I admit that I was obligated to take my children who are 7 and 10. Yes I along with many other parents dreaded the thought of wasting my $25.00 on this trite silliness. But after a while I began to enjoy my children's involvement in the movie and reaction to this which was no less than enjoyable. It's a silly sloppy dog film with a good heart. It's loaded with predictable outcomes, suspense and fantasy clichés. Not bad for innocuous entertainment.

So adults need to sit back, cut your losses, lighten up and accept the 2 hours of kids laughing. What I find most humorous is to see has been stars reduced to B-movie level as the likes of Lisa Kudrow and Mr. Dillon. That was the most enjoyable aspect for me. So in essence adults can find the inside joke to movies like this.


The only reason I did not give this a 1 is because I'm sure the bottom end of the target audience, kids up to maybe 5 years old, will like it. However, this movie was truly horrible. I think the problem rests on the poor acting of the children/young adults and the script. I'm 99% certain the script writers were told "we want to do a movie where there is a hotel for dogs, make it work somehow." Spoilers follow, none of much consequence. The opening of the movie, with two white kids in a foster home ripping off a store owner with a box containing a rock instead of a cell phone because they want to buy some burgers for their dog, is the first blow to the movie's credibility. What kind of morals does that teach, first of all? Also, these kids look way too healthy, happy, and affluent to warrant stealing for petty money. So they don't like the dinner their foster mom makes them, so their dog is a stray after 3 years because these kids are irresponsible, so what? The acting is incredibly bad, the characters about as stereotypical as possible - It's Nickelodeon, what else should we expect? If they had worse foster parents, or at least demonstrated being more distraught and emotionally damaged from their parents dying, I'd forgive the stupid stealing bit. The kids act like snobby self-righteous brats throughout the entire film. It basically teaches kids that you can act however you want if you think your mom and dad don't pay enough attention and cook like crap, and that even if you are perfectly well off it is fine to break the law for petty cash.

If you are a dog lover, and a serious one (moderate dog lovers won't love the dogs enough to get past story and acting flaws), then you may enjoy the bits where the dogs act cute. Other than that, I had perfectly acceptable expectations of a KID'S movie about dogs, and they were clearly far too high... If the kids are old enough to see this by themselves, they won't like this movie. If you're stuck taking them, see a movie in a different theater. If they're too young to be unsupervised in front of a screen for an hour and forty minutes, get a dog lover friend to take them.


Guys, I'm sincerely tired of movie industries deciding all children are stupid. I respect children. Children have now been stereotyped as morons who laugh at anything that makes a stupid noise and poop jokes. Now, people may say that this is of their maturity level. Well, of course it is! Only because they've been made to enjoy it by drivel like this. Start your kids out with good films, ageless films that are good for adults and kids. Like Fantastic Mr. Fox, or Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, or anything related to Pixar. Give them a film they won't look back at later on and have to shame themselves for. Deciding your child is going to enjoy any film with animals and farts is what I'd call neglect. So don't come and complain that we're rating this as an adult's film when it isn't, because you rate films on what they're meant to be. This is meant to be a kid's movie. At that, it is insulting to children, assuming they're all complete morons. Please, pick a good film.


Emma Roberts, Don Cheadle, Kevin Dillon, Lisa Kudrow and Don Cheadle all star in one stupid film. 2009 has had some fantastic children's entertainment. We had Up and Where the wild things are, both made my top three for the year. We also had Night at the museum 2, which wasn't art but was still decent. But before all of these good films, we had Hotel for dogs. Trust me, don't check into it. You can see what the hell is going to happen in this film once all of the characters are introduced.

The plot is simple stuff. A brother and sister(Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin), who are living with their stupid foster parents(Kevin Dillon and Lisa Kudrow) decide to open up a hotel for a bunch of stray dogs. Them and their friends help also.

While watching the film, you can definitely see where the hell it is going. You know that eventually the hotel for dogs will become a big thing. They will try to keep it a secret from the adults. They will get new foster parents. A lot of this film is unfeasible also. How would they get the money to make all of this crap? Where would they get the money for the dog food? They are kids.

All I can really say about this movie that is good... well, not that much. Not even the dogs could save it. Well, perhaps they do a little bit. The dogs in the film are very cute. But besides that, the film is kind of like dog crap. It's not a total mess, but it's one of the worst films of the year. Predictable, cheesy, and a ton of other things, please be sure to stay away from this film.

Hotel for dogs:*1/2 out of ****


Hotel for Dogs is the story of two foster children who adopt stray dogs and find a place for them, as well as filling their need for family, in an abandoned hotel.

This is not a terrible movie, but the viewer has seen it all before. There's not much originality here in its typical underdog makes good, love conquers all kind of story.

It has some amusing parts, the acting is reasonable, the dogs are cute and the pacing is decent, but there's really nothing exceptional in it.

It's worth a watch if you like this kind of sappy family comedy, but there's not a lot of substance and nothing that you'll remember in five years.


Oh, my God. Where do I even begin with this horrid little kids film? The implausible situations? The horrendous dialogue and acting? (Except for Don Cheadle - by the way, what the hell are you doing in this movie?) The ridiculous and over familiar plot and storyline? The God-awful, overwhelming musical score? Hmm...you pick, and we'll start there.

Two kids find an abandoned hotel and use it to house a bunch of stray dogs. That's pretty much it. They could've been innovative and original with this idea, but instead, like always, they screwed it over in favor of recycling ideas.

The one thing that bothered me the most is the music. The music can either make or brake a film. And, sometimes, with less there is more (No Country for Old Men) and with more (Hotel for Dogs) it becomes tiresome and incredibly annoying. That and it wasn't very enjoyable to listen to.

I can't say too much else because I don't want to bore you with complaints, but that's all I can really say about this atrocity of a film. I actually feel sorry for all of those involved with this shite.


The worst thing about this film is that the main children are complete cheats, liars and thieves!!! It starts with them being fraudulent with a stone in a mobile phone box that they then shrink-wrap and sell for $27 - supposedly for dog food - burgers!. They steal a lot of stuff from their foster parents, and even lie to their friends!!!! They pile lie upon lie when they could easily have told the truth about their parents. I had to try to explain to my children that their behaviour was wrong and naughty - no excuses!!! None of it is really plausible - the abandoned hotel with all the stuff in it etc. Can't believe I paid good money and wasted time on this!!!

I truly cannot believe so many people condone this type of behaviour - it shows what a sorry state our morals really are in.


It seems that over the last few years feminism is getting a stronger hold on anime. This is more than evident in this picturesque and extremely depressing anime - among the same level of depressing as Neon Genesis and Elfen Lied. What I could see almost instantly that the sinister and well hidden agenda of this anime is undermine the male gender while lionising and glorifying the female. This anime is not the usual man-hating that anime like Love Hina and almost every other recent anime which is slapstick has. This is far more serious. The anime asks me were women oppressed in the preceding generation? The answer of course is yes - there were some tyrannical men who wanted to 'oppress women.' But in the World Wars hundreds of men were killed just to investigate enemy grounds - they were expendable. This anime is a prime example of a source that will be used in the approaching inevitable Men's Movement as it depicts men as evil thoughtless zombies who answer to their dodgy generals and political leaders who are killed by the two heartless female assassins as if they were nothing! An example that men are oppressed by other men yes but thats not the worst of it! Mirielle and especially Kirika unlike the men they slay so casually and cruelly - and it almost always IS men - bleed - as if trying to show they are human and the men they kill are not. The cast is all female with Chloe joining in too add to the killing. This anime lionises women with the two maidens of death hogwash that will make any male viewer who is not a complete wuss wonder about his worth as a man - its just like Lucy from Elfen Lied being made to look like a holy virgin pure daughter of the mother god! Can you imagine the success of this anime if it were two men who were killing women every episode? It would be banned from countries! It does have an interesting story I'll admit though the ending is just plain pathetic as is Kirika who is supposed to be some rip off of Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis who's lost her memory. I can't give an anime that depressed the hell out of me a good rating. It seems that the only serious anime now a days are plagued by feminism. If its not slapstick anime where its easy to have the females kicking around the 'perverted' weak males then they'll just do anything to make females the leads and in charge and by far the stronger and more pure and innocent sex in the more powerful anime. This anime is a good watch for anyone really though. As it will further educate the male population how worthless their lives are and how hated they are and thus speed up the arrival and strengthen the backlash against the very message of this anime - feminism. People just love this anime because they are so blind to this fact.


"Very loud,"The Producers" "- as Noel Coward might have said.10 minutes of it goes a long way.I remember the posters on the Underground when the movie first came out."The funniest film I have ever seen",says Peter Sellers.Well,certainly everybody who's in it seems convinced they're being funny.Knowing looks,nods and winks are dispensed freely isn't this a hoot everyone seems to be saying,you've got to laugh haven't you?Er,no,actually,you haven't.You've seen one spoof Nazi production number and you've seen them all.Messrs Mostel and Wilder work themselves up into a frenzy to very little effect as far as I'm concerned although I note that many many people find them hilarious. Mel Brooks can be very funny,a master of the witty riposte,interviewee sublime and king of the punsters,but in "The Producers " he over eggs the pudding enormously - grotesquely even.Frantic humour can work but it needs a director in charge of his actors - a firm controlling hand. Contrast Bogdanovich and "What's up doc?" with Mr Brooks either failing or not bothering to get a grip on his cast. He did better with the sublime Madeline Khan in "Blazing saddles " and curbed the excesses of Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein" so perhaps "The Producers" was the start of a sharp learning curve. Certainly it exudes a certain "I'm making fun of the Nazis so it must be funny" quality that might make you feel guilty for not falling about. See past that and there might be less there than meets the eye.


On watching, I found the storyline of this production rather fanciful. It reads well as a synopsis but feel that emotional immaturity of the production has been reflected in rather major flaws in the logic of the plot and consequent over dramatisation by actors that would, under other directorship, produced sterling performances.

There is, of course, a place for fantasy in British film, but this is sold as a true-to life story and, in my opinion fails to reach the level that we should expect of young film writers and producers, such as those from Kewhaven, in Britain.

Im sorry, but I really do find it hard to believe that this film nominated for an award and would suggest that viewers modify their expectations if they are anticipating an award winning feature when booking to see.


In the opening of the film there is a scene of a modern steam-powered freight train leaving Calgary, and there the accuracy comes to an end. This film is supposed to be based on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but it's pure Hollywood hokum. Nobody did their homework. There is the usual shoot-outs, gun battles, renegade Indians, "bad guys," sabotage, and the "romantic angle." None of these things happened during the building of the Canadian Pacific; the ever-present Mounties saw to it. In defense of the film it is a typical out-of-the-file story. Not good, but not that bad either. Randolph Scott is good (Randolph Scott was always good!) If you're looking for a Saturday-afternoon-matinée Western, this one will do. If you're looking for an accurate story of the building of the Canadian Pacific, forget it.


Don`t bother with this poor remake, see the 1951 original.

Being an English person who went to private school I understand that the original captured the atmosphere and emotions of its time. Certain films are made about a certain place in time which is where they belong.

The remake has all the political correctness and weakness of a soap. Also, don`t the directors know that Latin was removed from school curriculum twenty years before the remake was set.


It is a lousy remake of what was a superb original film.

Certain films have a time and place and this one belongs in a post war grammar/private school and not in a current comprehensive school.

The older British grammar schools had good and bad qualities but there was a general aspiration to Greatness. During the 1960s the left wing labour government destroyed anything that was good in British education and replaced it with bland "comprehensiveness". Last year (2004) they apologised and admitted the mistake  a bit late for the unfortunate pupils of the 60s and 70s who were stuck in their dreadful system.

The remake is just like the school it is set in, bland and soulless  the ideal training ground for future telephone sanitisers.


I got this out one wet Sunday afternoon hoping for an inspirational school drama along the lines of "To sir with love" or "Dead poets society"-- something to moisten my eyes and make me think anything was possible. Boy was I wrong -- this muddling drama, which covers the last days of an old masters career at an English public school, was depressing from beginning to end. As each element of the masters tragic life was revealed to me, I kept wondering when the turn-around point would be. Surely this entire movie was not just going to be the telling of the sad life of an uninteresting man and an ineffective teacher -- surely there would be some rising climax to contrast the woe. But no! For the final speech scene which I hung on for, the master turned out the most embarrassing self pitying display I have ever seen on film -- something like my grandfather when he's had too many drinks at Christmas. Of course, the teachers and students dutifully applauded, shouted and stomped (to indicate to the viewer that this was indeed the climax) but I was just thought he was an old fool. There were admittedly some nice insights into human behavior and relationships and some good English upper-class mocking (tea and cricket chaps!) but the other characters never seemed to develop as if to save room for the central story. Unfortunately, the sad old teacher didn't developed beyond self-pity throughout the entire movie, leaving me with the definite impression that he "..got what he deserved, no more and certainly no less".


With James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli involved and some really good stars this sounded worth a watch, so I did. Basically Tony (Jack Lemmon) and Felix (Robert Mitchum) sail around the Caribbean in their tramp boat doing odd jobs and drinking. While travelling they meet Irena (Rita Hayworth) and agree to take her to another island, and they both fall for her, leading to a break-up of partnership and betrayal. Tony goes on a cargo ship to take a job, but after a crash his legs are trapped underneath a large metal structure, and it seems only Felix can help him. Also starring Herbert Lom as Harbor Master, Bonar Colleano as Lt. Sellars, Anthony Newley as Miguel, Bernard Lee as Dr. Sam Blake, Edric Connor as Jimmy Jean and Peter Illing as Captain of the 'Ulysses'. It is unfortunate that the film itself turned out not to be very interesting, it was pretty boring actually. Adequate!


The previous commentators have succinctly and excellently commented on this film. As a Lieutenant in the USN aboard ships which often went to the West Indies the movie has a nostalgic charm to it aided by the strictures of the Hayes Code and the mandatory happy ending.

The only "errors" were the stationary and never moving beer bottles sitting [or glued]on an I-beam despite the fact that the ship is literally falling apart and sinking at the bow.


You'd sure think that with Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon and Rita Hayworth this would be an exceptional film--but it isn't--at least in a good way! Despite all this talent, Mitchum and Hayworth are essentially wasted--especially Mitchum who is given very little to do during the film other than to act grumpy! In addition, mid-way through the film, the entire flow of the movie stops and it's almost like an entirely different film for 45 minutes. At the end, it unconvincingly returns back to the original and far inferior story.

The plot involves two partners who live in the Caribbean--making money taking people on fishing trips or doing a little smuggling. When a guy pays them to transport Miss Hayworth secretly out of the country, Mitchum responds with some nonsense about "hating women like her" and other such nonsense. To the well-trained ear used to bad movies, this obviously means "I'll act like I hate her through most of the film, but soon we'll be slobbering all over each other!". What a horrid cliché--and so predictable.

Later, when Mitchum is treating Hayworth badly, Lemmon assumes the role of Sir Galahad and defends her. Eventually, he even decides he wants to marry her and take care of her. However, Hayworth knows that she's just no good and won't commit.

In the interim, Lemmon goes on a very dangerous smuggling mission without Mitchum. He wants to get money for Hayworth to smuggler her into the United States, so he feels it's worth the risk. Things go poorly, however, and Lemmon's boat is destroyed. He hops aboard a freighter and makes for the island where Hayworth is waiting. However, completely out of the blue, there is an accident on board and Lemmon is trapped and the boat is about to explode (gosh) and there's a very limited amount of time to save him. However, all attempts fail and it looks like Lemmon will be blown to smithereens. This part of the film is actually very tense and interesting--and DOESN'T star Mitchum or Hayworth but a whole new cast of characters!! As I said, it's like a movie within a movie.

In the end, Hayworth and Mitchum return to help out good 'ol Jack, but by now (no surprise), Hayworth and Mitchum have discovered that they don't hate each other but are in love (gag me).

The film is poorly constructed, clichéd, stupid and failed to do anything with the only good part of the film (Lemmon trapped on the boat). What a waste of good talent.


It's not a bad concept, it could have been pretty good, but  poorly plotted, poorly scripted, poorly acted. The lead is just chanting his lines, the only actor with any believability is the always amazing Jeremy Piven. Too many places where I groaned and thought "Oh no!" Every time he connects with a previous day, you see it coming - the jail scenes, for example. Pathetic. Too predictable, too unimaginative  I mean this guy is so obsessed with the girl - he never considers the other possibilities. If you knew you would be living the same day over and over until you found a way out, wouldn't you look for a way to profit? There's obviously no reason to hurry. Too made-for-TV. It focuses entirely on the love story, never on the philosophical and intellectual implications. A total let-down. Skip it.


As an aviation buff, I thought that this movie sucked. Passing off F4's as MiG's is just the beginning. The army sergeant is WAY too fat; he would have never been allowed to remain on active duty. The Soviet Union did not use women combat pilots in the 80's. (I know this because I used to study and teach Soviet combat tactics.) And the incident at the beginning of the movie would not have been something that could just be "hushed up." Much of the footage is from the first Iron Eagle. And that movie, although fanciful, is much better and many times more realistic. There are much better aviation movies out there. I was greatly disappointed by this one.


. . .and you can't accuse it of being a "Top Gun" ripoff. But this one? No excuses! It is! Especially when you got one of the characters trying to carry himself like the Maverick character in Top Gun.

I can see why the U. S. Air Force wouldn't lend a hand and its jets (again) for this one.


Throughout my teens I looked to the character of Doug Masters as a kind of big brother that I never had. He was cool, a hit with the ladies and had pretty much single-handedly wiped out a small Middle Eastern country in the film Iron Eagle. Like many teenage boys in the 80's I wanted to wipe out a Middle Eastern country of my own, but was never given the opportunity, so when I heard that there was going to be an Iron Eagle 2 I was very excited.

Now, bearing in mind that Doug had shot down dozens of evil, nasty non-American pilots in the first film, and that was without any training, he would now be an even better pilot, since he'd joined the US air force. But who could stand in Doug's way now? Surely this young pilot could single-handedly wage war on pretty much any country he wanted. Libya, Iraq, Columbia, Canada, no one could stop him.

However in the first two minutes of the film he was shot down and killed.

The rest of the film is a kind of blur to me now as I was in a state of shock and going through the early stages of post-traumatic stress disorder. I had just witnessed my elder brother (I know, I know I am seeing a therapist) getting killed by a Russian pilot! What made it all the more worse was that he'd not even put up much of a fight. Through the shock my mind started ticking over and analysing the situation.

`If Doug was capable of obliterating a country the size of Wales or the State of Washington and he'd just been shot down by some naughty communist, then surely a single Soviet pilot could wipe out the entire USA!'

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's very realistic. I've seen Red Dawn, so I know how easy Russians are to kill and this film failed to realise that But to make matters worse, the Americans then team up with the Russians to attack a small Middle Eastern country together! Hang on a minute! Doug could have done that by himself!

Don't watch this film. It killed the big brother I never had.


This time Louis Gossett Jr returns to whip new American and Russian recruits in line to prepare them for a mission against middle eastern terrorists who have gotten a nuclear launching site, of course the mission is meant to fail but in the heat of it all heroism prevails over the differences of the soldiers in question. Iron Eagle II was as ridiculous as it's predecessor however the edge of the first one and the overall amusing teenage vengeance angle is in favor dropped in favor of your basic military mission that for the most part is watchable if not too interesting. Iron Eagle II is fun in short spurts it is just that there is just too much character development and Gossett while good is not there nearly enough to bail out the movie's lame drama. Still it is at least better than the next two entries.

* * out of 4-(Fair)


Comically bad.

I watched it for the "Louis Gosset Jr." scene but I didn't get to see it.

Otherwise I would have given it a 3.

The LGJ-Scene is like in Iron Eagle I and Toy Soldiers where there's some kid who's in waaaaaay over his head and the guys in charge are about to give up, but then LGJ says...

"This kid is different! I believe in him! He can be trusted to take on terrorists OR fly a billion-dollar jet into enemy territory, you got to trust me!" and sure enough, he always sways their opinion.

The 80's rocked.


What do you do when you're a young director with a hit on your hands? You go off and direct a flop like Superman IV. Then you get talked into doing a needless sequel to your big hit, only a few years ago. Well that's what happened to Sidney J. Furie. In an attempt to tell a more serious, or adult story Furie reject everything about the first film that made it work. Instead he chose to take all the fun out of the film with in the first few minutes of the picture. The first film was more of a Teen movie, it stood out because of that fact. It was fun and energetic, but this one is dry and slow. As a stand alone film, it's sort of boring. As part of the Iron Eagle franchise, it's down right depressing. First it's about the US and Russia teaming up on a mission to stop some terrorist from launching a nuclear bomb, but it never really is clear why one or the other can't just take on the mission by themselves. The characters seem either cardboard flat, or outright dumb. The biggest mistake they make is the under use of Louis Gossett Jr. His character doesn't seem to really have a place, except standing around and barking orders. He never seems to have the same energy as he did in the first film. The ending was fine, if not reminiscent of Star Wars. The contrived Love story didn't work at all for me, it felt like they were again trying to take the story into more adult territory and in that lost the point of what makes the first one so good...


The first film was so-so, and the sequel is rock-bottom. Never mind the fact that they try to pass F-4 Phantoms for MiGs (and MiG-29s at that!), it's the entire idea that the US and Soviet would cooperate in a military operation to knock out a nuclear missile plant (and what the hell is THAT if I may ask?) in an arab country. The Soviet Union would probably have struck back at the US for doing it...

This film sucks.


Yes, the first Iron Eagle movie was predictable, totally 80's and far-fetched...BUT it was entertaining and fun to watch. I guess the producers of this movie figured they could write a movie with airplanes in it, name it Iron Eagle and it would be another sleeper hit. Those idiots could not have been more wrong.

I was excited when I heard about this movie and eagerly tuned in to watch when lo and behold you see the hero from the first Iron Eagle, Jason Gedrick, get KILLED in the first 5 minutes! Then you think, well maybe he's still alive, after all, in the first movie you thought Lou Gossett Jr's character was killed and yet he turns up alive and well at the end! Alas, the very next scene after you see Gedrick's plane explode, they cut to a military guy saying "No, the kid's dead and buried..." thus removing all doubt that the entire rest of the picture will be without him. I sat stunned for the next 10 minutes, mouth agape, missing several key plot points while I sat there thinking to myself, "They really killed him? That's it? You mean they really KILLED HIM?!?". Then that's when I started getting upset and hating this movie and everything about it....that clinched it....

This movie continues to be the only movie I have ever walked out on...I watched up to the point where his fly buddy that is up there when he gets killed sits down with the Russians to plan the attack to take place later in the film and then I couldn't take it anymore...I never saw what happens next, nor do I ever care to find out.....

The reason Gedrick didn't make this movie is because he was busy making the Oscar-winning movie "Rooftops" (note HUGE amount of sarcasm here)at the time it was made. Maybe if Gedrick actually starred in this movie all the way through instead of being deleted from it, it could of had a slight chance of being a halfway decent film.

Damn you, stupid producers of this movie, for making such vile filth -- if I could exact an equally torturous punishment upon you it would be having you watch the Spanish language version of "Rooftops" with French subtitles in it's entirety six times back to back without a break.......


Enjoyed viewing Louis Gossett,Jr.,(Charles 'Chappy'Sinclair),"Window",'05, who started out in the film as a Full Bird Colonel and wound up a One Star General. Chappy received this high rank because he was drawn out of the National Guard to complete a mission with Russian forces and a crew of so called Misfits. There is plenty of comedy through out the entire picture and I really do not know if it was intended to be taken that way. Mark Humphrey, (Capt. Matt Cooper),"JAG",03 TV Series" was a pilot who simply could not take any orders from anyone and held a vengeance toward the Russian forces he had to work with. However, he got the hots for Sharon Brandon,(Valeri Zuyeniko) a Russian Pilot who was the only gal in the crew and had the face of a Russian woman, and despite that fact, they were in LOVE. If you like Lou Gossett Jr., then watch this film.


There isn't anything here that you haven't seen in some other action movie before. I like Lou Gossett Jr., but he must willingly continue to appear in these Iron Eagle films for a paycheck because god knows they certainly aren't good movies. At least, not in my book.

Anyhow this Iron Eagle sequel finds Gossett putting together a bunch of no-name Canadian actors, some who play Americans and some who play Russians who when they splice in the 'we can't get along together because of nationality' cliché story element, you have this movie in a nutshell. A movie that I find myself surprised to say I've seen twice on late night during bouts of boredom. Do yourself a favor, don't see this even once.


Doesn't it bother anybody that the movie's producers kill off the star of the first movie within the first 10 minutes? If his death meant something for the movie, fine. But during the rest of the movie, it really doesn't come back up!

Never mind that the "Migs" were actually F-4's. Sheez.


It's all bad, the story, the acting, and special effects. Some of the flight sequences are recycled from `other sources', i.e. they were obviously not filmed for this movie. It is hard to believe that they made more in the series after this one.


A well known doctor is indicted for his experiments toward curing the criminal mind. Needing to continue his work and hoping that success will clear him, he buys a boat, loads it with several high profile criminals hoping to escape the law and heads out to sea. At least that's the plan, but things start to go wrong and things are revealed to be not what they seemed at first.

This is an okay little thriller that seems more than a bit too talky, even as the action picks up and the crooks try to take over the ship and the captain and crew have to fight to take it back. Lest you think that reveals too much, you obviously haven't watched this, as things go left, right and every which way during its fleeting one hour running time.

The cast is a B-movie lovers dream that includes Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel and group of character actors that seems to have been pulled from every movie made within five years of this one. Their interaction is what keeps this movie afloat even as the film begins to sink into low level nonsense.

If you're looking for a forgettable time killer or just like watching veteran actors making mountains out of mole hills then by all means give it a shot. Just don't expect high art and you won't be disappointed.


Recently got one of those Mill Creek 50 pack of horror and mystery PD movies (Tales Of Terror) because there were about 25 of these programmers I had not yet seen.I was already aware from experience that the quality on most of these is less than desirable but some can't be had anywhere else or were not worth paying ten bucks for alone.In this case I was taken royally as this print is missing the first 8 minutes or so leaving one to guess the rest. Fortunately the plot is simple and you can pick it up easily but you'll still be burning at the Faux Pas. Don't know if Alpha's print of this is the same way but in any case this is one to avoid.


I gather from some of the other comments I've read that the copy I have (on one of those Mill Creek 50 Movie Packs) is missing the first several minutes of the movie. And while it is still easy enough to get the gist of the plot, the background in those minutes would have been nice. That said, I doubt that those extra minutes would have saved this movie. A prominent but discredited doctor tricks a group of criminals onto a ship to continue his experiments on healing the criminal mind, but the criminals have other ideas when they decide to take over the ship. But the doctor also chooses to experiment on the normal person and a lady he presumes is guilty but is actually quite innocent. Things get out of control and go in various directions from here.

There isn't much going for this movie. It's not the worst I've seen, but relatively little happens and there is much more talk than seems fitting for the kind of action/horror movie this seems to want to be. An attempt at comic relief fails, also.

I don't consider the time I spent watching this a total waste of time, but it is the best use of an hour I've spent either.


The Alpha Video release seems to be fairly complete with the entire story intact (except for some splicy sections in what was probably a 16mm television print: The story does make sense in this version which has the entire explanation of why the criminals are on the ship in the first place and what the doctor's motivations are.

It is mysterious that the film runs about 63 minutes when the main IMDb description has it released at 57 minutes. That's probably incorrect and doesn't represent the original theatrical release, but rather some random individual's timing from a DVD or VHS tape that wasn't complete in the first place.


When I see the phrase "great cast", I think GONE WITH THE WIND or TWELVE ANGRY MEN, not a film whose lead is Lyle Talbot (the same guy who starred in a few decent films in the 30s but also PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and a lot of other turkeys). So, while I liked reading the other reviews, I was perplexed by the great cast comments. This was not a great cast--just a bunch of no-names from a Poverty Row studio.

As many point out, the first 10 minutes or so of the film is missing. This is true of the public domain copies and 50 pack copies from Mill Creek Entertainment. Additionally, since this is its pedigree, captioning and a high quality print are also absent.

The film begins in the middle of a discussion a group of crooks are having about trying to escape from the boat. It's obvious something is missing here, but it's easy enough to discern that a bunch of crooks were somehow lured aboard a mad doctor's boat and he's doing diabolical experiments on them! While this certainly isn't nice, at least he had the decency to pick some people who weren't particularly pillars of society! As for the film, it's really hard to judge the quality of it with a chunk missing. I can say that the ending and Talbot's scheme to get the bad guys to surrender was pretty clever, though. So overall, it's probably one to skip since even with the missing chunk in place (which it isn't), it's still not a great movie by any stretch.


Jack London's short story "A Thousand Deaths" is virtually unrecognizable in this sluggish cinematic translation. For "Torture Ship", the self-described protagonist becomes Lyle Talbot (as Bob Bennett). The original's father is now uncle Irving Pichel (as Herbert Stander). A mad doctor, Mr. Pichel has isolated what he calls, "The active ingredient of the endocrine glands governing criminality." Pichel takes Mr. Talbot, some aides, and some crooks on a cruise to experimentation. Talbot is "free from criminal taint," but becomes temporarily mean. Additional nastiness ensues...

** Torture Ship (10/28/39) Victor Halperin ~ Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel, Julie Bishop


There are a lot of people on this boat. Many are criminals who are going to be experimented upon against their wills. There is a boring Swedish guy who is supposed to be comic relief but turns out to be simply insufferable. There are people taken, escaping, taking over, taking back, getting injected, and so on. All in the name of science, I guess. There are many punches thrown. At one point, as they hit each guy coming through a door, they land, stacked nicely on the floor. One girl is a criminal, then she isn't, but she's here. It goes on and on and it just doesn't matter. Apparently some of the thing is missing. This may actually be merciful. It never piqued my interest for one second. And I actually recognized some of the actors. It's talky and obtuse. Don't bother.


I could have accepted a lot of the 'artistic license' used in this film if it were claiming to be a movie based on fact, rather than presenting itself as a documentary. A previous comment does a good job of pointing out the errors in the added period footage.

It was a good introduction into a serial murderer I'd never heard of. It was also a disgusting overly dramatized exercise in attempting to concentrate more on the gross out factor than reporting the facts. Not content to describe once how good certain parts of a child's body were when roasted and eaten, it describes the heinous deeds in fact and again in a first person voice-over narrated by an actor playing Albert Fish.

For shock affect it delved into ramming the details of his crimes down the throat of the viewer, again and again. At the expense of his victims and their families the film wallows in filth and was offensive in the extreme because of it. Either we're too stupid to digest the horror of his acts, or sales were forefront and above any other consideration the film makers claim.

It's not a documentary. A documentary informs us of real events without trying to sicken people with fictitious scenes added catering to the director's opinion of what took place. That's fiction. It's not a movie, in a movie you can accept that 'based on' gives the director license to add whatever he thinks will sell. It is a sick perverted film on a sick perverted killer but that not being enough, it approaches the same type of sick twisted deeds on film, that Fish did in person. In this, the film makers succeed in showing their perverted intention on wringing out every last drop of human suffering in their own race for sales.

Joe Coleman, obviously delighted to lay claim to notoriety by surrounding himself with the artifacts of the infamous and psychotic members of our society, sits smugly as he tells us he's thrilled to have the original letter sent to one victim's family, describing what Fish did to their child. How he was 'meant' to have it. Most serial murderers take trophies and this particular derelict of humanity, Coleman, does the same here, living with the material surrounding the worst part of themselves humanity has to offer. If any proof was needed for what I'm saying here, it's in the repeated interviews with this piece of crap. His sole participation in this film should have been only in examining this letter. Instead we're treated to repeated interview segments with no other reason than to try and help sell this presentation of crap.

These flaws ruin what could have been a remarkable recounting of Fish's deeds. The makers of this prostituted themselves for sales and in doing so, reflect a watered down mirror of the same sort of sickness Fish succumbed to. It's a perverted reporting of a perverted person and because of this they have more in common with this man than they may want to realize.


This film wants to be a drama, a love story, sci-fi movie and action extravaganza all at the same time, and then just screws up everything.

The action scenes are not bad, but really not that different from the first movie.

As far as sci-fi goes, it's all fiction and no science. The whole idea of professor Octavius and his "great invention" is completely unconvincing and seem extremely far fetched, not unlike the plot twists. But then, it is a comic-book-movie.

But where this film really goes south is the drama/love story. It's an endless string of clichés, the characters are cardboard and the only thing truly dramatic is the quality of the dialog. Both the characters of Peter and of Mary Jane are so hopeless and indecisive that you end up hoping the bad guy kills them, just to get it over with. The pace is excruciatingly slow, so during the seemingly endless dialogs, ones eyelids tend to get very heavy.

Even the jokes in the movie don't work that well. It *tries* too hard to be funny, but it just isn't. The only exception is the scene in the elevator, that was hilarious.

If all of this isn't bad enough, the studios Morality Department also got hold of the script somewhere along the line. They injected a large dose of those wholesome "American Values", talking at lenght about American Heroes and rolemodels etc. Almost made me physically sick.

I still would have given it 3/10, but right now it's in the top 250. Even if you're not a harsh as I am about this film, then let's at least agree that in the history of cinema, surely we can find at least 250 films that are better than this one.


MORE and BIGGER is not necessarily BETTER! I actually enjoyed the first SPIDERMAN (2002) with its simple, focused story of Peter Parker (played soundly and solidly by Tobey Maguire) bitten by a radioactive spider and discovering that he had unusual abilities to shoot webs from his wrists, scale buildings, and sense things! The characters were fresh and interesting, the villain (Green Goblin) was cool and the film moved at a leisurely pace.

Here comes the sequel SPIDERMAN 2 (2004)! And OF COURSE the masses fall for all the hype, the multitude of characters, the longer running time, etc! But this flick is just plain BORING! In SPIDERMAN, the filmmakers so eloquently and effectively showed us Peter Parker's pain and shock as his selfishness inadvertently led to his uncle's death. THEN, they had to try to one-up themselves by having a super sad, annoying scene in SPIDEY 2 where Peter (again played by Maguire) tells his aunt that he was responsible. That scene was Hollywood Manipulation 101! The point of the first one was that Peter was a kid (a high schooler for cripe's sake!) with no goals, no direction, no maturity. And I hated his aunt's reaction. To shun him like that for not getting involved in what was rightfully a police matter. Last time I looked, Spiderman was not impervious to bullets! He could have been killed. Did not fool me with that one!

Also, the object of Peter's affection...Miss Mary Jane Rotten Bottom (Kirsten Dunst)...is a WHORE! That's right, a SLUT! She went from Harry Osborn (James Franco), who was just using her to get back at Peter in SPIDERMAN to Jameson's nephew (or son or whatever) in this movie. So she goes from Peter's best friend to Peter's boss's son (or nephew or whatever). THIS easy chick is the object of his desire?

And that J.K. Simmons as Jameson is annoying as heck and NOT funny... and he's the comic relief! More like comic refuse! And there's the obligatory population of useless extras who add NOTHING to the proceedings but to scream and screech and be wowed by Spidey's abilities...It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Spiderloser!

And they had this one scene where Harry slaps Peter at a party in front of a bunch of people...What? And Peter just stood there and took it! I'd have taken my chances with the spoiled millionaire and hit his tail back! Or at least sued him! May be a hero, but Peter's still a MAN! This sleaze basically stole the woman meant to be your girlfriend in the first movie and you let him get away with this? C'mon, Petey!

But the biggest travesty was this part where Peter temporarily loses his powers and have this extended sequence where Peter is blissfully free and human again and they play RAINDROPS KEEP FALLIN ON MY HEAD!...I repeat...they play RAINDROPS KEEP FALLIN ON MY HEAD! Reason #1 any human being can say this film sucks!

Of course, there is the perfunctory special effects extravaganza! But it's all show and is much too hard to believe. The villain is Dr. Ock (Alfred Molina), who's ticked about something (aren't they all?) so he plans revenge on the city of, New York, is it? At least this is New York as New York and not Chicago as Gotham City! See the multi-armed CGI villain octopus his way through New York...see Spidey shoot webs endless webs miles and miles...see Peter pine for Mary Jane...see Mary Jane act like a mindless idiot for not knowing this guy is obsessed with her ass...YAWN!


I was very surprised by my lack of response to this movie considering the glowing reviews. But I found it to be pretty lame, repetitive, dull, and shapeless. My wife absolutely hated it, and the audience I was with was bored and unresponsive. The focus on character is nice, but the material just wears you out after a while, and there is no real driving force to the plot. Cutting about thirty minutes would help. Giving Doc Ock a real plotline would have helped. Cutting out some of the repetitive scenes would have helped. Excising that ill-conceived I'm-losing-my-powers stuff would have helped. All in all, everyone clearly gave this their all, but it's not very good. Better than the first one? Sure, Willem Dafoe in a plastic suit killed that one. But this one is hardly the "perfect" film the critics have bizarrely claimed it to be. It's really just another 2-1/2 star film with a lot of good will toward Spidey.


**spoilers**

There obviously must be something wrong with me since everyone is saying this is the best comic book movie ever but I just didn't like it. It started off well but then it went all wrong for me. I don't think this Doc Ock guy was interesting enough as a villain. Spidey giving up his spideyness has been done before and better in Superman II when he gave up his powers for Lois. And there were a lot of similarities to the Superman movies that made this seem like I'd already been through it. I also don't understand how the writers thought it was okay for so many people to know who Spider-Man's alter ego is. Oh yeah, they won't tell, I forgot. Sheesh. I started to get aggravated with this movie because of the constant reminders of how difficult Peter's life is, especially the scenes with Aunt May. Was he late all the time and penniless? I'm not too sure. They only pointed that out a million times. Where it completely lost me was after Peter and Ock left the cafe. But the actors were okay for the most part and there was one very good scene in an elevator.

I was expecting the best comic book movie of all time because of the hype, but it turned out to be worse than the first one, which I didn't think was that great either. It's too bad because I usually enjoy comic book movies. It gets a 4/10 from me. I'll stick with the X-men.


Okay - I realize this movie belongs to a genre that is, for the most part, immune to scrutiny. Nevertheless, it is always disappointing to see the same ridiculous clichés about stupid people doing stupid things in order to give the unseen monster easy pickings (not to mention to keep the writer, director, and producer from exerting themselves by actually trying to think up a fresh idea.) How many times do we need to see someone skipping out into the woods in the middle of the night when they know there's a monster bumping people off? Or the contrived love scene (after a bloody discovery) designed to show off the lead actress's exquisite breasts? And the talking bird sidekick? Bottom line: bad acting, worse script - would have been more satisfying to see everyone killed in the first five minutes and then watch the monster wander around aimlessly in the woods for a few hours.


Okay, if this contains any spoilers at all they won't be too extensive since I have to admit that I could only stomach just over 30 minutes of this dross. The first 20 minutes plays out like a weakly dramatised infomercial on the dangers of drink driving, the two characters we have a handle on by this time are about as deep as a cookie tray, seem to have an almost fatal case of the clichés and just as "she" confesses to "he" that she was responsible for her best friend's (and his girl friend's) death - what do they do? They jump into the sack for some well covered soft core, that's what! - the creature is basically introduced as someone with a breathing problem running around with a shaky camera, hiding in the scrub and generally exuding bad attitude... when it gives our "heroes" a scare naturally they reach for the bottle of booze. At this point I switched off and for a few seconds I thought about making it my purpose in life to warn everyone off buying or renting this movie - I gave it a rating of 1 for the nice forest scenery and the silly parrot with the fake voice. Avoid!


This is about a girl who takes a job as a forest ranger up in some remote area. She spends the whole first half of the movie wallowing in a pool of alcohol and self pity because she caused the death of her best friend in a drunk driving accident. We don't know originally that she caused the accident, but it's a "big revelation" when it's finally discovered. Like we didn't see that coming. If you like watching a girl walk around in drunken anguish feeling sorry for herself for what seems like endless hours, you'll love this. We're also lucky enough to get flashbacks - numerous, uncountable flashbacks - of the accident. We get a whole pile of them at the beginning of the movie, then when she's whining and crying and relating the whole story to her boyfriend, we get a whole pile of them again.

Oh, wait, is there supposed to be some horror aspect to this thing? Yes, there's some critter who likes to play pranks on her by climbing up on the roof of her ranger station and conveniently wrecking the radio antenna. It generally makes a lot of noise but never attacks her. Funny, it kills all the miscellaneous folks out in the woods, but chooses just to pull pranks on her. Oh wait, that's because, as is explained by the requisite secondary character who conveniently appears just to tell her "the secret", she's "at the center" of this thing. How is she at the center? What special connection does she have to the beast? Your guess is as good as mine.

It's unfortunate, because there's some really beautiful scenery in this thing, and the setting, up high in the air in a ranger tower, could have been very effective - if it weren't housing someone who spent the whole movie whining and crying and having flashbacks to something utterly unrelated to the story at hand.

The second half of the movie picks up a bit as the monster chases the girl around the woods. This at least stops her from wallowing in her pool of self pity for a few minutes. Unfortunately just when things seem to be picking up, we get this truly awful theme music, enough to completely ruin this part of the movie. Think Joan Baez on whiskey and tranquilizers. Even though the girl doesn't have time to cry and whine, the theme music does it for her. This kills any possibility of excitement or suspense and shifts your attention to wondering what the director could possibly have been thinking when he chose this crap.

The ending, where the girl comes to grips with her guilt; oh good grief. It's so predictable and so stupid I just had to laugh. Overall, I couldn't watch more than a few minutes of this thing at a time. It's like they had no idea what direction they wanted to go with this. An atmospheric thriller, a teen sex romp, a Lifetime Movie of the Week, a killer critter in the woods movie; they just tossed all the elements in a blender and the mangled remains is what appears on screen.


Simply put, there are only two reasons why I got to see this to the end. One, it's one of those flicks where they purposely don't show the creature until the very end (we're talking, 20 minutes left in the movie). And two, Cerina Vincent has great legs. Other than that, this is a REALLY weird movie. It's very disarticulated, there are scenes that just seem completely random -- Cerina having flashbacks about the car accident in which she killed her friend Jules, the Native American professor dude who seems to know everything about the creature, the scenes with Cerina's boy-toy who tries to take her mind off Jules (and who promptly gets decapitated by the creature about halfway through the movie). The movie moves very slowly, which made my mind wander (did I mention Cerina Vincent has great legs?) And the monster looks like the younger sister of the monster from "Jeepers Creepers." "It Waits" is not a horrible movie, but don't expect to be scared out of your wits, or glued to your TV. Only Cerina brings this movie up to a 4.


A young forest ranger Danielle(Cerina Vincent)uses her lonely outpost to grieve the death of her best friend. In a cave in the forest, a Native American legend comes to life from years of slumber. The creature has already slaughtered campers and hikers and attacks the ranger outpost. The creature slowly stalks and makes her life more miserable. Danielle's boyfriend Justin(Dominic Zamprogna) tries to help to no avail. She must face the wrath of the ruthless monster and destroy the flesh-ripping creature from hell...alone.

This horror flick is better than expected and is given some credibility by being produced by Stephen J. Cannell. Also in the cast: Greg Kean, Miranda Frigon and Eric Schweig.


Pardon my adolescent summary, but it's accurate. I promise. This movie is only marginally watchable. I was completely unconvinced by the female lead who looks like a Playmate stuffed into a forest ranger's uniform (oh, and she's supposed to be a former Marine, too...I actually giggled when she said that). Obviously, Richard Christian Matheson and Thomas E. Szollosi have seen JEEPERS CREEPERS. Hmmm, let's see...a mysterious creature that can regenerate, has wings, and is seriously intelligent enough to mess with it's victims minds before killing them...? Yeah, okay. Movie rip-offs are only par for the course (especially in the horror genre), and I really don't mind someone else's idea expanded on, so to speak, but when your goal is no better than taking someone else's idea and regressing it to the same old, please don't bother. There's nothing new here, folks.


Sorry to say, but this movie is very bad. The dialog is empty, the characters unlikeable and after an extremely slow pace, a mediocre point is made.

The story is basically about a ship full of mutated humans who have been outcast by society. Eventually, they receive a special envoy from Earth with an unexpected message.

The basic problem is that this whole movie could have been summarized into a sentence and making a 1 hour movie out of it added nothing. What you essentially get is some effectively gross-looking characters with dialog that is so boring you want to blow their ship up every 5 minutes.

The director, Jonathon Frakes, is a bright fellow but not a very good director. That coupled with a simplistic script (and possibly other limitations) lead to this bad result. Brian Dennehy and John Hurt are well-established character actors so it's hard to believe that this is their fault.

If you recorded this on a TIVO-like device, don't fast forward through it. Delete it.


REVIEW: "Glenville: Hell's Homecoming" (2005) 76 minutes. Starring Wayland Harris, Steve Brown, Benjamin P. Ablao, Jr. Chris Erickson, Bobby Hamilton, John Larsen.

It's time to leave the town of Glenville, Ohio.

After four films, it is obvious that director/writer Anthony Spadaccini searches for novelty in far off places. The first two Glenville films were not very good, but competent efforts in the slasher genre (with some particularly disgusting gore sequences in part 2). "Glenville 3" (2001) featured a large cast of despicable characters with self-absorbed motivations and about 4 plots that wove into a 76-minute slasher movie. It was slightly above average and Spadaccini deserved a lot of credit for attempting to do something different with the genre.

Now here we are, with "Glenville: Hell's Homecoming." Technically Glenville 4, it doesn't really require the viewer to have seen the others, except maybe part 3. But even part 3 opens with an epilogue from part 2...oh, never mind.

I could detail the plot, but there isn't much of one. From an opening cross fade, we learn that the child murderer from part 3 is now grown up and been released from a mental institution. Or escaped. Anyway, he has assumed the identity of a nightclub owner (though he more resembles a stripper...nice body) and has a gay roommate who is fighting with his boyfriend. There's a gay sex scene that lasts about 10 minutes, an extremely bloody bathtub murder, a couple of detectives, another murder, then an entirely confusing ending.

OK, before I start on the bad, let me talk about the good. The idea for this movie is definitely a good one. Spadaccini had the balls to pack several different genres into one movie (when's the last time you saw a gay love story morph into a slasher movie?) and the gay sex scene is definitely a risk. The final reel is beautifully shot and the music, especially in the final 10 minutes, is very creepy.

Now, the bad. "Glenville: Hell's Homecoming" is nothing more than a 15-minute short film stretched into 75 minutes. Like I previously stated, the idea behind the film is good and since this is one of Spadaccini's first efforts, I give him credit.

The acting is mediocre at best, with the exception of John Larsen, who returns from the grave to play psychotic father mastermind Warren Sinclair. In fact, Larsen is the only one who looks like he has acted before. Performances are uneven to say the least, with some props given to lead actor Wayland Harris for not sucking at his portrayal of a serial killer.

Spadaccini's overuse of video effects has been mentioned quite a bit in the reviews and I totally agree. While it's nice to see that he was able to put something together without a budget, it also would have been nice to see a movie not rely on Adobe After Effects. It makes the film look incredibly cheap.

There is hardly any dialogue in the movie. There are long, drawn-out scenes in which the characters just walk around bored or angry, maybe even a combination of both. Maybe Spadaccini was going for being subtle, but it came across as just unnecessary.

In all, "Glenville: Hell's Homecoming" fails as a movie, but there are some bright spots. Spadaccini (according to IMDb) loves David Lynch and I think some of that inspiration shines through. He obviously has some talent, but I think he needs to be molded a bit.

Rating: 4 out of 10.


This movie was (unfortunately) mired in a scandal in that it was completely scripted. There were no genuine scenes. Anyone who would dare challenge this known fact needs to view the piece and note that several of the scenes involve as many as 5 to 7 camera angles. There are several other points that scream a totally fabricated piece of work. It should have been reclassified as a work of fiction or standard movie fare since it is no legitimate documentary.

Though the movie was well intentioned and the people in it are truly genuine the crew who filmed it broke every convention of true documentary film making. This is a sad fact since it was nominated for an award at the time it was released but failed to receive that award when the truth came out.


The characters were paid for this...and pretty well. They are acting throughout the entire movie. Sure, they are really street kids who one must feel sorry for, but their attitudes can't merit any sympathy. Their tough-acting is totally fake. They act that way because there's a camera in their faces. Watch the scene with the kid talking to his dad. How many different camera angles were used? How do you think they fit twenty cameras in there? It was scripted. Get a clue. The voice overs were sort of a dead giveaway too. Sure, you have to wonder what happened to the kids, but you also feel hope that maybe a couple of them got smart and got a job. They've got plenty of time on their hands to do it.


In a word; terrible. The actual story "Justine" is a somewhat perverted morality tale that has a very shrewd understory; de Sade is well known in spite of his fascination with the perverse - he truly was a gifted wordsmith.

Would that the same could be said of Franco's "Justine". According to Franco on the short interview included on the DVD, Romina Power was basically forced on him to be the "star", and he does not hide his disgust at her performance in the interview. Franco didn't want her, Power didn't seem to care either way (he said she rarely even knew when the camera was rolling; basically, she'd have a hard time even playing convincing furniture) and to things even better, Romina's Mom tagged along.

If you're looking for S&M, you're not going to find it here. If you're looking for nudity, you will find it here, but you quickly won't care. If you're interested in the Marquis de Sade, you won't learn anything about him by watching this. If you're on Death Row with two hours left, then this truly is the film for you; but all others should really steer clear.

Klaus Kinski was listed as the star of the film in Europe, and yet he speaks no lines and interacts with none of the other characters in the film. The first few minutes of the film (around 10 minutes, but it seemed like 30) show Kinski as the Marquis. He appears to be swimming in a sea of writing compulsions and drifting beyond the bounds of reality, or he's simply in dire need of a strong laxative. Either way, his segments are interspersed throughout the film, and they add absolutely nothing.

Jack Palance is wildly flamboyant, but it's hard to tell what the heck is going on with him anyway. In one particularly bizarre sequence he's gliding around on some sort of a wheeled dolly like a wax statue. According to Franco, Palance was always drunk, but he was pleased with his performance as Antonin.

It's not erotic. It's not sensual. It's not alluring. My wife and I watched it anticipating something like "The Story of O", but ended up with "The Story of O No". Definitely NOT recommended.


This was the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life and I am sorry I paid money to buy the DVD that I will throw in the trash. Erotic - NO Female nudity - Technically yes about 1 minute in total Sex - NO For practical purposes this was NOT based on the novel by the Marquis de Sade; in fact in the interview the writer admits he rewrote the story to accommodate Tyrone Power's daughter who could not act. So there is no Black Mass or anything of the original book except the two sisters originally being taught by nuns in a convent. This was a shear waste of money on the part of Franco that could have been his masterpiece with the expensive sets and costumes that were absolutely splendid. Jack Palance was totally miscast, even if he were sober it would have made little difference. The same was true with Klaus Kinski because his performance was too remote and did not narrate the story all the way through. Franco said he asked Orson Wells to play the part of the Marquis de Sade, again totally wrong if you are going to make a porno movie. I have no idea what he was thinking. The story was so confused that it failed to make real sense because it deviated from the original novel so much. This movie was not a porno or anything else, it was just a big nothing.


Romina Powers spends the duration of the film like the vacant window dressing that she is as Justine, a nubile young virgin whom after being cast out of an orphanage and into a depraved cruel world, in this muddled adaption of one of Marquis de Sade's writings. It's hard to fault Jess Franco, as he's proved time and time again that he just doesn't know any better, but Klaus Kinski, Jack Palance, and Akim Tamiroff should be ashamed of themselves. Move onto 1972's "Justine de Sade" and never look back to the silly, stupid, clumsy, mess of a film lest you turn into a pillar of salt.

My Grade: D

Eye Candy: Rosemary Dexter, Claudia Gravy, Sylva Koscina, Rosalba Neri, Romina Power, and Maria Rohm show various amounts of skin

DVD Extras: 'The Perils And Pleasures Of Justine' 20 minute featurette; Poster and stills gallery; Jess Franco Biography; and French theatrical trailer (subtitled in English) Easter Egg: Highlight the symbol after Extras in the extras menu for an alternative theatrical trailer


Watched this one dreary Saturday. Jack Palance turns in an interesting if somewhat wooden performance, but he is one of the only two high points. The other one is seeing the delightful Romina Powers topless ... according to the her birthdate information on the IMDB, she couldn't have been more than 17, maybe younger.

But heck, if seeing a pretty girl topless and watching a mediocre Palance are the only good things you can remember from a movie...


I have never heard about this movie, but the Brazilian cover of the VHS announced that the exhibition of this flick was forbidden in many countries due to the violent scenes and that it was a horror movie. I became curious and decided to watch it and what I found? A trash of the worst quality! I could never imagine such a terrible plot, with a (may I call him of this name?) horrible director and with the worst cast that you can imagine. There is no horror in the story, but only some free violence especially against Justine (Romina Power). The best quality of this actress is her partially naked beautiful body, exhibited along most part of this flick. How could Jack Palance win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar having such a movie in his filmography? Do not waste your time with such a horrible movie! My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Marquis de Sade: Justine"


Poor De Sade, persecuted and imprisoned in his lifetime, misrepresented after his death, and unlike one-time-fellow-prisoner Laclos, author of Dangerous Liaisons, is persecuted and tortured on film. Appalling cinematography, grating music, atrocious acting, and a director who praised Palance's what-was-he-thinking turn and despised the very presence of Power as Justine, although she was almost the only one who wasn't mugging in every scene. What was Mercedes McCambridge on? Dear Klaus Kinski, no wonder he spends his time running desperately from one set of bars to the other: "Get me out of this movie! I'm trapped in it forever!" They even removed his vocal cords. Still, a few points for Power's sweet breasts and eyes, and some other brief anatomical contributions by others. Poor Donatien, even Geoffrey Rush assassinated him while he was dead. At least there is Salo.


This is utterly awful crap by Franco! How does he have guts to call this de Sade. Franco's idea of sadean characters is acting idiot, laughing loud, talking soft, smirking... Not a single blasphemy is heard and characters claim to be "searching for pleasure" (add drunken accent)?! If Franco was serious about understanding anything about de Sade, he wouldn't have to follow the material carefully nor show detailed endless debaucheries, just get few things right about morals and God, and lot's of people would have been happy...

Even if we would review this movie as a romantic comedy or a big Victorian era cocktail party the acting, directing, writing, music, etc just drive movie lover into despair. As a de Sade adaptation this is even worse. Rating 1/10.


The Killer Reserved Nine Seats is the Italian/Giallo take on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. A group of people are gathered together and one by one murdered. In this case, nine people find themselves locked inside an large, old theater with a masked killer on the loose. Each person comes under suspicion as each seems to have had some sort of motive for the killings. While some of the bloody mayhem occurs off-screen, the murder scenes are the highlight of the movie.

Unfortunately, the rest of The Killer Reserved Nine Seats isn't nearly as good as the murder scenes. There's far too much talk. These people spend an inordinate amount of time discussing things which have no bearing on the film. And these have to be some of the dumbest people ever assembled. One at a time, they seem determined to investigate the dark passageways and poorly lit rooms of the theater, making themselves easy prey for the killer. Searching the theater might seem like a good idea, but how about taking someone with you? After a while, it just becomes tedious waiting for the next victim to go off alone. The plot also includes some supernatural elements that are out of place for this kind of movie. It just doesn't fit. Finally, the ending is a mess. Maybe it was just the cut of the film I saw, but nothing was made clear in the end. A woman thought to be dead wakes up, realizes she's okay, and walks out of the theater. Uh, whatever!

I'm a Giallo junkie. I've seen the best and the worst that the genre has to offer. I had been looking forward to seeing The Killer Reserves Nine Seats, so it pains me to place this one near the bottom of the heap.


I'll totally exclude the fact that they raped the book. The book is delightful, enchanting and enthralling.

The movie is the total opposite of all these things. The acting is awful on all fronts. Terrible directing from Frank Oz, terrible casting, terrible everything. I only revisited this disaster to put myself to sleep last night.

There are only a few circumstances for anyone to be seeing this.

Dodge at all costs unless you're curious about the book comparison or if you have a kid that you need to distract for 90 minutes or so. Horrendous adaptation, horrendous film-making.


I first read the book, The Indian in the Cupboard with my Reading Class when I was in sixth grade, and I enjoyed it. But then we decided to watch this movie, I really became excited because I thought that the movie was really going to be like the book. But when I saw it, I almost fell asleep, I thought that it was really boring! I thought that it was nothing like the book, I thought that it was totally boring, that you will want to fall asleep when you watch it.

First off, the mistakes that they made with the movie. The movie was updated, instead of taking place in England, like it does in the book, it takes place in the United States, you can tell that it is New York because you can see the World Trade Center towers in one scene! Another big mistake was changing were Omri had gotten the characters from. He got some in the book by buying them at the store, in this movie, he got them by swapping them with some of his other toys at an Indian exhibit in school.

You can go ahead and watch it if you please, but I sort of would not highly recommend it to you, because of the tedious arrangements they made with the plot. But if you want to watch it, go on and watch it, I am not going to stop you from doing it, though I did not like this movie.

4/10


Even though I rated this plucky movie a 4, it doesn't mean I hate it, my dear friends. I liked it but it doesn't have the stuff to make it to my higher favoritism of movies. Frank Oz is so imaginative (Yoda, Miss Piggy... love them!), but I have to say that this film to me is not so Frank Oz, and movies that are adapted from books are quite impressive, but I can only say I was slightly impressed. For one thing, the cast is inadequate, I never heard of David Keith and Litefoot (David Coogan, however, was in Around the World in 80 Days).

This story follows Omri, an extremely childish youngster who, for his birthday, receives a MAGICAL (ooh!) cupboard. The Cupboard lacks its key so Omri's mother (actress Lindsay Crouse, never heard of her), gives him her collection of keys, and guess what? He finds the certain key on his second try! That part always took me aback. He puts in an antique Iroquois figure in the cupboard, and later in the morning he opens it to find the figure alive as a small Iroquois man. The pair has many tedious adventures, some including an idiotic rat ball and a down-right scruffy cowboy who was a toy figure too (the cupboard MAGICALLY (ooh!) turns plastic (plaz-teck!) things into their real life counterparts, only smaller). The pair soon learns that every boy must become a man (a typical, yet true moral).

Omri's character really is childish, yet endearing; his parents seem to pamper him, he's afraid of the dark, and he has lame 90's action figures; but he does mellow out in the end of the movie. I liked the acting, but it was no To Kill a Mocking Bird, even at moving parts. The Iroquois man was different from other Indian movies; he was a guru in a way. The music was just moderate and odd, though with one exception you'll know when you hear it.

Be warned, my dear readers, this movie contains slight profanity (embarrassing really); simulative killing and some ladies do a loathsome dance on TV at one point (they call this a kid movie, how embarrassing. Let's hope Omri was sleeping at that adultish scene). And no the kid does not play God (duh, no one can play the Lord Almighty, my foolish friends), its just a story, have fun. Other than the 3 points I pointed out, the movie is plucky and it has a rather moving ending. It's an OKAY movie >: )


The only redeeming part of this movie is after he rescues the Indian from under the floorboards with the key, and then the rat jumps out, as if from nowhere!! I always rewind it at least 4 times. But only that part. This movie is very strange though, because this would never happen. I did always like the movie box when i was a child though, because you could switch it from the picture of the little boy to the fake cupboard door, and i got a key with it. How delightful. All in all, I would not recommend this movie for you to watch, because there are many better movies available for your viewing pleasure. A movie that I would recommend that still has a magical feel to it would be the 1976 version of Freaky Friday. Because magical things happen in this movie as well as that movie, but the Freaky Friday movie is much more enjoyable.


When I was 9 years old someone brought over this movie and we watched it. I sat through the entire thing.

At the end the credits rolled up and in my innocent 9-year old voice, I proclaimed that this was the 'Worst Movie Ever Made!'

I am now 17 I have never seen the movie again I stand by that assessment.

Stupid, poorly acted, poorly directed, destroyed a reasonable book Highly unrecommended


This movie felt like it lasted over 1,000 years. A really bad soap opera masquerading as a meaningful family "drama" exploring generational and cultural barriers. There is not one genuine moment in its bloated running length. An anamorphic screen image can't disguise what an amateurish production this is  the acting is especially laughable. Story in a nutshell: elderly Chinese man comes to The States to visit his daughter. The father is hoping (and pushing) to become a grandfather. Pathos and a lot of moping ensue. Yawn. The void between father & daughter is played out in interminable dinner scenes. The only thing more boring are the excruciating park bench pidgin English dialogue scenes between the father and an Iranian woman he befriends. Daughter's Russian boyfriend is a cardboard cutout of a joke  like everyone in this epic. And oh yeah, the most unintentionally hilarious line of the movie, "You were never a rocket scientist."


Considering Caro's past work in the movie field, one can really look forward to see his latest film as director : Dante 01.

Well I have to say I was for one really eager to do so and as I watched the movie, even as a full open minded viewer, some scenes were feeling just ... incomplete. The thematic is quite fine, a deep space station used as a psychiatric facility is exiting knowing the visual taste of Caro and the cast is well done too, but in the end every way you look at it the movie never fully unfold his potential.

The story, as mysterious it can be, fail to be emotional or understandable at any level which is really disappointing considering you can't connect to any character at all - especially not with the main one - having a feeling of emptiness despite the solid material that could have been used in a much better way.

The budget isn't large for this movie, that's obvious and still the director pulled some extremely good shots and some solid acting while being uneven at times (considering the budget, I can only guess that some takes as to be done only a few times), still, beyond that there is nothing to properly think of. As said, the story was somewhat promising at the beginning ... and sadly looks still promising at the end, it's a tale with a slow beginning and no real end or ground to rely on - an etheral narration with some pretty visuals and scenes empty of meaning.

If I were to make a comparison, I'd pick "The fountain". They look alike in many ways, sharing a radical vision of movie-making and story telling but where the fountain kept me involved in the character development process and opened some thoughts, "Dante 01" just got me lost somewhere loosing the meaning of it's concept - or maybe I never got it in the first place.

Overall, the movie itself isn't bad and you can see it without regrets it's still a nice movie but it's nothing more and that is probably the most disappointing thing about it : you don't feel more than looking at an OK film. Now, I do hope Caro will be directing again and with a better budget and more freedom over his uncompromising style, making this one just a trial step for better materials next time.


The movie starts off OK with very nice visuals. But then the story sets in and it all goes downhill. It's not the fault of the actors, they deliver good performances. But the story is pretty bad and while the dark space station sets a claustrophobic mood at first, it starts to get annoying at some point. If you read other comments someone probably wrote "a movie for the thinking man", as some moron always does. Don't let that fool you. This movie is not very good and there is not much to think about. The basic idea, a space station for secret research, is not exactly new and neither is "homo homini lupus", man is a wolf to man. If that is actually new to you, I recommend the book "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein and not a crappy science fiction movie.

What this movie sums up to is the washed up back story of House on Haunted Hill, wrapped in a messianic blanket IN SPACE. If you like that, fine, suit yourself. But any thinking man should go watch something else.


(this is spoiler-free) I count "Delicatessen" and "La Cite des Enfants Perdus" as some of my favorite movies of all time. Interestingly, I didn't know Caro had directed this and watched it by accident. I therefore didn't have any expectations set, but in theory it should have been a good surprise.

Well, it wasn't. I heard the movie was released with zero press and that Caro disowned it, blaming the editing. Not surprised one bit - it's a terrible movie indeed and I'm flabbergasted someone like Caro could be behind it.

The storyline is laughable - leave your brains at the door please. The ending in particular is just pathetic - it's as if they had run out of ideas and came up with the most ridiculous deus ex machina of all time. I was left gob-smacked for all the wrong reasons.

Worst of all, and inexcusably, Dante is a visual failure. Several bits of footage are reused at times, stock-footage style. It's very noticeable, and incredibly grating towards the end. The whole thing has the feel of a cheap afternoon TV movie despite the decent CGI.

The actors are actually quite good and do the best they can to salvage this disaster. However, they can only do so much and frankly, there's very little to salvage.

Avoid.


OK, something in this movie is good: it features a very good stage designing and actors are doing their job pretty well. That's all.

The plot (very flat, slow and tedious) tries to sell some religious symbols and concepts (crucifixions, agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi, Saint George and the dragon. etc.) with some science fiction recurrent topics. The setting is looking strictly like Alien I (for the closed environment space ship) and Alien III (for the space penitentiary concept and the bunch of baldy prisoners and prison crew). Computer graphics have been used for representing the evil thing inside prisoners, looking like a jellyfish (or again a first-stadium Alien). These animations have been used, reused and used again during the movie and look always the same, starting annoying the audience after a while. Characters' names sound ridiculous (Caesar, Moloch, Persephone, etc.) and look like a poor cultural-oriented try to mimic some classic elements from ancient comedies and poetry. With no success. There's no plot continuity between some scenes, mainly between the fore-last (sacrifice of Caesar) and the last one (with our hero jumping into the space to perform some kind of redemption of the hellish planet, like Jesus sacrificing himself to redeem humanity...). The last scene is also reusing some elements introduced in 2001 a Space Odyssey, like the Ligeti-like soundtrack and some psychedelic CG effects.

In conclusion: a poor film telling one more time the same story and using one more time the same clichés.


Argh! OK, I am french Canadian. I have seen a lot a french movies, most of them I find are boring... but not all. In my book, Caro and Jeunet are the most able to provide a movie better than the "let's converse over a diner" we see so often. But maybe those two should leave sci-fi alone.

In Dante 01 (from Caro), you will find the prisoners from Alien3 in the Alien:Resurrection set, with people all around that speak but never say anything but hollow babble. And boy that Chinese girl is bad. Really awful. Please stop acting, if ever you call that acting. Get a job at Burger King, whatever.

That's it. Oh, yes, that is a movie that features SFX that are OK in Dr Who or The outer Limits, but these are TV shows, right?


This movie looks great but there isn't anything worthwhile happening to sustain the viewer's interest for more than five minutes.

It joins THX-1138, Alien 3, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien Nation, and The Coneheads on the list of sci-fi pictures with bald women in the cast, not very original. Having the characters bald to represent dehumanization is a stale idea whose time has past.

The whole movie is as cold as outer space. Nobody in the film generates anything resembling sympathy. The whole thing is so uninteresting that I really didn't care who the stranger (in a strange land) was or how he got his mysterious powers.

It's a real shame because the special effects were great, with the exception of the shots of the microscopic robots traveling through the bloodstream. They looked like they were done on a personal computer.

The attempts by the director to show off were as pretentious as the movie was on a whole.


This movie was terrible i looked forward to seeing it , a few beers at the ready for film night at home and even ready and willing to put up with subtitles . What a disappointment , I'm not a genius but i know a good movie when i see it and I'm afraid this was poor . What the hell happened i still don't know the bald heads were to many to tell who was who...i want my money back I've been cheated. The main character seemed to have some special power which involved looking inside people . and then going on to raise the dead , OK but then what happened to the rest of the crew this film did not make any kind of sense , and the end well who knows


Okay, I should realize one should avoid French films at all costs.

The plot of this movie is that they build this really complex space station to house all of seven criminally insane inmates. A new scientist comes on board the station to introduce a nano-technology cure for their insanity, only to discover one of the inmates is in fact a super-being who can resurrect himself and others from the dead. Her mandate is to make it work even if she has to kill them all.

The characters are all given evocative names from mythology and history... Sadly, they really didn't do much more to make them more distinctive. In fact, their heads are shaved and they all wear the same clothes, making the characters even harder to distinguish from one another.

The ending makes not a lick of sense. Is there some rule that if you are making a pretentious Sci-Fi film, you need an ending that doesn't make a lick of sense?


Not a bad film, just not a good film. Started off strong, but ended poorly. A great first effort by the director - shows a lot of promise. The acting was pretty weak overall, but the material was thin. The production was pretty good for a cheap sci-fi.

The Christian symbolism was laid on so thick you could actually smell it. It wasn't even symbolism - it was iconography. Some christians and non-christians alike will find it offensive or tedious for that reason. It is hard to promote any given religion in a film without coming off lame.

Hope we see more sci-fi from France.


What we all have feared ,hoping that it will never materialize, unfortunately occurred,namely, a French Sci-Fi film,and , yes , it is in the misty nebulae of deeper than the deepest philosophical meanings , interpretations and Lacan-like conclusions ! There is a top security space vessel with the skeleton crew ,but there are no wardens, only a trio of psychiatrists and a bunch of supposedly utterly murderously fixated criminals,whose crime history we never get to learn about,but they are all blessed with religiously intelectually  deadly seriously sounding names , namely : Persefone , Lazare ,Moloch, Buddha ! to name but a few and this merry-go round starts spinning at incredible speed with the arrival of a prisoner-patient ,who is emitting a sort of religious aura-energy ,and is immediately christened by one of the prisoners as Saint Chrostopher ,who has finally arrived to save them  From something And then we are left to witness and sigh with bottomless wonder and awe at the endless walks through corridors ,suspiciously resembling the interiors in the Cube series ,and a trio of aforementioned controllers ,who are supposedly controlling somethingFrom someone  And then the course of the ship is changed ,and  the volcano-looking planet ,around which the station rotates,is transformed through the ' deus-et-machina ' intervention by the aforementioned Saint-dude into an Earth-looking planet no less ! And ,yes, if you haven't been annoyed / irritated / depressed enough by this , there is another mind-wrecking surprise in store , namely a narrator , Persefone in person  as a comic relief ?  who is trying to add a necessary element of terrifying explanations ,as unfortunately there is no place for free-wheeling sex (the sexes look the same here ,mind you !) .This movie rejects everything the American , well, the only quality science-fiction genre has produced so far , instead opting for the worst of the worst , namely Russian Tarkovsky-like products ( e.g. Stalker , Solaris ) ,while it also steals from Kubrick's Odyssey series. You have been properly warned , and if you have to , watch without , God forbid , a female companion , specially if you wish to impress upon her ! Better show her a Shaq comedy ! With his size shoes !


I'm a big fan of Caro's earliest work (delicatessen), and I'm AMAZED by the pile of non-sense & bad acting in that movie. From the very beginning you're filled with an "off" voice speaking about deeeeep philosophy & pathetic dramatic context explanations "we were doomed from the start" "it all began at the gates of hell", this kind of crap. That doesn't help at all when you can't figure out what the story line. What was the purpose of putting Wilson is this facility ? The dragon thing ? The lights ? It's small small fairy tail garbage, dressed with the "off" voice (omnipresent) repeating "we had no idea who he was...or where he came from" Neither do we...Amazing sets do NOT compensate the shallowness of the actors (my GOD !!), the forced tragic features of the plot...without mentioning the last sequence of the film, when Caro thinks he's the new Kubric. He's not. One of the worst films in my life. And I've seen quite a few. I want my hour & a half of time BACK !


To say the only positive about the film first: the interior of the space station looks impressingly claustrophobic and some of the details in it are well thought. You will find nothing else positive in this film.

The prisoners do not have any relevant characters, you will most likely mix them up. It doesn't help in this case that all wear yellow prison uniforms and all have their hair cut off. They all have ridiculous names after historical persons. Who ever came along to name a character who likes to eat and is very chubby "Moloch" ? Is that supposed to be original or what? Their leader is named Cesar, oh come on!

The space stations personnel isn't modeled any better. Just cut-out cardboard characters.

Moreover, there is almost no real story. The pace of the film is painfully slow. The new prisoner "heals" some of his fellows in a way that doesn't make sense at all (you have to call that "mystical"). Every time he does it, it looks exactly the same.

The most annoying thing about this film is that it tortures you with obvious religious symbols and gestures until even the dumbest viewer will notice it.

Avoid this film at any cost.


Might be fun to watch as a social experiment, and as stated no one tryes to explain the phenomenon, but they do try to make big things out of nothing. The main thing happening is an intervju with a mr. Stubbs, working at a cable/satellite TV company or something similar that has taken loads of time looking at videos from manned space missions trying to find 'mysterious events'...

.. he does find odd events that he himself cannot explain and according to himself had asked numerous scientists about them with various results.

*commentary to scenes in the 'documentary'* As Stubbs talk about a meeting he managed to get with some scientists, he explaines that one scientist abruptly left the meeting:

"He stormed out of the room" I do not doubt that happened, but the thing going through the head of the scientist is likely "omg, did i take time from my work to listen to this nonsense?"... It is not uncommon for scientists (eg. physics professors) to get letters and visits from non-scientists where they are asked to review works or theories of theirs. 99% (arbitrary huge percentage) of these are for the scientists a vaste of time, flaudulent theories. IF YOU WANT TO GET RECOGNITION FOR YOUR "GROUNDBRAKING" DISCOVERY: first you should do is study, learn maths, physics, or whatever area your discovery covers, preferably a bachelor or masters degree. If you still think your discovery holds after you've gotten a good scientific background knowledge, then you should have also gotten to know some people with whom you can discuss it...


It's difficult, while watching this Giovanni flick ,not to think of Jacques Becker's "le trou" (1959) ,the script of which he wrote.But whereas the heroes of Becker's masterpiece were digging a hole to escape from jail,the "heroes" of " les egouts" are digging a tunnel to rob a bank.The characters are not endearing ,former firebrands ,although the lead rather recalls some kind of "true life" Arsène Lupin ,but a humorless Lupin.One does not see why one should take an interest in those men (and woman).Robin Hoods ,they definitely are not.

NB.Another version was made at about the same time "the great Riviera bank robbery" starring Ian McShane.The two versions were drastically different since that one showed the hero's paramilitary activities.


Although its subject matter and characters are moving and dramatic, this Catalonian documentary seems a bit too planned to ring true, at least for me. A supposedly realistic account of the destiny of various Cubans among thousands- who sailed from Havana to Florida in the early 1990's to escape Fidel Castro's regime, I find rather curious how the filmmakers move at ease from Havana to Guantánamo or Florida, and are always in the right place, in the right time. With the overt attitude of new conquistadors I have witnessed in many Spaniards' behavior in Latin America (which is one of the reasons I did not find the female character of "Y tu mamá también" as naïve as people seem to believe, but a true reflection of this neo-colonialist attitude I have directly observed), it makes me suspicious of the true intentions of this film, which I find more related to Spain's sensationalist publications and television programs than to real interest in the human drama of the Cubans' present situation. Due to the potentially explosive situations that may arise from this state of affairs, the film does not lack interesting segments and testimonies. But I believe that any film made about and in Cuba today will have similar impact. As an alternative, watch the Swedish documentary "Surplus."


At first I saw that this film was rated a 10, which I never see on here. Then I noticed that it only had 19 votes and there were no comments yet. This made me leery but I decided to check it out for myself.

First I must say that I am a big Sci-Fi fan, and I do enjoy some good Indie films, even if they are low budget. This film started off looking like it was going to be interesting. I definitely think they came up with a good movie idea. But about five minutes into it I totally lost interest.

After about 5 minutes of narration setting up the plot, it jumps into a lot of action. The problem is that most of the characters are about the same height and weight and all wearing similar, if not identical, outfits. This combined with the complete lack of character development made it nearly impossible to tell what was going on. I had no idea who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

After the action died down a little I thought maybe the film would redeem itself, maybe let us get to know some characters a little bit. But this film was sheer disappointment. Out of about 100 minutes of film there was probably only 15 minutes of dialogue the rest was all kicking and punching.

Anyone who rated this film a 10 either:

a) Just wanted to see a bunch of kicking and punching.

b) Worked on the production of this film.

c) Thinks 10 is the lowest rating...


Its not the worst movie i've ever seen, but it comes real close to it...the stunts are OK, but you just keep wondering why the hell is nobody shooting their gun at the freakin'"class 4" when he's right in front of them, being surrounded by 5 people!! Second of all, the acting, it's just plain afwul. No emotions, and when there are, they are misplaced.

I guess if you like English movies with no depth, bad effects, bad acting but a lot of fighting and shooting then you could watch this, otherwise just leave it...

p.s. i guess the ones voting this movie 10 have probably been used as props!


I was confused from the first 2 Min's of the film!!.. I found it boring, confusing, poorly acted! I have seen soaps with better scripts. In fact.. script was probably on the back of a postage stamp! i turned it off after watching the first hour... shockingly POOR! 2/10 is been generous!! Don't waste your time with the movie!!! Unless you enjoy bad acting... and how the h*** did this get on DVD, in fact someone on benefits could of fronted this movie!

LOL this sums the whole movie...

quote from the over view "Plot Synopsis: This plot synopsis is empty."

this is a empty movie and should never of got past the "short film project"


The Only question that came to my mind after watching this film was - Wowwwwwwwwwwww how can someone make such an awful film and still get 9.5 rating in IMDb??????? I mean there are bad movies and then there are bad movies, this one beats them all to the pole. A half developed storyline, bad action, even worse acting and some very confused concepts eg- the ministry of offense, CORE(is it a paramilitary organization or govt) etc etc...... this in all sums up the whole movie.

But credit must go to the producer for his willingness to produce such a bad movie and provide so many bad actors with employment.

All in all don't ever never watch this movie.....i got the DVD from a friend of mine (who wanted to take revenge on me....for burning his steak)


Budget was clearly a problem with this film. For the level of production, direction, and acting, obviously the budget was too great. Otherwise this film couldn't have been made, which would be the desired result.

Sorry, but if you simply view the trailer, it's painfully obvious that your local high school play has better actors.

I will say that the plot, though well worn, is a good one and ripe for exploitation. Of course, that would require a level of talent missing from this production.

I am amazed that the one positive review was, well, a bit more generous than is believable. However, I do agree that they attempted to undertake a grand vision, but they actually bit off more than they could chew.

It's commendable to praise such efforts for those brave amateurs striving to become professionals. Unfortunately, these are amateurs POSING as professionals, and that praise is not warranted.


The film begins with a voice-over, explaining some kind of alien threat to Earth and a deal made between some earthlings and aliens regarding experiments on humans, and a few very short scenes that look like they were lifted from another film, all of which lasts for 3 or 4 minutes. This is about as sci-fi as this piece of crap gets; the rest of the movie we see an endless series of low-budget, poorly acted fight sequences. The fights are created by camera juggling, as it's clear most of the actors have no martial arts ability, which means the fights really stink. There's a story about an android working with Brit soldiers to find secret documents, but this is one awful movie. If you can sit through this you're already brain-dead.