From the trailers I thought this movie looked awesome when I was a kid. A woman walking her dog is dragged down into the sewers by some unknown beast. The poster made it look like it was going to be good as well. In the end, however, the movie was rather weak and did not have the impact of the trailer or the poster. It still had some bite to it in the movie, but I just would have preferred they keep the focus on the monsters and not have the twist at the end they had. Typical monster movie for this time though as someone is trying to figure out what is beneath the city and seemingly eating the citizens on the surface. Not as much gore as I would have liked to have seen, however, from what I remember the monsters were not half bad. They are certainly the highlight of this movie which in the end seemed to spend most of their time making that trailer and such which goes to show you can bring in some money even with a rather weak movie, if you know how to advertise. I would say the makers of Ghoulies had the same market team as their movie was weak too, but thanks to the posters of the little monster coming out of the toilet it made more money than it really should have. Not sure how this one did, but you still get mentions of C.H.U.D.S in popular culture today as I remember a Simpsons that mentioned them.


Obviously, one does not put this into the DVD player and expect a masterpiece of horror. But one would hope that it would be a little more gory or a little more fun. The cast is full of actors who have proved themselves over the years. Heck, even John Goodman pops up as a cop in a diner scene who soon becomes CHUD food.

The problems are very numerous with this venture. The writing is incredibly inept. The direction is lacking. The pacing is really off, as well. One of the biggest flaws is with the basic story construction. There are simply too many characters. Kim Greist is nice to look at, and gives maybe the best performance, but her character is really tacked on. She just gives us a pretty face to put in danger. She and John Heard have no chemistry what so ever, and I did not buy them for an instant as a couple. But these kinds of problems are found in some of even the most watchable of horror films. Why are they so noticeable here? The true flaw of CHUD is that it just isn't either scary or exciting. The CHUD monsters, who are homeless people exposed to radiation, look kind of cool. They look kind of like the mutated salmon in Humanoids From the Deep. Only they have glowing yellow eyes! But they don't seem to move fast enough to be a threat to anyone under age 80. Their sharp claws and teeth aren't enough to make them seem formidable. We don't see enough of them in action, either. Only body parts and wounds from their victims. This is a sign of a very low budget. And of course the government, working with big industry types is the culprit. Once the head of the chemical company is killed at the end, the film concludes abruptly and on a high note. As if killing this suit is all that really needed to be done. What about all of the monsters still left in the sewers??? Other than the one beheaded by Ms. Greist, I don't recall seeing any of the others killed! What the heck? This really could have been more exciting. There are not enough funny lines either in the script, but there are a few chuckles. The whole thing is topped off by a putrid synthesizer score. Really it isn't worth more than 3 of 10 stars.

The Hound.


This is the most pathetic movie I have ever seen. This movie broke an obvious rule, NEVER TRY TO MAKE A B GRADE HORROR MOVIE SERIOUS. What were they thinking. The high point of C.H.U.D. was a scene where Reverend goes to use a payphone, a guy walks up trying to look all cool and intimidating, clicks the reciever down and eats the quarter. Eventhough this scene makes no sense it provided me with enough entertainment to give this movie 1 star. But I even give it that under protest.


I agree with the previous reviewers who noted that the premise of C.H.U.D. is much better than the execution. The idea of radiation in the subways turning homeless folks into cannibalistic monsters is awesome. And I liked the cop searching for his wife, the photographer doing a story on vagrants, the crazy soup kitchen dude, etc. Unfortunately, the script is seriously underwritten and the characters are not sufficiently fleshed out, neither are the situations. To me, the film deserved a more gritty, less cheesey (i.e., fake gore and goofy looking monsters) approach, with a more visually gifted director (David Fincher perhaps?) and better actors than John Heard and Daniel Stern (who aren't bad, by the way.) See Alligator (1980) as an example of a movie like this that is done well. I give C.H.U.D. 4/10. (One extra star for the title.)


This dull and utterly unscary horror film is cruddy in every department and I simply can't believe that some genre fans actually liked it. The fact that it was followed by a sequel (!) also seems inexplicable to me. There are absolutely no scares here - and no gore, either; our views of the "monsters" are always too brief - but not brief enough to hide how cheap the effects are. "C.H.U.D" is rock-bottom stuff, and no fun at all.


Even though the movie basically features all of the ingredients needed for me to enjoy a silly B-horror movie, "C.H.U.D." just didn't do it for me.

It has a good concept, at least as good as it can get for some silly B-monster movie trash but the movie does very little interesting with its potentially good concept. The first halve of the movie can be basically seen as a build up. Not much is happening in its first halve but also from the moment one when the cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers show up the movie doesn't really know to become exciting. The movie still succeeded in gaining a cult-status over the years. Who knows, perhaps if the movie featured some more gore and it would had been a better and also more entertaining one to watch.

The movie has a quite ridicules story that also isn't being made exactly believable by its storytelling. Douglas Cheek's directing is lacking and the movie also makes a mistake to feature several very different characters, of which the movie looses its focus on from time to time. The one moment the movie is about the Daniel Stern character, while the other it's about the John Heard and the other its about good old Captain Bosch. The movie really lacks on good clear main hero and instead the movie focuses just a bit on each of them, with as a result that we as the viewers also just don't really ever start to care about any of the characters. The movie also isn't helped by it's bad editing and the movie features a couple of moments that make you wonder what it was what you were just watching there. The movie just doesn't always flow well, especially toward its ending.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this movie is its cast. John Heard and Daniel Stern are both respected actors, though they are mostly active within the comedy genre. It makes it all the more weird to see them both in a movie such as this one. The movie also features John Goodman in one of his earliest movie roles. It's just an 15 seconds part though but it was fun to see how his career started of for him. Playing a fat cop who gets eaten in a diner by cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers of course always looks nice on your résumé.

Amazingly enough the movie in 1989 even got a sequel, though I doubt that this was because of the big box-office successes of this movie. It did made a profit but with a $ 1,250,000 this of course isn't very hard to achieve. Its budget really shows on screen although I must say that the cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers are not bad looking. I just wished they were in more sequences and could have added some more tension and horror to the movie.

It has some redeeming qualities but overall it remains nothing more than a bad, silly, '80's B-monster flick.

4/10


Oh, it's not so terrible. It's got real actors, and if the shooting were so incompetent, how could it look like a TV show? About half the characters are also homeless, which is nice although it's not exactly a social-realist or intimate portrayal. Of course, when the man-eating CHUD toxies show up they are guys in stupid rubber costumes, and they remain guys in stupid rubber costumes no matter how tight you cut the shots. And none of the actors were written one single bit of character development. At the end when the bad guy drives his flaming truck into the manhole after his men have pumped the sewers full of deadly gas, you're like, great - New York is gonna blow up. But no, apparently nobody, er, thought of this, so Nothing Happens. And before you know it, we're at the stupid ending to end all stupid endings. OK it's terrible.


Inevitable comparisons to "Motorcycle Diaries". Yes, there is a difficult trek through Central and South America. But that's pretty much where the similarities end.

The Motorcycle Diaries succeeded because Che is a compelling character, not a fresh-out- of-high-school kid with a vindictive sense of humor. There is no self-discovery in this film; no greater themes (populism, for example, in MD).

The main character in this film simply realizes he likes running away from his seemingly-cool family and being a man-child with no responsibilities. He's the embodiment of every guy in a midlife crisis who still wants to do "something really cool" with his life, to get away from it all, with a threesome in a Nicaraguan hotel thrown in for good measure.

I will say that I laughed at certain points in this movie. The supporting characters are much more entertaining (not to say that Masterson was bad in the role; it's just not a very good role). But halfway through, when I started groaning and rolling my eyes more than laughing, it became less and less worth standing in line at the Philly Film Festival for.


When ever I run into a really bad film like this one, I try to find something good to say about it. OK, here goes, beautiful locations, fairly professional cinematography.

To me a dramatic film must have at least a shred of believability to it. This one has holes in logic you could drive a train through. For example: Where did they get the gas to drive a jeep several hundred miles through an unexplored rainforrest Why would anyone like Connor join up with two complete strangers (Chris & Darlene) on a wild idea such as the expedition in the first half. Most especially why after being taught several lessons about trusting strangers earlier in the film? Where does this strange couple come from? We know nothing about them after they are introduced except that Chris lost his wife and child in an car accident. By the way, the scene where he relates this story is, in my opinion one of the worst acted dramatic moments in film history. Why director/producer Whelan would cast such a poor actor in such a critical role is beyond me.

In fact most of the actors here seem to be appearing on film for the first time. Connor is played fairly well, but he has nothing to mouth but clichés in the script. And man is this script slow moving! Not much happens but it sure takes a long time to tell us that.

Absolutely none of the characters in this film have even a quarter inch of depth to them.

This looks like the kind of effort you might get when you say, "Hey lets go to all these exotic locations across the world and take some pictures? And while we are there we will make a movie too!"

Sometimes an independent film succeeds because it is different and the producers have an original vision that is unique and refreshingly new. It is obvious that for writer, producer and director Whelan this is a labor of love. I truly wish I could say that he succeeded. I really wanted to like this film. The publicity for it really sells it as a great adventure. And it clearly has lots of fans and has won awards, but I am sorry to say it is very disappointing. Even an independent film has to have good story-telling skills. It needs to have, in addition to an original vision, above average writing, direction, casting and acting to rise to the top and establish itself. This film (it appears to have been shot as a video) does none of that. I understand that this is the first effort at something above the level of made for TV for this team. It is understandable, since it resembles a TV show more then a serious film. On a TV show a viewer can expect poor character development, cliché ridden dialog and situations and a sense that it was made very quickly. That is the impression I get from watching this very ambitious effort kind of dribble out into release. To all it's fans I say, sorry, but someone has to tell the truth, and the emperor has no clothes.

My advise is stay away from this one if you love film. Or perhaps fast forward through the drama and check out the best part of the film: the impressive locations. I am giving it one star based on that only! A real stinker....


This film is composed of elements that appeal to me but I was disappointed. The acting is journeyman quality and the cinematography is professional. The story is generally juvenile and poorly detailed, with some exceptions. Those good scenes made viewing less painful. The plot development tries, but fails to achieve a coherence and fails to allow the characters to become real. This leaves the movie as an 18 year old's fantasy of what he could do if he left his home town in anger and embarrassment and had hot chicks falling for him through a series of adventures while traveling on money provided by a cool dad living vicariously. The young hero accomplishes nothing on his own merit except for saving the trans-Darien expedition from a guerrilla band in a scene that rings so phony it would have worked better as a dream sequence. This is not a retelling of the universal stories of transformation through adversity or rites of passage. Although the central character grows a beard and looks older by the end of the movie he has not matured. Likewise, decent acting and production values have not created a mature or compelling film.


Trite. Clichéd. Awful. And this ignores the film is written as some wish fulfillment fantasy. Ignoring the strangeness of the main character as some bland and psychotic looking teenager who decides to get drunk and travel anywhere--literally, anywhere--after his failed wedding (to lose his virginity, nevertheless), the audience is subjected to a pointless movie that flip-flops between numerous clichés and blatant ripoff of more superior films.

The acting is poor, the script is poor, and the film work is done completely on digital video which makes it look even cheesier than it is. There's no idea of a plot, dramatic elements, or anything to keep your interest. On top of that, the film actually ends twenty minutes before the movie stops. The jokes fall flat (especially the ending one), and it's simply a waste of time. This will be the longest hour and a half of your life, and you will not get it back.

Previous arguments about the main character being an irresponsible man-child is dead-on accurate. I suspect the movie was financed so the director and actors could have an 'adventurous' vacation and make a movie while they were at it. I hope they had a good time because the 'movie' they made is more boring than a fistful of slides narrated by your monotone aunt. No wonder it went direct-to-DVD.


SPOILER WARNING

The original Homeward Bound story is a fascinating story of wide panoramic settings, a strong bond between the three animals, Shadow, Sassy and Chance and a pledge with one another to walk home to San Francisco despite the miles and miles of dangerous wilderness between them. The three main characters are well rounded, interesting, and you care about them so much that the human characters seem somewhat less relevant (though not entirely because they serve as motivation for the characters to when they will return home).

This however, is not.

We're at a point where the family is preparing to go camping in Canada, but after a paranoid Chance cocks things up by thinking he's being abandoned, the animals stupidly run away from the airport and find themselves down the back streets of San Francisco.

The animals seem to meander around the city mindlessly, dodging two very thick men working for illegal testing labs and two incredibly irritating strays (one of whom dubiously has a voice uncannily similar to Mike Tyson), team up with a gang of other misanthrope strays now and again (even more insufferable with some of the awful garbagy lines spouted out), and in general, the film doesn't seem to know what to do with itself, because as we all know, since these animals successfully navigated an entire wilderness for miles and miles last time, a city would be pretty small potatoes! We even fill the gap by having a bit where a kid is saved from a burning house! Any minute, I would expect Rin-Tin-Tin to come up with his attorney with a cease-and-desist note and threats of suing for copyright (and to be honest, I wouldn't blame him)! It is so bone-idle, that it in fact levers in a cheesy romance plot between Chance and a stray called Delilah! What were the writing team thinking when they cooked this up? My only conclusion: They're all raving lunatics! We don't need a stupid romantic sub-plot levered into these films, it's totally superfluous! To make this story aggravatingly boneheaded, we even have a love rival by the way of another irritating redneck-drawling stray dog with the brains of a kipper! (For some reason, they use a Grand-Bleu De Gascogne for this, sadly a very rare dog, which would smack of doggie racism, unless it perhaps indicates that the writers hate the French and the rednecks.) I also wonder why Chance still behaves like a terminally-naive puppy despite his last experiences in the wilderness which would surely have taught him a thing or two! Not forgetting, in the first film, Chance explained that before he was adopted he was a stray dog, and was abandoned when still a puppy, so he'd know a little about living on the streets don't you think? The conclusion that wraps up the film's stories is cringe worthy to the point of wanting to put your foot through the telly! I won't reveal it, but if you look at the rest of the film, a climax of this film will not be worth the case it is carried in! Stick to Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. At least that way you can pretend that this Godawful mess never existed and enjoy the better original. Watching this sequel may result in you hurling yourself in front of a freight train! You have been warned!


Disney's Homeward Bound (remake of The Incredible Journey) introduced the three talking animals, and this was the sequel that followed it, from director David R. Ellis (Final Destination 2, Snakes on a Plane). Basically it's been three years since the previous events, the family are happily living in San Francisco heading for a vacation to Canada. Once again the pets somehow get left behind just after the plane takes off, so Shadow the dog (voiced by The Bodyguard's Ralph Waite, replacing Don Ameche), Chance the dog, (voiced by Michael J. Fox) and Sassy the cat (voiced by Sally Field) try to find their way back to their owners. Along the way they meet scruffy bully dogs, abandoned rebel dogs, some bumbling dog catchers in their "Blood Red Van", and Chance even finds himself a girlfriend that could distract him completely. Eventually they make it out of the city in one piece, and hardly any danger or shenanigans, and back to their owners, with Chance's girlfriend not too far behind. Also starring Airplane's Robert Hays as Bob Seaver, Kim Greist as Laura Seaver, Veronica Lauren as Hope Seaver, Kristina Lewis as Stacy, Kevin Chevalia as Jamie Seaver, Adam Goldberg as Pete, Sinbad as Riley and Stephen Tobolowsky as Bando. The animals are still lovable and fun to watch, but the lack of adventurous moments makes it is pretty boring compared to the first one. Adequate!


What I expected of this after seeing the trailer, I'm not sure. I guess I was hoping that James Franco would somehow have created a movie with a purpose. I thought, at worse, this movie would be so bad, it would be good. But this movie was so bad it 360'd back to bad. Why? Well, in most movies there's a suspension of disbelief, a relation to a character that makes you feel something, and a plot. This movie has maybe 1 of those 3. I really tried to get myself to believe that the character Harry was seriously living with an ape, but for many many reasons (one being that in 50% of the shots you could see straight through the ape mask) I was struck with the notion that James Franco just didn't know he was even in this movie. I'm pretty sure there were only 2 enjoyable moments in this movie. One was because I can't remember being able to use the phrase "apesh*t" and mean it in the most literal sense. The second was when the film inspired my friend to say "He literally **bleeped** Dostoevsky in the face". In the end, there was no "a-ha" moment that made me realize all the inaneness was worth it. But because this movie inspired me to bake both banana cookies and banana bread, I will give it three stars.


I am so sorry, but James Franco should start looking for a career in renting movies for people rather than making them. The plot was awful, but not as bad as the acting. SPOILER ALERT: The "Ape" was actually a guy in a really BAD gorilla mask, although I have to admit I did get a pretty good laugh every time the Ape sat next to a lamp or a wall and turned his head so you could see the empty eye sockets. Even better was the mouth of the mask that just gaped open and was hanging at an angle to one side. It looked like the Ape mask was recovering from a stroke. I had a field-day with this movie picking out all the mistaken cameramen caught in a reflection or the cameraman going through the DT's. Which reminds me, was this James Franco's "acting" or was he just constantly high. I wonder what their budget was for the wardrobe, the apartment, office area, and props like fake feces or extra gorilla hair ????? I guess the budget couldn't afford a tripod. My theory is this movie is so deep it's gonna take me awhile to GET IT....... I think.


As a film school graduate, I've seen my share of terrible films. Being a fan of James Franco's, I felt that The Ape would at least be interesting. Instead, I was tricked into watching a pretentious James Franco ego-trip. The only good part of the film was its music, which wasn't featured enough. Otherwise, this film was slowly paced, overly perverse, wordy, misdirected, miscast and wildly unclever. I hate bashing somebody's hard work, but if I were to sugar-coat my feelings, somebody might make the same mistake that I made by watching The Ape.

The next time James Franco has this much time on his hands, I suggest he take up treasure hunting, or anything else that doesn't involve writing or directing.


Sadly, quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. How it got made is beyond me. Atrocious idea, Hideous execution... The acting is pretty awful. James Franco spends half the movie with his eyes closed, hopefully trying to erase the whole experience and idea from his mind (unfortunately, it's impossible for the viewer). This movie feels very home made, with poor camera angles. There are a few pretty funny lines and one scene even manages to be downright hilarious. But it's not enough to save this work of 'art.' For a movie so obsessed with creating art, it's beyond me how Mr. Franco could honestly give this to the movie going (renting, actually, as I don't believe it ever went to theatres.. Not really a shocker) public. James Franco seriously needs to redeem himself somehow after this heinous contribution to the cinema canon. And I'm (maybe I was? I was so appalled by this movie that I'm not sure anymore) a fan of his. Do NOT rent this.


Actually this movie isn't all that bad. It's fun and certainly not to be taken seriously. I recall an interview with Milius where he explains that he based this movie on the games he used to play as a kid. Apparently many in USA felt a genuine fear of an invasion back then (whenever that was).

That aside, the movie is playful and the villains range from faceless soldiers to really clever counter-insurgency experts .

OK, so teenage kids are the main protagonists. Big deal. The action is neat even though the FX are slightly weak my modern standards.

And besides, who's to say that USAnians won't fight as hard as any Viet Cong or Mujahedin when their nation is invaded by a foreign power? Frankly, I think they would. Politics aside, I actually think that if this move was redone today, it would reall be way worse than the original...

See it. Don't take it too seriously. Eat popcorn. Have fun.


Red Dawn starts like any other day in a small Colorado town, however the normal tranquillity is soon shattered when Russian soldiers parachute out of the sky & start killing everyone. In a systematic coordinated attack right across America starting in Mexico allied Soviet & Cuban forces have invaded the US & World War III has begun. Brother's Jed (Patrick Swayze) & Matt Eckert (Charlie Sheen) along with several of their high school buddies manage to escape the initial invasion & make it to the relative safety of the Colorado mountains. With no option but to fight the teenagers take arms & wage their own personal war against the Soviet Cuban scum who have invaded their homeland & killed innocent Americans...

Co-written & directed by avid gun collector & pro-gun activist John Milius one has to say that I really didn't think too much of this overly sentimental teenage action film. The script by Milius & Kevin Reynolds takes itself deadly seriously & is very pro the right to bear arms all the way, it says that the right of each American to own a gun is good because America is the land of the free & in the event of an attack by the Russians or any other evil superpower individual Americans will be able to defend themselves. I suppose Red Dawn tries to tap into the fears people had at the time, fears about Cummunism, about Russia, about World War III, about nuclear warfare, about increasing legislation in owning a gun which Red Dawn repeatedly says owning a gun is every American's God given right & the whole survivalist movement. The character's aren't great, there's the clichéd action film theme of ordinary people being thrust into an extraordinary situation & having to toughen-up & overcome the odds, you know the sort of thing I mean. Nothing really works that well, while watching it last night I just thought it was a collection of seemingly random incidents stringed together & you never get to know any of the character's, in fact I couldn't really name them now as I couldn't really tell them apart. The film never leaves the confines of the Colorado town either & I for one never really felt like the whole of the US was at war. At almost two hours it felt like it went on forever, the action isn't anything special & it's hard to believe a group of teenagers could take on & defeat a heavily armed platoon of highly trained soldiers. I read somewhere once that someone thought Red Dawn resembled The Goonies (1985) but with guns & rocket launchers which I think is actually quite an apt description.

Director Milius nails his allegiances down here, there are some really nauseating scenes of gross patriotism which I found rather laughable. The scene of the teenagers listening to the radio & the American national anthem comes on to keep the nations spirits up is just so forced & cheap it's untrue. Red Dawn was the very first film released with a PG-13 rating in the states, The Flamingo Kid (1984) was actually the first film to be given a PG-13 but Red Dawn ended up being released before it. There is a fairly high body count & a fair amount of blood too although it's not that graphic it is quite violent & whether Red Dawn would still get a PG-13 today is debatable. Amazingly the term 'Red Dawn' was the given code name for the military operation in Iraq that captured Saddam Hussein back in 2003!

The film is well made with decent production values, the military vehicles & the like look very authentic I suppose & the New Mexico location shooting has some nice scenery. There are several sizable parts of the film which are subtitled. The acting is in my opinion very poor, the likes of Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen in his film debut, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Harry Dean Stanton & Powers Boothe are capable of much better than this & some of the performances are truly dire.

Red Dawn is not a film that I can say I liked, it's pro-war pro-gun patriotic nonsense that has dated very badly & is a bit of a chore to sit through in one sitting. Apparently set to be remade as Red Dawn (2010).


In Red Dawn, clearly taking place in 1984, America is invaded by Cubans (allied with Russians). Nuclear weapons are never seen. Neither is acting.

The filming/directing is horrendous. In long shots, nothing happens; you just see landscapes or people standing around. There are overlong, boring conversations fit only to be fast-forwarded past. You'd think the movie was worth watching for the actors, but they are so young and inexperienced that they become barely recognizable innocent bystanders in a clueless, unsympathetic story about stupid Americans fighting even stupider foreigners.

There were many really good movies made in the '80s, and just as many really bad ones. Guess which category this belongs in.

2 out of 10.


This movie was quite possibly the stupidest movie I have ever seen. Some how, the soviets have managed to evade Europe, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, nuclear weapons, the combined armed forces of the US, NATO, and managed to invade the US, with the - sit down for this - help of Cuba. I don't know if coke made its debut in Hollywood around this time,or if John Milius had mental complications, but there is just no plausible excuse for this movie- it is absolutely dreadful. A group of teens are ruggedly morphed into righteous insurgent fighters, fighting to save America from some amalgam of Latinos and a soviet army somehow gifted with obvious teleportation abilities. American teens prevail in the end against the entire soviet army, who have popped into existence in the heart of middle America, by means known only to John Milius. I know we all have to start somewhere, and Milius was probably a little hormone crazed from eating raw dead animals in the tradition of any good American conservative, but, come on now! The only person I can think of that would have loved this movie is Ted Nugent who's grasp on reality has always been tenuous at best. The people who seem to have loved this movie, most of whom are now right wing Republicans, probably saw this movie as a boys wet dream of being an action hero and saving his country. And yet Milius went on to be a screen writer for the movie apocalypse now. Go figure. Reading other user comments this movie seemed to appeal to people imbued with a sense of unreality,people decrying the intrinsic Communism of Hollywood while most of the reviews coming from outside the US almost universally condemn this movie as being idiotic at best. Watch this movie again if you can sit through it, it will give you an idea of the mindset,( and I use the term loosely) of the right wing in the US.


There's this silly scientist (Kenneth Hendel), you see, who has managed to create a machine, a Material Transmitter, which can, well, transmit stuff into a parallel universe. And then there's this female reporter (Kay Lentz), see, who's gonna do a report of the man and then there's this ken-do fighting cable guy (Richard Hatc), who because of an accident gets hooked up in this and they all are like sent into a parallel universe. And in the parallel universe there's some green dude (Ray Charleson), a giant (Larry Taylor), an annoying little thief (Peter O'Farrell) and this, like, evil warlord (John Saxon). And guess who's gonna get napped by the warlord and who is gonna do inventions for him. And who's gonna safe the day.

Prisoners Of The Lost Universe is my first camp movie love. When I was a kid I must have watched it dozens of times, even tough it is flat out silly film, whit poor settings and obviously small effect budget. That is the reason I am a bit too generous with my score.

POTLU isn't nothing more, than a low budget action/sci-fi/fantasy flick, which, if you are into this kind of films, will make a grin on your face just because it is, what it is. And, at least in the first viewing, you can't help but to applaud for the inner logic of the story and the world. A pod gun. Black and white red eyes pygmies, hot stone worshipers and much, much more.

In a word, if you are watching this film, you most likely are into low budget camp films, and thus can appreciate this film for what it is.

Score: 4 of 10, Camp Score: 7 of 10


This stereotypical, low-grade fantasy lacks both the budget and the directorial imagination to be really exciting. The only epic thing about it is the music score. The film is too cheesy for most adults, but it also has some unpleasant scenes that are unsuitable for kids - making you wonder what audience exactly they had in mind. What kept me watching it is Kay Lenz: she's both endearing and feisty, and she looks particularly sexy when she's angry. Her face has a great "bone structure" - she looks a bit like Kim Basinger (trivia note: they were born the same year, 1953), only more beautiful. And she can even keep a straight face through lines like "But....he's green!" (when the male lead suggests that they should follow a man). Take Lenz out of the movie and you don't have a movie - just a midget, a giant, an evil John Saxon, and other stereotypes. (*1/2)


"A scientist has developed a matter transmitter that he is able to demonstrate for two people, when an earthquake occurs, disrupting the test and plunging the trio into a parallel universe. The trio must adjust to the strange new world, where medieval weaponry is mixed with modern technology, all the while trying to find a way to travel back home. The scientist becomes separated from the young couple and they attempt to find him, all the while a warlord is trying to stop them, so he can take the young woman for his own," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Richard Hatch (as Dan) and Kay Lenz (as Carrie) are both athletic and attractive, in this vapid and vacuous parallel universe adventure. In Terry Marcel's "Prisoners of the Lost Universe", Mr. Hatch and Ms. Lenz get to say naughtier words than they said on episodic television; and, of course, they banter before falling in love. The strange universe looks exactly like our Earth; however, it populated with amusingly costumed and made-up actors. It looks like it should have been a lot more fun.

** Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983) Terry Marcel ~ Richard Hatch, Kay Lenz, John Saxon


Prisoners of the Lost Universe is a remarkably underwhelming fantasy/adventure film that offer very little in the way of thrills or excitement. A brief plot synopsis: A couple is accidentally transmitted to an alternate reality and quickly become separated. The woman, Carrie (Kay Lenz), has been taken prisoner by a vicious warlord named Kleel (John Saxon). Her new beau, Dan (Richard Hatch), with the help of a ragtag band of misfits, sets out to free Carrie and find a way home.

I'm not sure how many South African made movies I've actually seen so I can only hope that this isn't an example of that country's film industry. Prisoners of the Lost Universe plays a bit like a cross between one of those cheap sword and sorcerer movies so popular in the 1980s and something like Romancing the Stone with a bit of cross-dimensional time-travel thrown in for good measure. None of it works, mainly because the whole plot is terribly tired and has that "been there, done that" feel to most of it. The quirky characters that pop-up throughout the movie aren't interesting enough to care about. And the relationship between the two main characters, Carrie and Dan, is handled in such a ham-fisted and forced manner that it provides nothing in the way of a spark for the movie. The relationship between the two main characters exists only because in these kinds of movies there is always a relationship between the two main characters. The lone bright spot for me was John Saxon. His over-acting in every scene, even when doing nothing but lying on a bed, was a joy to behold. However, I could have done without the orange MC Hammer-inspired pants he wore during much of the movie. In the end, this one's a real dud. A 3/10 from me.

One last note - I knew I was in trouble right from the start when I noticed that both of the vehicles the main characters were driving had right side steering wheels. This wouldn't be so unusual, but they were supposed to be in California.


This is so forgettable. I know that if one were to dig, he could find some kind of clever sci fi in this. It's just so darn dull. The characters are caricatures. They are entirely tongue in cheek. That's find when you have a solid jumping off point. To get to the yucks, you have to wade through so much uninspiring dialogue. Many have said they thought Kay Lenz could carry things. As a Hollywood beauty, she is passable. She is an actress from a time of really forgettable actresses. They would pop up on TV shows and then disappear. Unfortunately, she isn't that great, at least I see nothing that separates her. Also, the events that pop up are uninteresting and we aren't part of the joke. Don't bother with this.


Maybe it's the nature of the films he selects. In any case, Tom Hanks is in virtually every scene in this movie, and in many of them he is alone. This was also true of Cast Away. In both movies Hanks strives to overcome a series of problems, some realistic, some contrived. A modern day rework of Charlie Chaplin's "little tramp" style of story telling. The movie is not bad, but when the story becomes subordinate to the movie star, it becomes a distraction and the whole production suffers. This movie is another valentine that Tom Hanks has sent to himself. If you go to movies to see the stars rather than the stories, then this may be for you.


This movie left me feeling empty. I didn't need to be taught that some men are controlling and abusive, or that some teens are troubled and emotionally fragile, and I didn't need to be taught that true faith in God, or goodness, is difficult in a violent world. Like most people, I knew these things already. This movie is so full of depressing tragedy that it desperately needed fully-developed, interesting characters to make us care, and I found the characters sketchy at best. Martha Plimpton is always interesting and it was nice to see her in a lead role, but she deserved a better script. A disappointment, and it's no wonder it didn't get much of a theatrical run.


Eye of God is a well-crafted independent film that is fatally flawed by its reliance on a current mainstream-film cliche as a central plot element: that any character with religious convictions will be revealed in the course of the film as a psychopath. It demonstrates once more that most filmmakers today have no clue in depicting religious experience in either an authentic or a sympathetic fashion. A waste of talent.


I was very fortunate last night, as I had a chance to see AINOA in a sneak preview almost half a year prior to its scheduled start over here in Austria. I was instantly thrilled as I heard a lot about this ambitious project in the past two years! And I learned a lot last night... For starters, Austrian actors synchronizing themselves for the English dubbed version - the one I saw - does not work. At all! It sounds odd and sometimes plain stupid. But as AINOA is a low budget project, it is an understandable decision. Unfortunately one that hurts the movie a lot along the way. Secondly, the movie fails to introduce its main characters properly in the beginning. Therefore the audience - and I am not just talking about myself here - felt not nearly as tied in with the story as intended by the writer and director. Dramatic, sometimes even tragic moments felt as witnessed in a news broadcast far away. And then there is the pace of the story, which is more like a crawl than a rush. Only at the end - the last 20mins or so - does the pace pick up a bit and the movie starts getting interesting, as all the loose ends start coming together. On the positive side, the production design was really well done considering the extremely low budget that the designers had to cope with. The camera angles are often unique as well and give the entire scenery a strange sense of familiarity although they are actually portraying future scenarios. Great idea! The bottom line, as sad as it is, is this: Had the characters been properly introduced and the dubbing been done right, this could well have been a marvelous SiFi epic. As it is though, all the good intentions fall flat on their faces.


having recently watched the Austrian horror film " in drei tagen bist du tot" (english international title "dead in three days"), which was, as far as I'm concerned, a very decent experiment, I was interested in recent developments inside the Austrian film scene towards making genre flicks; so the prospect of seeing a science fiction film made in Austria instantaneously spiked my curiosity. But, to make it short, I was deeply, deeply disappointed by what I saw. if it wasn't for the score that makes a huge effort in trying to generate at least some kind of suspense, this movie simply is unutterably boring. having seen the German original version, I was suffering immensely from the poor dialogs, which are equally poorly executed by the actors. after the first 15 minutes the story seemed to turn in circles- which actually was a good thing for a friend of mine, who got out of the theater to buy some drinks and returned 15 minutes later: I didn't have to tell him what was going on while he was gone, because actually nothing happened at all. I know how difficult film making with a small budget is and that the production of a film like AINOA should therefore be considered as an achievement in its own right, but to me this would only be true if the result was in any way at least interesting to watch. but watching tranquillized actors in poor star wars/mad max replica standing around saying things like "it is meant to be" over and over again, my initial goodwill concerning this project evaporated- by the end of the show, I considered "AINOA" to be my personal "ground zero"- in this sense, a "groundbreaking" movie.


As a "middle class" French, i started to feel embarrassed to define this movie as one of the worst i've ever seen... But i held on and now i can scream it freely. The end is over pathetic and disgusting, the acting is bad, and worst, as it's still to play feminist no one will dare to say that girl, désirée, is as bad, violent and stupid as everyone around her. This is not a matter of self defence, it's just common sense. I hate those kind of guys, and even more the girls who desperately try to look like them. Avoid this film please. Whether you're French or not, rich or poor doesn't matter. Here we call this kind of movies "navet", a turnip. It means this is tripe.


Shirley Temple was in a few - not many - movies that just were not appealing. In most of her films, she overcomes a bad start in life (orphanages, etc.) or overcomes an evil, nasty person (usually Edna Mae Oliver or someone similar) but is seen happy most of the time and singing and dancing here and there. It's when the negative elements of the story are overemphasized (i.e. Blue Bird, Baby Take A Bow) that her films often lose appeal. That's the case in this movie.

"Our Little Girl" is simply too depressing, a negative storyline in which Shirley's parents are ready for a divorce. Her mother has an affair with a friend and the father is away all the time on business, ignoring the family.

When Temple ("Molly Middleton") is happy or cute, she's too cute in here, her sugary personality overdone. Meanhwhile, there is only one song and no dance numbers. People buy or rent Shirley Temple movies to feel good, not to get depressed or weighed down with broken-family soaps. There are plenty of other movies like that.


Even today, it's doubtful that anyone settling down to a Temple movie will have 'accidentally' stumbled upon it whilst browsing, and knows what they're letting themselves in for. Temple's vehicles are a sub-genre of their own and, in terms of cinematic artistry, are amongst the kind of films who's best critics by far are their own core audience.

The plot of OLG seems the kind of mawkish fare that Miss Curly Top was a dab-hand at resolving with a starry smile and a twinkly eye - mum and dad's marriage hits the rocks, divorce beckons following infidelity, and Shirley is of course caught up in the middle of it all.

This particular entry somewhat subverts the given formula however, and throughout the film's brief hour-long running time the perspective is in the main unusually dour. Whilst we're not exactly talking 'Requiem For A Dream', there is no sanguine song-and-dance routine to make everything alright here. It takes a runaway Shirley, one of those stock-character post-depression aphoristic hobos, and much wincing solemnity on the part of respected Thesps McCrea and Ames to win the day.

Director Robertson apparently chose not to heed WC Fields' advice regarding children and animals, having already directed a version of 'Annie' in 1932, and having to contend with a lot of one and a little of the other here too. One has to wonder whether there was any sadistic pleasure taken in the fabled 'dead animals' factor necessary for Temple's required tears quota, which on this occasion would certainly have been higher than usual.


The issue of divorce and how it affects children is only marginally dealt with in this cloying story of a happy family torn apart by a rotten script. Too much time is spent on the cutesy antics of Shirley Temple, while too little time is devoted to the development of the plot and characters. In this 65-minute programmer, things happen at lightning speed, with little logic or motivation behind them. Thus, the marital split of the two leads comes too suddenly and seems unrealistic. The same can be said about the relationship between the soon-to-be-ex-wife and her wealthy suitor. The adult cast is passable, but Temple is unbearably sugary. Director John S. Robertson, used to handling costume pictures during the silent era, should have realized that less is more when it comes to baby grins and baby pouts. Make sure you check your blood-sugar level after watching this one.


Having now watched it on Belgian (French)TV it's like having watched it on a 'plane ("free" in a kind of way) but I'd never pay to see it... The only time I've enjoyed seeing celebrities playing themselves was in that ancient movie "Around The World In Eighty Days" - you know, where Marcel Marceau actually spoke a word. Nor did many others say much. Johnny was 'introduced' in the film as an unknown "60-year old" - he looked more like 72 - so the makeup department were obviously under no pressure to conform. There was no originality in Hallyday's role; who else could he be, even in some parallel universe - in France and the francophone world? Given the fact he's sold virtually no records in the UK or the USA I can't see any story/style/communication that would connect outside France etc.If, as some have said, that the same scenario could be built around Cliff Richard, it would be for the Monthy Python team to construct it. The difference is that Python probably wouldn't want Sir Cliff used in person in such a production.


I didn't expect to be blown away by this film, but i expected a good time. I thought that the topic was somewhat original, and the trailers seemed promising. Alas, once you've seen the trailers, you've pretty much seen the funny parts already. While this film isn't bad it kind of get cheesy at times. Johnny plays Johnny and not Jean-Philippe, a character that should have been more developed, the story is ill conceived and the end is plain silly. Add that cheesiness to a very bad song that closes the film and you somehow regret you paid 8,50 euros to have seen it. I heard the Americans are already on it to buy the rights and have thought to make their movie revolving around Madonna or Springsteen. For once i think the American version has a good chance to be better than the original at least. I also enjoyed "true lies" better than "La totale" though.


Let's be honest: Johnny Hallyday may be a great singer and songwriter for some (and I honestly like some of his songs very much), but he's not an actor. As in this movie he has to play himself most of the time, this shouldn't be too much of a problem, but it is. His play is flat, as is Luchini's, who isn't funny enough to pull the audience through this annoyingly foreseeable screenplay (although the basic idea behind it is quite interesting). If you like either Johnny or Luchini, you might enjoy this. If you want to spend an evening laughing - this is not going to do it. It let me chuckle several times, but never laugh. This is a waste - in production money, and in the money you spend to see it.


Now I'll admit I do enjoy this cheesy B grade sci-fi show, despite it's contrived happy endings and ridiculous character development. But the problem with this finale is that they take this production way too seriously culminating in a ridiculously bad, pretentious montage to a misplaced, overplayed classic rock song. This was such bad art it made me cringe to watch this sequence, and this music just totally didn't belong here. Clearly the writers and production staff are B grade too. We also got more typical bad makeup jobs of our main characters growing elderly in a time dilation field and putting on razzie worthy, tear jerking scenes of pretentious sentimentality. Thrown in is possibly the worst bit of dialog I've seen since the Star Wars Prequels where for some reason Daniel goes on a ridiculous rant rejecting Claudia Black's character's sexual advances towards him. Who on Earth wrote this scene? They have absolutely no understanding of what a man would do in such a situation. Daniel is supposed to be Nerdy, but Nerds aren't against sex, often it's all they think about (i.e Revenge of the Nerds.) Nerds are just socially awkward and don't know how approach women, often harboring secret fantasies of the woman being the aggressor.(i.e Crumb) When Daniel Jackson instead went to deliver an idiotic moralistic speech following Vala's come-on I was overwhelmed with shock just how bad this bit was and that the production staff previewed this yet still allowed it to air. You'll have to see this to believe it, one of the all time worst love scenes in the history of entertainment. Staggeringly bad it makes the dismal, contrived teen love affair in The Great Outdoors seem Oscar worthy in comparison. A truly disappointing finale to this series, the silly but fun "class reunion" episode a few weeks before would have made a better send off than this atrociously bad effort to produce "art".


Several of the previous reviews for this episode remarked, in my opinion, more upon the reviewers love for the series rather then this episode. Well, you won't find a bigger Stargate fan than me, and I absolutely hated this episode. The actors tried to push on through some truly, terrible writing but even SG1 couldn't pull victory from the jaws of this big a loser of a script and concept. To quote Samantha Carter herself, "What's wrong with going out on fishing,". Are you a StarGate fan who hasn't seen this episode yet? Do yourself a favor. Skip it. You'll remember the series more fondly this way. I do look forward to the DVD movies though.


I don't think I have ever seen a worse ensemble cast. I have seen many a high school play with better acting. All the most basic mistakes are made. It should only be shown to young aspiring actors as a training video in what not to do. Students: note the grossly ineffective vocal inflections, the myopic combinations of fake-English-lord and California slurring, the twitching rather than walking, the gesticulating wildly while raising shoulders and rocking back and forth and jerking the head. Note with what genius the actor begins in the high register and marches upward every higher toward what someone in rehearsal must have underlined as the key word. Ahhh and the key word turns out to always be an adjective and always "but-no-cigar" close to a word Oscar surely worried over a bit more.

Clearly the whole budget was spent on hiring the locations and nothing was left over to hire any talent to stand in front of them...

Horror is definitely the right genre for this picture but I doubt it was the horror that the Director intended.


What a shame! i can't believe i have watched it till the end! Basil a woman? it just spoiled everything. how about "the love that dare not speak its name", "such love as Michael Angelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself"? how can the director justify himself about the secrecy hidden in the picture that Basil does not want to reveal at first, and HIS confession to Dorian later? If basil is a woman, what's the necessary of putting these in the film any more? And divided the work into "influence", "sin", "redemption", etc? It just cut Wilde's masterpiece and his thoughts into pieces, and ruin the intricacy of the original work. The director just imposed his interpretation of the novel upon us, which unfortunately, I can hardly agree. What's more, he ruined all the characters, Basil, Dorian (what's the use of the bed scene with Sybil? and the wedding of Basil and Henry, by the way?) and Henry finally. Why replacing Campbell, who disposed Basil's body, with Henry?! Henry is supposed to be a spectator, staying unmoved in this story. It's far too away from his cynical aphorism, which seems as one of the only things left in this version worth watching. Forgive me for being so angry at this film. I just cannot stand Oscar Wilde's masterpiece being ruined like that. I know everyone has a different understanding at this work, but i really don't think it would be what the writer himself wanted to reveal or rather conceal. I wish I hadn't watched it. Yet, fortunately, Wilde himself does not have to!


This film leads to a lot of questions . Looking at the message board on this page several people are asking when this film was released while people who've actually seen THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY are now asking why it was released . I'm actually a combination of the two . I'm wondering why it was produced and when it is set . Apparently the story starts with Dorian's grandfather coming home from a hard days work building atomic bombs and then killing his daughter . I'm just sort of curious where abouts in the Victorian world there was an atomic weapons project . Worse still in a fit of angst and guilt it was this led to Dorian's grandfather killing himself and his daughter " Who'd have thought that the smallest thing in creation would kill the most number of people " Hmmmm well since the film ignores any sense of time and setting I think it's only fair neutrinos are smaller than atoms whilst firearms have killed far more people than atomic bombs . So have machetes in fact . If you're going to play hard and loose with science and history you're leaving yourself open to all sorts of counterattacks

As bad as the obvious and anrachronisms are such as atomic bombs and modern day cars and clothing that keep appearing from scene to scene it's probably the acting and dialogue that makes the film so irritating . . Some people have complained that Basil has become female but it wouldn't be nearly as bad if Rainer Judd had

1 ) A decent line

2 ) Gave the impression that she might have attended an acting class

Both the dialogue and the performances are dire from all the cast . Hands up anyone who' had a conversation similar to this ?

" A realism that is vulgar "

" But it's the lack of realism that is vulgar "

Or

" Passion embraces your lips with its hideous fire "

I'm not exactly reminded of Oscar Wilde with these lines or indeed William Goldman or Robert Towne . More like someone who thinks they're being clever by writing the most stilted lines possible . In fact I'd call it " The dialogue that dare not speak its lines "

A cinematic story with an eponymous character is often carried by the lead and unfortunately Josh Duhamel doesn't carry it off very well . He comes across as a good natured Guy Pearce appearing at some provincial theater rather than a haunted character from a Victorian novel . The most unlucky cast member though is Ms Judd who hasn't made any more movies since this one . It'd be difficult to believe she got offered worse scripts than this one


HORRIBLE movie! Bad actors, fancy cars in the Victorian age, and a pathetic need to remove the homosexuality from the story are just some of the things that makes this an awful screen version of an amazing book. The fact that they have changed Basil Hallward into a woman is ridiculous! I found that the movie was straight forward homophobic, and I felt appalled by it. Why shoot a movie when you do not like the story? This seems weird to me. At some point I actually wondered whether or not they had casted such bad actors to ruin the real story of the book. It seemed to me that they had completely lost the point; Dorian Gray is almost never independent in the book, but in the movie he suddenly feels like taking control and arrange a party right after the death of his former love. Which brings me to the scene where he dumps her, which might be the worst piece of acting ever seen. Non of the two seems like they even know what they are talking about and a tragic love story suddenly becomes quite amusing, in a rather painful way to everyone who actually likes The Picture of Dorian Gray. Further more it seems stupid that the movie begins with a strange story about a nuclear bomb, when that hadn't even been invented yet at Dorian Gray's time. Simply just a horrible version of a really great story!


This was the biggest steaming pile of a movie I've seen in a long time. Awful writing, awful directing, tedious and contrived plot, and poor acting efforts from an A-list cast. In fact, this is one of those movies that's hard to turn away from because the awfulness is so compelling -- this is a movie with serious Oscar pretensions that comes up short in so many ways. The plot can be more or less summed up as a melodramatic mix of the worst parts of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest & Gorillas in the Mist. Man loves Gorillas, Gorillas get killed, man goes berserk (this is the big secret he's keeping mute over in the nuthouse?) Hopkins wades through the dreadful script as well as possible, but Gooding as usual hams it up to the max all movie long with his favorite screwed-up-Popeye-indignant face. A couple of choice scenes to demonstrate the cheeziness of this movie -- First, the scene in which Gooding gets all the inmates to tear up their playing cards while the inspirational music swells and you half-expect the cast to start the slow-unison clap from those awful highschool sports movies. Second, when Gooding gets out of his car in the end after quitting the asylum, he climbs out of the car and with more sappy music swelling does the Tim Robbins Shawshank-escape Jesus pose in the driving rain... unbelievable syrupy tripe. Don't waste your time with this stinker, unless you like the unique awfulness of the Heaven's Gate-type of train-wrecks; you're better off jabbing a salad fork in your eye for 2 hours.


This movie is a heavy-handed collision of Gorillas in the Mist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Seriously.

Somewhere in the muddle is some kind of message about man's eco-place in the natural environment. Or something like that.

We get Anthony Hopkins living among Gorillas (but he doesn't run into Sigourney Weaver, go figure) until he gets arrested and flown back to the US to face charges. An eager young med student named Cuba Gooding Jr is volunteered by Donald Sutherland to conduct a psych evaluation on Hopkins.

Well, it takes one minute for Cuba to break through the primitive wall of silence Hopkins has constructed. And before you can say Jack Nicholson, Hopkins has the assorted criminal loons on his side. Which is supposed to be all uplifting.

Skip this. Watch Cuckoo's Nest, Gorillas in the Mist and Silence of the Lambs instead.


This could have been OK but Cuba Gooding's portrayal of the overly earnest shrink ruined it.

Anthony Hopkins is interesting as a primatologist who lived with gorillas for a couple of years and then was sent to prison for killing poachers. Gooding visits him in prison to try to find out what happened even though it's none of his business. Gooding portrays the shrink as a noble man fighting the good fight against the neaderthal prison guards and warden. It's so heavy-handed it makes you sick.

Way too much sitting around and talking in this flick. Movie should have been about Hopkin's life with the gorillas, not the boring prison meetings with the shrink.

Ending is pathetic. Hopkins just removes a window in front of everybody and walks away and they never find him!


Films like this are what is wrong with mainstream cinema. It was a contrived re-mixing of Gorillas in the Mist, The Shawshank Redemption and Dead Poets Society. The script seemed to have been written on a chalkboard - interchanging cliche after cliche though lacking a satirical or retroactive temperament. I'm not exaggerating - there were so many overt film references it seemed like a parody. The actors were designated by their collective wallet, not heart or mind, and the direction was simplistic. And you people gave 'Julien Donkey-Boy' a 4.5? Clearly the lesson remains: 'give us what we want' because the alternative is just too horrifying.

It's this type of film, and this type of rampant commercialism that seeks to destroy the craft of film art, just as disco had to rock and roll in the 70s. See this film and continue to line studio-pockets...just don't maintain a pretense of superiority over those of us who give a damn.


This film had so much potential, but just didn't get it done.

The first, really glaring problem is the opening that has a very incomplete and poorly-explained history of how the Khmer Rouge came to power. I found it confusing, and I know the history. They make the mistake of assuming people already know what happened there.

S21 has such a horrifying history, a place where humanity reached its nadir, but the film really just scratches the surface.

One angle that goes almost completely unexplored is the loss/lack of humanity on both sides. The destruction of the prisoners is well-covered, but the guards are given a mostly one-dimensional role, and their own situation is barely considered, aside from overly long reenactments of how they would conduct themselves toward the prisoners.

Vann Nath, one of the few survivors of S21, talks to the guards who are pretty close-mouthed and unwilling/unable to defend themselves. One should remember that they were largely 12 or 13 year-olds, selected at that age because they could be easily manipulated and indoctrinated, or they did what they did because they feared for their own lives. Seeing a survivor talk to the guards is very interesting, but they also needed someone neutral, as Vann has no patience for their explanations. Vann laments the loss of humanity of the prisoners, but does not consider that it existed on both sides.

Many of the things the guards did would be so anathema to human nature, be so morally repugnant, that I don't think (or like to believe) that most people would do them unless they fear for their lives, or could not really grasp what they were doing.

Granted, many Khmer Rouge knew exactly what was going on, and they condoned torture and murder. If one ever goes to S21 and sees the mug shots on the wall, with men, women, children, even infants looking back at you with heartbreaking fear and hopelessness, you cannot help but hate those who killed them. But, if this film also looked at those who did it and why, it would have been much more effective.

On the whole, it's a very disappointing experience. There's so much to talk about, and more horror than you can really wrap your mind around, but the film doesn't help you appreciate this.


A police officer goes undercover in a prison to discover why inmates are disappearing at a fast rate. The investigation is going all fine and dandy until the serial killer that this particular cop caught is transfered therefore putting him in jeopardy and blowing his cover. Good thing the cop knows kickboxing. This is one of Jean-Claude's lesser efforts, it lacks the overall excitement of Bloodsport and Kickboxer as well as the visceral enjoyment provided by his later movies like Universal Soldier and Hard Target. The story itself is too routine and although at times Death Warrant has a grisly twist that give it a jolt, Death Warrant is very forgettable stuff. I myself enjoy a good action flick but I like them more upbeat and it's only the action sequences which make this mildly diverting.

* * out of 4(Fair)


The fighting is just too fake. Trying to look like a hero but he looks so bad. He gets beaten up too easily and totally fakes it. The fighting choreography looks so fake. It looks so staged. The guys just stand there and so expect to get hit. I mean, he's no Bruce Lee obviously, but look at Jet Li's choreography! This fighting is so easy to follow it looks so boring and fake. Jackie Chan's choreography looks so great too, his is funny. His acting is okay, but the fighting is just too boring. It puts me to sleep. Please man, no wonder this movie got its rating. This guy is not creative, he shouldn't do any more action films if the action puts you to sleep. Look at all his movies! A lot of them get low ratings! Come on guys, if you call THIS good then you haven't seen nothing yet.


Louis Burke is an undercover cop sent to investigate a prison where inmates are inexplicably dying. Doesn't sound too shabby, Jean Claude Van Damme in a prison full of people who can slowly put their faces on his feet and fists. That is, in essence, why you would watch a Jean Claude Van Damme movie so it's disappointing that this is exactly the opposite of what happens. After running around corridors for an hour and a half, being put in solitary confinement (although allowed out to have sex, because sweet mercy that's what being Jean Claude Van Damme is about) Burke suddenly finds out inmates are being killed and their organs removed, not in some event relating last hour's worth of clues he'd been gathering but because the guards left a surgical saw conveniently next to their big suspicious medical cabinet. Despite knowing full well at this point Burke is an undercover police officer, rather than simply kill him they decide to resurrect the most homosexual super villain since the 1960's "The Joker" to do the job for them. After having his cronies beat up Burke The Sandman brandishes a knife in his general direction, stroke's Burke's torso a bit and walks of laughing whilst Burke collapses (due to the damage incurred by two minute Hispanic men slapping his shoulders). From here in the movie just becomes one massive cock tease. There are about 4 opportunities where you're CERTAIN an awesome fight scene is about to break out. Opportunity 1: Hundreds of prisoners begun running at Burke, just asking to introduce their skulls to his feet. Fight avoided by fat evil guard shutting door on prisoners. Opportunity 2: Nasty guards surround Burke, leave their guns outside and start being massive jerks. Situations revolved by priest running in and shooting guards. Opportunity 3: Evil guard, who has been begging for a fight since the beginning of the movie enters the room with a shotgun and begins goading Burke into a fight. Fortunatly the guard stops to tell an injured black man how he's certainly going to shoot him then stands there smiling into space for over 7 seconds before Priest (with no real explanation why he's there)simply walks in and shoots him. Opportunity 4: Burke's spider sense tells him The Sandman is close by, and he flexes he screams for his nemesis to engage him in a final duel. The Sandman doesn't feel like duelling and instead takes Burke out by THROWING A SPANNER AT HIM....real mature asshole.

At this point Burke and the Sandman enter into a tall rectangular room, with the entire inmate population gathered above them, cheering for Burke's demise. I hope you're not the type of person who enjoys action movies with a climactic final battle, though if you're the kind of person who enjoys movies with a hilarious slap fight you're in for a treat. Here is a brief overview of the fight: - The Sandman picks up a bottle and slaps Burke with it 4 times. - Exhausted by the effort of slapping man with a bottle, The Sandman stands bolt still for a good 5 seconds before diving on the floor while Burke waves his feet in his general direction. - The Sandman runs over to a huge furnace, opens it, puts his hands in the air and begins giggling like a schoolgirl. - After standing laughing for another 5 seconds Burke's simply kicks The Sandman into a furnace - The sandman leaps out of the furnace, charred to a crisp, puts himself out by rolling, stands in front of a piece of metal sticking out of a wall and giggles at the camera for a further five seconds. - Burke performs the exact same kick, only this time The Sandman is impaled on a spike. With his last words he reminds Burke that he is The Sandman and resumes his giggling until he dies. - The inmates, overjoyed that Burke killed their companion, decide he's not such a bad guy after all and let him leave the prison.

Burke kisses his girlfriend, his one eye'd black companion is put in an ambulance (fortunatly the gun wound directly to his heart is now on his stomach so he'll probably live). Credits roll, we all wonder what the hell happened to a movie which started out quite well.


Well...It has past eleven years since this movie was made and I decided to comment it now. Why? I have no idea. I'll start from the grade that I gave this movie- it was four, but maybe if this would year '90 the grade would be much higher. Now the time has past and Van Damme has lost his magical macho muscle. The movie was actually quite good for it's time, it was very dark like a real thriller. This is one of those kind of movies that give you the very sad situation and then very happy ending.The film itself is about a canadian police officer who is put in jail as an undercover cop to investigate the murders of few locals. In jail he meets his old friend (the bad guy) who he battles to the end. Overall it wasn't very bad movie even watching it eleven years later.


As a popcorn guzzling action lover, I found this film to be pretty bad. Sure, Van Damne may not be the greatest of all the action movie heroes, but he does have his moments (Hard Target, TimeCop, Sudden Death, Universal Soldier). But this film was just a waste. It was a slow paced, pretty boring film. The action of the film consists of two fight scenes, neither of which are any good. This is Van Damne's worst film, and one of the worst action films I have ever seen.


This one sits on the shelf besides Double Impact and gathers dust. Its a toss up for which film is worst, but I give it to Death Warrant. A few exciting fight scenes. He never would have made it out alive, but its a movie. Reminds me of Tango and Cash, and I did not like that one either. Don't even rent this one, but my dad seems to like this one when he watch it late one night.


I've seen it before but I've never had occasion or the inclination to do it myself: apologise for giving a movie such a high rating.

The punch line seems to be JCVD thinks this is good stuff. After every movie he releases the critics as one gang up on him and saw him to pieces for every imaginable and unimaginable cinematic crime. And he writes to them - he writes to them and apologises. And laments his latest and greatest didn't turn out as good as he'd counted on.

And then he launches into a narrative about his next movie - and how good this next one, as opposed to all the losers before it, is going to be.

Either the guy is just an astute businessman or he really thinks these movies are great or both. Either way it doesn't matter and what really matters is what we get to watch.

No one I know would ever 'choose' to watch a movie like this. That we did watch it has to do with the fact that transmission is poor right now where we are living in paradise and there's only one channel and this is all that was on. Oh good grief.

There's a certain competition going on amongst these non-actors: seeing who can come up with the goriest most unbelievably bloody, disgusting, and bloody disgusting scenes. And that's bad enough.

But the direction and the S/FX make it even worse. A Bugs Bunny cartoon has more realism - and come to think of it, a Bugs Bunny cartoon has more pathos as well.

This is a husk - it isn't a movie. It's downright unadulterated pathetic. Avoid at all costs. For that matter, avoid all movies made by this 'tussle from Brussels' at all costs.


Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Louis Burke a mounty who goes undercover in a hardcore prison to investigate why people are dying behind bars, and finds out in the process that the cover-up involves the guards who are harvesting organs in this dumb yet mildly diverting prison pic.


Neighbours the show that has lost its way well where to begin, well we had so many good story lines from plane crashes to evil twin brothers but now the show has gone downhill. first off most of the new people on the street like Marco are simply boring where as Bridget is just annoying to the point where you wish the show was cancelled.hopefully the show will pick up again if they bring back evil Paul,Connor, Stu, and get rid of Marco, Didge, all the people who are involved in a storyline with Marco and Ringo as well for good measure.well that's all i have to say really i used to love this show but now it really has just begun to annoy me.

p.s the actors who play ben and mickey are also terrible please cut them from the show


I first started watching Neighbours when I met my girlfriend about 2 years ago because she watched it. Ever since, it has been attached to me like a parasite (along with Home and Away). First off, it has to be the most unrealistic show, along with the most annoying inlikable characters who act like complete and utter fairies, The same dialogue is portrayed in every episode. The acting is decent however, but thats not the point. The stories are like there from the another universe that would rarely come into another persons life. The character Zeke for example is the most head-wrecking person to ever exist,ever notice in every scene,all he does is complain,most lightly because he has never got laid, and he blames everyone else because of it. I don't want to express my hate, but I am, its a terrible show, just AAAAAAAAAGH!!. It makes me want to vomit over and over when people like this are licking each others a*s the whole time (Carl and Susan) One episode is enough for a lifetime, wait, no, one scene...


Firstly, I'll give an outline of the show in a few words (spoilers: maybe). A bunch of people live on fictional Ramsay street who all suffer a whole bunch of of tragedies from breakups to deaths. There... that's it.

When I first started watching it I didn't mind it at all, it wasn't to bad, then it started getting crap. How many times can you come up with the same storyline? To demonstrate... I'll just show some of the story lines that are repeated a couple of billion times a year. Consequently, this can also give a general outline of the plots for several years to come from now. If you wanted to know what happens with neighbours next year, this is it!

1.someone accidentally gets pregnant.

2.a young teenaged couple get together generally followed by a messy and horrible breakup (as an example, Goodrem/ and that black haired dude whose name I can't remember).

3.someone gets married... followed by some tragedy and/ or death.

4.or... my favorite... someone dies!

Still... occasionally there are some original story lines that pop up in the show, none of which made me continue watching. You can only do the same story so many times.

I agree with one of the reviewers when they said that the most interesting characters are the pets. I think my favorite at the moment is the scully dog (if he is still there). They are more interesting than the actors, most of which are not very good (there are a few exceptions) and make me want to laugh at the show every time I accidentally come across it.

well... just to finish off and to put it in a nutshell, the show would be more interesting if it weren't shown 364 out of 365 days of the year. (I might be over exaggerating that number, but I'm sure it comes pretty close).


As with many of our current 'dramas', and i admit i never watch them much, Neighbours has fallen with age into the decaying modern age, and with it, any hope of remaining a good watch. The life of the families of Ramsay Street is anything but entertaining, and as with all 'soap opera dramas' it is extremely shallow, a character may hate someone one minute and love them the next, etc. Due to this i would hardly even look at it's name on a TV guide. However, because it is Australian... Due to it being set in Australia rather than America or Britain (where incidentally for a long time it was a smashing hit, old chap) it IS more down to earth, and it is more realistic, but the margin is thinning year by year. As with all soap dramas, it's pathetic excuses of cliffhangers and good acting put to waste in unbelievably stupid scenes makes it hardly worth watching, if at all. Seriously, watch the news and do yourself a favor. That's REAL drama!


Boring one dimension characters, pathetic writing, recycled predicable story lines, I'm trying to figure out how a show this bad can stay on the air for so long, the only explanation I can come up with is UK audiences must love it, they are tad more retarded than Australian audiences so this would be a reasonable conclusion as nobody I know that I've spoken to here watches it.

People must think I'm exaggerating when I say this show is bad, I'm not, I myself didn't realise how bad it was until I was watching TV one afternoon, I didn't know what it was I was watching but I said to myself: "Man this show is even worse than Neighbours!" When the ad break finished I was somewhat bemused to find out that it actually was Neighbours, it was a repeat of an earlier episode.

Acting is terrible, but I'm not sure if it's due the actors themselves or the abysmal writing so I'm really not certain if I should feel sorry for them or be disgusted by them, though I have to say some of them look truly embarrassed to be there.

As I said the story lines are nothing but recycled predicable crap, you know the drill, boy meets girl, boy and girl flirt ad nauseam, boy kisses girl, girl fights with boy, girl breaks up with boy, rinse wash repeat, honestly the writers of this show should be blasted from a cannon into the sun there's nothing original here.

OK so how to rate something as bad a s Neighbours, well I rated it one, only because you can't rate it any lower, I really wanted to rate it -1 for every year it's been on air, 20+ years of nothing but crap I can't wait for this show to be axed just knowing it exists disturbs me on so many levels, I find it odd that some people say this show used to be good, it was never good!


I am so angry at the writers of neighbours. For years i have come home from school and watched this quality Australian soap. However recently it has gone down down down.

They have introduced too many new characters, filled with too many cliché stories, im not even going to waste my time explaining them. At the moment it is so boring and predictable to watch.

The original characters are slowly fading away now and it really isn't worth watching.

If you are a new neighbours watcher you will most likely watch this, if you were a loyal neighbours fan, probably haven't watched it for a while, don't bother watching it you will be deeply upset but its catastrohic downfall.(if thats spelt right)

ARGH!


Julia Roberts is a one dimensional actress who was trying to take on a multi-dimensional role in this film and she failed miserably. She should have either stayed with the bad Irish accent or her natural dialogue because it drove me crazy as she went back and forth between the two. You could tell by looking at her face during the movie that she was way over her head. She was expressionless and emotionless throughout the film. This performance ranks right up there with Tinkerbelle as Julia's worst performance ever.

John Malkovich was solid as Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde. He was not near as good as Fredric March in the 1931 version, but that is way too high of a measuring stick. I was somewhat districted from his performance by the awful job Julia Roberts was doing. I kept trying to guess if her next line would be an Irish or an American accent.

The story could have been very interesting. It comes from a different point of view from the Robert Louis Stevenson novella. It tells the story of a woman who finds herself trying to choose between failing for the noble Dr. Jekyll or the infamous Mr. Hyde. It draws into a different side of human nature because a lot of women tend to be drawn to the dangerous type. Unfortunately, this movie called for a strong actress to play Mary Reilly and they were stuck with Julia Roberts.

One other issue that some might have with this film is you really must see a traditional version of Jekyll and Hyde first. The movie would probably be fairly hard to follow if you didn't because the movie assumes that you know the Jekyll and Hyde background.

Finally, I will leave on a positive note. The settings were nice and atmospheric.

Overall, I recommend that you avoid this film and watch the Rouben Mamoulian classic instead.


Well, it's prettily photographed ... but that's about all I can think of to say for it. It's based on one of those derivative novels - this time Stevenson's classic novella "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" as seen by his parlourmaid(!) the eponymous Mary Reilly. Possibly she is superwoman in disguise because she seems to run an enormous Edinburgh house more or less single-handed (the other household staff, all four of them, don't appear do anything very useful about the place). This includes cleaning, washing-up, gardening (converting the stone-flagged yard of an Edinburgh town house?!) while running all over Edinburgh on errands for Dr Jekyll for whom she nurses an ill-concealed passion. The dialogue is dreadful; banality separated by long meaningless pauses to spin this tosh out to what seems an interminable length. My sister and I watched it on DVD ... she said "can't you fast forward it?" I replied "I *am* fast forwarding it!" If you have the misfortune to come across this, do something more interesting like stare at the wallpaper.


This movie was very boring. Perhaps I saw too many cartoons about this story. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. Do not expect any suspense. This was more of a documentary than anything else. Don't waste your time, watch a cartoon about this story instead. Robert's accent was really bad and the acting by both leading actors looked as if they were thinking of something else and were really bored when they were making the film.


There have been several screen adaptations of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, some based closely on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, of which probably the best known are Robert Mamoulian's 1931 and Victor Fleming's 1941 versions. Others have been looser with the story. Mary Reilly is based on a novel by Valerie Martin and tells the story from the perspective of a housemaid in Dr. Jekyll's household. It also tells the story as more of a dark romance than a horror movie, as Mary Reilly, the title character develops a strange romantic triangle with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and has simultaneous feelings of attraction and revulsion.

It is an interesting concept and it makes a good story. But in my opinion, it wasn't executed well on screen. I have liked Julia Roberts in some of her performances, but she just wasn't convincing in this one at all. And John Malkovich wasn't menacing or evil enough as Mr. Hyde. Perhaps I shouldn't have expected the same physical unattractiveness for Mr. Hyde as in other versions of the story, since Mary Reilly clearly found something to attract her, but I didn't see much difference between the good doctor and the evil beast. I also didn't find the dialog in the film to be very inspiring. The settings were okay, but nothing terribly special.

I think it is fair to say that I was disappointed with this film and that I didn't think it was very good, though it was far from the worst film I've ever seen.


This film was actually very interesting. John Malkovich was his usual mesmerizing self. The only problem I had with this movie was Julia Roberts, who to this date does the WORST IRISH ACCENT EVER!!! So I think it goes without saying that while Julia is a very good actress, she can't do Broadway or accents! If it were not for Julia, I would have scored this film much higher. I would have like to see someone more able in her role. Perhaps Kate Winslett, or heck even Gweneth Paltrow! Julia was truly out of her depth in this film and it shows. She lacks confidence and in some scenes appears to be bored by it all. I'm glad I saw this on video instead of paying full price at the theater!


Mary Reilly is set in Victorian London where Mary Reilly (Julia Roberts) is a housemaid to a Dr. Henry Jekyll (John Malkovich), he treats her & the rest of the servants well so she is relatively satisfied with her life. However, the calmness of the household is broken when Jekyll starts to stay out all night, he then says he will be collaborating with an assistant named Mr. Edward Hyde (John Malkovich) on his experiments & he should be treated as they treat him. Reilly meets Mr. Hyde who turns out to be a bit of a bad lad, meanwhile she has secret affections for her master Dr. Jekyll & soon realises they are both one & the same person...

Directed by Stephen Frears I will openly admit right here & now that Mary Reilly bored me stiff, I honestly wanted to switch it off & go to sleep but in the fairness of this comment I decided to endure the final 40 minutes. The script by Christopher Hampton was based on the novel of the same name by Valerie Martin which itself obviously took inspiration from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who was it exactly that thought telling the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the perspective of his housemaid was a good idea? No offence but it sounds lame just thinking about it & sure enough the finished film is total crap that I personally found ways to hate it on many levels. From the absolute tedium of it all to the snails pace, to the awful romance between the main character's & the slushy sentimental drama to the fact it's one of the most boring films I've seen. I didn't like anyone in it, I didn't like the way the makers have taken a decent horror themed story & turned it into some horrible tedious romance & the lack of any horror or scares just sinks it without trace as far as I'm concerned. By the way did I mention it was boring?

Director Frears does alright, to give the film credit where it deserves it the production design & look of it are fabulous. This would give any period Hammer Horror flick a good run for it's money, then again I suppose you can stage a film like this when you have nearly 50 million dollars as your budget. Apparently Tim Burton was set to direct this but decided to make Ed Wood (1994) instead, he might have actually injected some horror & mystery into the plot while still retaining the Gothic romance just like he did with his excellent Sleepy Hollow (1999). There's no real horror or scares in Mary Reilly, it has a nice fog enshrouded look but little else. Animal lovers beware, there are shots of eels being killed & skinned, being the old romantic that he is Mr. Hyde takes Mary to a slaughter house & again there are various animal carcasses strung up being skinned & gutted along with various organs in buckets & strewn across the floor. A man is also killed with the end of his walking cane in the films most violent scene.

I am amazed this had a budget of near $50,000,000, it doesn't look like it although it's undeniably well staged & made. According to the IMDb Roberts got paid $10,000,000 for this, well she's terrible in it & her accent is awful. Shot on location in London, Scotland & in Pinewood studios. Generally speaking though there's a great cast here including Malkovich, George Cole, Kathy Staff, Michael Gombon & Glenn Close as the owner of a London whore house. At the 1997 Razzie Awards Mary Reilly was nominated for two, Julia Roberts as worst actress which she should have won & Stephen Frears as worst director which considering the film looks alright is maybe a bit harsh.

Mary Reilly is in my opinion a terrible film & it's as simple & straight forward as that, when I watch a film I want to be entertained & not bored out of my skull & that's just the way it is. Thank god I saw it on cable TV & didn't spend any of my hard earned money on it. Mary Reilly sucks & she should have stuck to being a lowly servant girl.


This is one of the most baffling movies... I paid the full $7.50 to see it knowing it wasn't going to be the best... but Hey! John Malkovich... you know... how bad can it be? ... ... I was utterly stunned by the degree of ineptness Julia Roberts displayed in what was obviously supposed to be her vehicle. Malkovich is thoroughly uninspired and under-used, but you can't blame everything on the director... he probably could have tried harder... or at all. I spent a good two or so days trying to forget this movie ever existed but it remains to this day... and I still want my 7.50 back


In this movie director Stephen Frears tries to tell the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from a different view point; that of housemaid Mary Reilly. He does this in a subtle, slow and dark style. That all combined makes "Mary Reilly" an uneasy and unpleasant movie to watch that's all style over substance. The movie lacks scares, tension, mystery and an overall good pace.

It's hard to say what is the biggest problem and failure of the movie, since there are so many little things present in this movie, which all combined makes this movie a failed attempt. One of them is the story itself. It not only is told slow and perhaps even boring, it also features lots of unneeded sequences with uninteresting characters involved. Another major problem I had with this movie was its style. This movie is darker than dark. I don't know, for some reason a movie that is entirely dark just doesn't ever work out as a scary or mysterious one. Its dark style rather makes this movie an uneasy one to watch. Granted that the cinematography is good and so are the sets and costumes but this is mostly ruined and pushed to the back by the overly dark and depressing atmosphere of the movie. Everything also isn't told in the most arousing pace, which causes this movie at times to be a drag and far from interesting one.

Normally Julia Roberts obviously is one fine actress but not in this movie. She feels out of place and basically all she does in this movie is look scared with her big eyes. Not her finest moment. I also expected more from John Malkovich. I mean, he seems like the perfect guy to portray the evil and scary Mr. Hyde but he gets very little interesting to do in this movie. Lots is implied in this movie but very little is actually shown on screen. The movie also features Michael Gambon, Glenn Close, Michael Sheen and Ciarán Hinds in an early role. They are fine but they basically add very little to the story in their little roles, which seems to have been written just for them, so they could be in this movie. I also don't like how they changed the Mr. Poole the Butler character. Poole is a loyal, friendly, hard working man but in this movie he is more portrayed as a villainous tough boss, who you don't want to mess with.

Also perhaps the most laughable and unbelievable element of the movie is that the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character look obviously alike. Both are of course played by John Malkovich but no make-up is applied and he doesn't alter his voice. Some voice, same hands, same face, same eyes but yet nobody recognizes Mr. Hyde as Dr. Jekyll. Basically only difference between the two characters is that Mr. Hyde has long hair and Dr. Jekyll is unshaven. Also their personalities are actually much alike. I really didn't see so much difference between the 'good' Dr. Jekyll and the 'evil' Mr. Hyde.

The ending, although it's good looking and effective, is a letdown that doesn't feel like a fitting ending at all.

This movie is definitely not an easy one to watch. If you're not familiar at all with the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, than this movie is completely unwatchable and not understandable to watch for you, as well as an even bigger bore than it already is at certain moments.

A failure but a beautiful one, that still is not worth seeing.

4/10


I watched this movie , and i found it horrible. The only thing that made me continue watching the movie , was the acting of Russel Crowe The actress has a very good potential , but , the way the movie is written ruined it completely The bad guy is a terrible actor. This could be a great movie , if better made , but it was horrible in my opinion. This movie , is one of the worst I've ever seen. I don't recommend it to anyone.IF you are going to watch this movie to see if you have some "good movie time" , you better think twice , only if you're just having a good afternoon with your friends , if you are thinking of watching it alone i don't recommend , you will have no fun at all watching this movie (only if you pretend to make fun of it)


This was the biggest steaming pile of offal I have seen in a very long time--and I've seen my fair share of bad movies. There was zero chemistry between the two leads and, although I am a big fan of Russell Crowe's, I could not for the life of me figure out what Colin and Midori, the main characters, saw in each other. I suppose the filmmakers believed that a series of contrived "dangerous situations" would be enough to establish an attraction between the protagonists (and I use this term loosely). Well it isn't. I believed in their romance about as much as I believed Midori's faked orgasm. The movie meanders and has no aim because the filmmakers have no idea what sort of story they want to tell. It's as if they rewrote the script before each shooting day, and a Magic 8 Ball was consulted to govern the tone of each scene. There are moments in this film that are perfectly set up for satire yet the scenes are played straight, effectively "dumbing down" the movie. It's a shame, really, since they had such a fine cast and crew to work with (with the exception of the overzealous boom operator who seems to have a predilection for seeing his/her handiwork on celluloid). There are some interesting scenic work, but you can see the same sort of scenery in a better movie of the same genre, Kiss or Kill.


A rather below par road movie, enlivened by Russell Crowe in the lead, and by various other noteworthy characters, such as his father, and a mad ex-KGB torturer! admittedly, Russell plays a rather predictable role, but my wife claims that his god-like physique more than makes up for this! since this is an Australian film, don't expect any great shakes in the cinematography department.


Asian women appear to be having an identity crisis in the last decade or so. It seems they are desperate to look and act western. From the bleached hair, to the coloured contacts, and the ever increasing trend where asian women turn their backs on asian men and only want to date white guys.

And here we have yet another movie which romanticises that, just like this years effort "The Quiet American" and countless others where asian women find love in the arms of some token white guy. A movie which increases the prejudice against asian men by asian women and in general.

The basic plot of this movie is as follows: a Japanese wife gets bored and decides to run away from her husband by pretending she is kid-napped, ends up as a hostage in a robbery then falls in love with one of her captors, a big beefy Aussie bloke played by Russell Crowe. So they tear across the outback without a cause, where she bleaches her hair blonde and gets a pair of denim hot pants in a desperate attempt to "escape" the being asian.

In the meantime, her spurned husband discovers the truth and heads out across the desert to reclaim his wife. One of the most disturbing scenes was where Crowe's father gives the Japanese husband a long, stupid and racist speech about karma and about "your little country with millions of little people" getting what it deserves.

A stupid, pointless movie strictly for little asian women who sit at home and dream of their big tall white guy coming to take them away, and those who would be entertained by any of the trash that appears on TV.

The ending is particularly disturbing, where everyone gets shot and dies... but nevertheless, Bonnie and Clyde this isn't. Russell Crowe is lucky this garbage didn't kill his career.


Its not that I don't understand the film or the message it is trying to send, its just that its very badly done. Jamie Lee Curtis delivers an awful performance but not all the blame can be placed on her. The writing is far to witty at times to be spoken by people going about their day and the plots events that occur are totally unbelievable. There is one scene in which Heidi watches a film and then a few days later the romantic scene that occurred in the film happens to her in "real life." Often times I found myself laughing when the mood of the film was meant to be serious. It just isn't good, flat out. Also I thought the film played too much on gay and lesbian stereotypes.