at all, people! It's not shocking it's just annoying and terrible.

Without the ending Hangman would have been a decent thriller even with some really bad dialogue and plot holes the size of Texas but when the credits roll in you just feel like you wasted precious minutes of your life that you'll wish you had when death comes for you.

Only for Diamond fans since Amick really doesn't shine much!

Only good thing was the sex scene but don't expect much either. There was no nudity and it only lasted a few seconds. They didn't even get her sexy oufits.

Don't see it. Its not even cheesy fun. It's just a bad movie with nothing to recommend at all.

Stay away!


A generic cop thriller. The boys in blue hunt down a killer/stalker who likes to play sadistic games of "hangman" with the cops to give them a chance to save his victims.

The only thing in this movie I thought was good was Lou Diamond Philips, who seems to be great in everything i've seen him in. Why he chose to do this, I have no idea.

The basic premise could have gone somewhere, but there was a great deal of cheesy, cliche dialogue and I thought the actor playing the killer was miscast.

And I have a problem with the director here. Was he and crew doing shots of whiskey with the teamsters right before shooting began? I don't like giving overly negative reviews, but to tell you the truth, after seeing this, I think I will pass over anything with Ken Girotti's name on it. This was just a very poorly directed film. Even with the cheesy dialogue, it could have been good with Lou Diamond Philips and a director who knew what he was doing.


Sometimes I get the impression when the produces/director/cast/crew for the "made-for-tv" movies cross the border into Canada (as they often do,), some sort or ray or odorless gas descends upon them -- causing movies to be less than they otherwise should be.

Some of them (unfortunately, all too few) should be excellent, but are only "good;" those which should be good, turn-out only "fair;" and so on.

This one could have been "O.K," or "fair." But it was pretty bad.

The performances were fairly good, and the actors/characters somewhat engaging. But an average story went downhill as events progressed, and the ending was contrived, a bit silly, and about the most boring and unimaginative in the history of film-- in Canada or anywhere else.


Secrets and Lies is my favourite movie so I was keen to see this. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on any level - the plot is unbelieveable and contrived, and the characters a little annoying. All of this is a bit surprising given Leigh's other movies.


Never thought that there could be a Mike Leigh movie that I wouldn't like. But this is one. The thing with Leigh's movies is that the stories are for the biggest part just ordinary people in their ordinary everyday life. And it are the characters that almost make you feel like you are watching a documentary, that make them so special. This story is again a story with nothing much interesting. Two roommates that meet again. Half of the time in real life and the other in sort of flashbacks. But this time the acting is so very much overdone, that it is almost like I'm watching an American comedy, with just the fake laughs in the background missing. Apart from an occasional laugh, I watched it till the end as if I was sitting in the chair at my dentist. Just for old time Mike Leigh's sake.


I haven't got a clue why this film got such good reviews, especially in the press. It's a boring, irritating "film" in which nothing happens. The story is ludicrous: it centers around two ex-roommates/friends who meet again after six years. Their lives have changed, they've become more mature. We can see how they were years before, through a series of flash-backs.

This is a film by Mike Leigh, who has been praised for making such strong character studies, in which the story is less important than the people. SECRETS AND LIES was in the same style and is maybe his best known film. Although this was also an uninteresting and cold film, it had something of a story in it. You got (in a certain way) a chance to know something about the characters. But this film is a total disaster. What did these actors for example eat: were they on speed or what? why did they act this way? The Ricky-character for example is good for a few unintended laughs , but I think the director told him to say whatever words came to his mind, so that he could mumble through the film.

But the true uninteresting, even irritating characters are the main ones: the two girls. You never quite get to know them so you never get to care about them. The fact that they act as lunatics and talk the same way doesn't help either. It's almost impossible to understand the conversations, especially in the beginning. And what do they actually talk about? Does this have a meaning? The film is filled with such a stupid dialogue.

I can't recommend this film to anyone. It's simply to dumb. And if you would choose to watch this film(and sit through it!), you got to ask yourself the question in the end: why in God's name do we need such a film? I dare you to watch it and tell me, cause I simply don't know what good these 90 minutes did to my life. 3/10


If ever I have seen a worse movie, I can't remember it. While browsing around a Video Store one day, my girlfriend picked this up out of the

bargain bin for about five bucks because she said that it looked like

it would be interesting and how could you go wrong for five dollars etc. All very well and good I suppose....but less than half an hour into this mess my girlfriend could stand it no more, and I had to literally force myself to sit there and watch this train wreck of a

movie. I would tell you about the acting, but there is no acting in this film....it's like watching pictures on a post card. I would tell you about the plot....but if I could do that, it would mean that I made sense out of this mess and would definitely be in need of some real help! There is no redeeming qualities in this film, and if you see it in the bargain bin on DVD, take it up to the clerk, chastise them for improper labeling, then have the clerk stick a Frisbee sticker on it.


If you like confusing flashbacks, good cinematography, competent acting and like to solve puzzles, this may be the film for you.

The problem with this production is that after you take the time to solve the puzzle you realize that you've been been conned.

There really is nothing to do this other than the idea of showing a part of New Orleans that doesn't revolve around Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, romance or the conflicts between cajuns, blacks, rednecks and old plantation owners. Once you get past those things you realize that New Orleans is just a regular city with good and bad qualities but just a little flashier than Cincinnatti or Louisville.

The story, if you can call it that, revolves around a promising pro golfer who got bounced off the tour because he wanted to search for the "meaning of life" and decided to drink along the way.

The "way" brings him into a relationship with two sisters who he went to grade school or something with and a possibly closet gay attorney, Jared Harris. who has also fallen victim to the evils of drink.

Oh and his late father was of course a groundskeeper at a wealthy country club which the two sisters are members of.

There are some scenes of him Campbell Scott, our hero, running to find a train constantly blocking his path across the tracks and of course a "seer" commenting that "another will be along" when he misses a ride on the trolley. And of course when he does get across the tracks he finds himself in a flophouse with the "po folk" and is rescued by one or the other of the two sisters.

Then the attorney may or may not have been killed so the local police naturally think he may or may not have done it for the insurance money.

Make sense so far? Well there are also two escapees from one of Jack Kerouac's bad dreams who are also suspects and a family friend who is a drug dealer with guilt feelings.

The writer threw those characters in to make a gullible viewer, like myself, think this was an art film and had some kind of deep meaning.

David Lynch often does that too as witness the success of "Blue Velvet".

But be advised I gave this a 3 out of 10 only because the photography is very good and the cast obviously needed the money and tries very hard.

If you are worried about your 401K monies or your bar tab, don't rent this.


I rented this loser because it mentioned Campbell Scott, who I admire very much as an actor, and New Orleans. You can always be sure the aura of the town of New Orleans can recall many Tennessee Williams plays of substance. This movie, written and directed by Mark Gibson in 1999, ain't the same.

A golf pro, ousted from the profession due to boozing it up, and we never know why, comes home to a mish mash of people and events. He strikes a friendship with a gay lawyer, or is he gay, who's out to swindle his insurance with a fake suicide. Unfortunately he too is a drinker and from there the plot goes awry. Scott, playing the golfer, seems more interested in a white dog that travels the streets and the graveyards. What this dog is supposed to do, no one knows. Maybe he was off the set of White Fang. Anyway, things occur, very puzzling things, that make no sense at all. Also in this mixed up plot are two sex starved sisters played by Laura Linney and Laurel Holloman.

I finally gave up on this and fell asleep. I give it one star just in respect of Campbell Scott's attempt. See him in LONGTIME COMPANION. He's so much better in that.


I give a show a 3 if I really enjoyed it for the first year or two, but then found it growing stale, stopped planning to watch it, and eventually turned it off when I accidentally ran across it. It's especially annoying to be disappointed by a show you used to consider a favorite. (When I give a low score for this reason I always comment so that it's clear I'm not slamming the entire run of the show but only the later seasons.) Good performers but the material degraded across time. Hope to see them turn back up on the schedule, preferably not in a spin off but in fresh scenarios that allow them to develop and show off aspects of their talents we have not yet seen.


Malcolm in the Middle is important for a very strange reason: much less the Drew Carey Show, it's one of those examples where the show lasted three seasons longer than it had to, and becomes one of those strange 'abondoncoms' in which anybody who works on the show is recognized for being on the show, but has to remind everybody that it wasn't cancelled three years ago. It was just shifted off to compete against Survivor or something more culturally relevant. Or got the fabled Futurama deathslot before the important Simpsons/Seth McFarlane trifecta.

Does this mean it was a good show? Honestly, it suffered greatly from the puberty curse. Taking a glimpse at the hyped 'series finale' it's clear that the show probably would have been better served if it just gave up the ghost about three years ago. The situations are effective for smaller children, but when those children are sporting horrible acne, cracking voices, and puberty mustaches it comes off as sad and desperate. In fact, when it comes down to history, Malcolm in the Middle can be summed up in two ways:

1) As a skit on Family Guy that showcases how annoying the mother is. 2) As more ammo against Frankie Muniz when his career turns into game show appearances or episodes of Cops as the perfect juxtaposition between 'sitcom family life' and 'child predator/drunken mess/druggie/meth addict who gets caught urinating in a gutter and beaten by cops.'

Malcolm is an example of sitcom days gone by. If this ran on NBC during the big Cheers/Seinfeld/Friends decade, then it would have ran for nine years, supported on bigger shows. But those times are gone, perhaps forever, and it's hard to see how this show is going to make an impact when nobody remembers it exists until the series finale is used as gum to keep people watching until Family Guy. Unfortunately for this reviewer, that ploy didn't work.

Malcolm in the Middle is dead, but that's not the bad news. The bad news is that people thought it was already dead, and seeing how lame the situations became, perhaps it would have been better if it had.


This game is god-awful! It's based off of the second Harry Potter film, which was good. So I decided to pick this up. Guess what? THIS GAME WAS TERRIBLE! The graphics are very good, but everything else? Insanely crappy.

First of all, you have to play as Harry Potter. He's cool in the movies. He can do things. But in this game, he can't even walk right without getting killed or some crap like that. Second of all, Ron is gay. And so are his homosexual brothers, Michael Jackson and T.R. Knight. Whenever Harry messes up on something(which he always does), the three Weasley douchebags say stuff like "That was ****ing rubbish!".

And plus, the game is stupid, so in conclusion, I say that this game is lame. 1/10


I saw this movie at the cinema long ago. In fact, it was so long ago that the main feature still included a B-movie companion. And here 'The Plank' was it. Oddly; I can remember this, but not the A-movie it supported.

Eric Sykes' effort included a who's-who of British comedy from the time. Each of them become involved at some stage or another with this plank of wood in a series of banal set-piece gags. Frankly, I found it childishly contrived even then. Which is probably why I remembered it. Some 20 years later I saw it on television and the stunts were quite painful to behold. Sphincter-puckering is the term.

It's a sort-of silent movie. It might even pass for surrealism at times. But the idea doesn't quite work. If the French had done this, I suspect the result would have been an absolute scream. But it's not the kind of concept we Brits are particularly good at. And this is the proof.

There's the cream of comic talent at the director's disposal. Any one of several could have a theatre rolling in the aisles; but here they, and their unique skills, are each subordinated to Sykes' old-fashioned brand of predictable variety-hall humour, and they are simply wasted.

Although it was released in 1967, it represented a simplistic, juvenile 'take' that had pretty-well run its course 10 years earlier. As nice a bloke as he was, Eric Sykes was a comedian who simply couldn't move with the times. If he were in light entertainment even today, this is still the stuff he would be producing. By 1969 came 'Monty Python', with modern comedians and fresh comedy. Both styles observed back-to-back represent two different generations yet separated by just 2 years.

As a chance to play 'spot the comedian' this item is a quiz in itself, but as comedic entertainment it's a bit of a disaster, unless you're under 5 years old.

I suspect they'll love it in Albania.


The Plank by Eric Sykes is one of my favourite Comedy Shorts so I was very glad when I found that a DVD version was available - that is until I actually bought one with the intention of replacing my ageing copy of The Plank on VHS tape.

Unfortunately I found the DVD was not the version I had gotten used to and despite having Eric Sykes and Jimmy Edwards repeating their TV roles, this DVD seems to be aimed at a cinema audience with an IQ of zero since the film Tittles are accompanied by a stupid laughter sound track which is both overbearing and unnecessary but seems to have been added in case people didn't know they were about to watch a comedy.

The DVD is clearly based on the the same script as the TV version available on VHS Cassette but there are many small changes which somehow conspire to cause most of the jokes, which are very funny with the VHS cast, to fall flat and as mentioned before, the sound track irritates rather than complements.

I find the VHS version to be extremely funny and if you like British Humour and enjoy trying to name all the people involved, you will find the VHS tape is packed with well known faces from TV, Film and Sport.

For me the highlight is Charlie Drake failing to deliver a cake but it's also fun to see Diana Dors sending herself up - as she used to in later life when she lost her slender shape - in fact I just cannot watch this film without getting a very broad grin on my face.

It was very disappointing to find this DVD was NOT of the TV production and in my opinion it is an unsympathetic production. Though similar in content to the Charlie Drake version it just doesn't manage to rise to the same level of comedy and the sounds over tittles on the DVD makes me cringe and want to turn it off without even watching it.

I genuinely urge anyone who has only known this DVD to try and see the VHS version before concluding that The Plank is not a very funny film indeed


I picked this up in a cheap DVD dump bin, having remembered it from childhood - and wow has it dated. There's very little to smile at anymore! Two poms with bad comedic timing bumble around with a plank, encountering stereotype after stereotype including an equally bumbling Constable Plod who is more interested in picking up than anything. It's really only relevant today as an historical snapshot (much like the Australian film JEDDA) - a museum piece, if you will. Slapstick has been done far better than this.

2/10 for its quasi-charm (though even that was more annoying than charming after 3 minutes!)


The rich started taking advantage of the poor since the 16th century, when is agreed that capitalism was born (I would like to know what brilliant economic system ruled before that). According to the director's view and people interviewed for this documentary, colonialism is responsible for the division between north and south that we see today, and that's when capitalism starts. All the fault falls upon Spain, Portugal, Holland and England (but wasn't the US a former British colony? What about Australia? Maybe they were lucky they did not have any gold).

The message is correct: there is a huge gap between rich and poor. The system is a failure, as appropriately states John Perkins. But the director committed the mistake of showing less well-founded words from Amartya Sen and more of labor unionists and most-probably corrupt politicians of emerging countries, that use their speech to manipulate less-educated masses. There is much information with lack of basis in this doc. 1) Brazil does not have 50 million people starving but 13 million, as data from 2004. 2) India and China are not emerging economies because of communist protectionism (as mentions Cliff Cobb); on the contrary, they boomed only after they opened their markets. And 3) Germany is not the largest coffee exporter in the world. Those are things I knew, but because of that, I was skeptical about all the other information in the documentary.

Talk about poverty. But use the right data.