Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: I went to see this movie twice within a week and can only sum it up in one word (which I normally don't use lightly): Wonderful! In my view, the best movie ever made. Who deserves Oscars and other awards if not this Swedish crew who have created cinematic perfection in the last scenes of the film, when everything that is said (and left unsaid) throughout the story is drawn together? Just as the character of Daniel Dareus evokes so many sentiments and long repressed feelings within the people around him, the movie does the same to its viewers: You walk out with your head abuzz and your heart feeling full. Great stuff! Next time you ask yourself "what is the meaning of life", perhaps think about how you feel after a sumptuous experience like As it is in Heaven: Happy, content, fulfilled. To say it with Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway: "Such moments are enough".

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: 1st watched 12/6/2009 - 4 out of 10 (Dir-Walter Lang): Disappointing musical from a character development standpoint, in my opinion, from this much-heralded Rodgers and Hammerstein piece. There a couple of good songs and a decent comical portrayal, at times, of the King of Siam by Yul Brynner -- but the movie doesn't really do a good job of presenting the situation and the settings. I can only blame the screenplay and possibly some of the acting as to why we don't fully understand the character's and their situations. I know it might be a little too much to ask of a musical meant for the enjoyment of the songs and the dancing, but even this part didn't stand out a lot for me. The basic storyline is about an English woman coming to Siam to teach the children about upscale European things. We find out later that the King is actually the biggest pupil. There is a side forbidden romance between the King's newest wife, played by Rita Moreno(a latino as an Arab--come on!!) and a former lover that causes some complications but nothing really mesmerizing added though. Deborah Kerr, as the main female character Annie -- is OK but not that convincing either. The King learns some things because of her presence and then the movie fades away as he does. This is really a miniscule story with some songs and dancing but not that great of an experience for a viewer really.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer:
In short, this movie is completely worthless.

The idea is to make movie from the point of view of what someone from the early 1900s might think of the future. An interesting idea, but the lack of compelling story or characters prevents us from ever suspending our disbelief, so the idea just flops.

Apparently the whole movie was done with actors in front of green screens and we are supposed to be impressed. But as a graphics person, the over softening was an obvious crutch for hiding the difficult sharp edge problem with green screening. The color is majorly washed out to no relevant effect except reduce the visual quality. And I don't understand why anyone would consider anything rendered in this movie to be in any way ground breaking. If anything, the ridiculous retrograde graphics have lowered the bar for really bad graphics -- they don't measure up even to the ancient Jurassic Park graphics. The models for the robots were so simple, plain and very uncompelling. There were a bunch of weirdo prehistoric-like animals on that island, but they are not explained in any way.

The story is horrible beyond belief. In fact I can't believe I didn't just walk out of this movie. The relationship between Polly and Joe is unmotivated, and throughout the movie is based on distrust and deception. Why is the Morris Paley character even there? We are not in any way convinced that Joe is heroic -- I mean he flies a plane, and saved one person (Polly) for personal reasons. Yeah there's a great hero for you. Dex has very little screen time, so why are we supposed to care about Joe wanting to save him? Who were the Nepalease that locked Joe and Polly in the mine vault, and why would they do it (remembering that the entire Totenkopf operation was robotic)?

Plot holes: (1) Why did Bai Ling's character (a major fall from her excellent character in "The Crow") halt the robots who had captured Joe? They were looking for the vials, and had not found them. (2) Why in the hell would Dex be captured but not killed (he doesn't have or know about the vials, and the bad guys didn't know that Polly had the vials and was connected to Joe and therefore to Dex)? (3) Polly indicates that "they" don't know anything about Totenkopf, yet she has some secret source about him that contains what appears to be a fairly complete FBI-style file on him. (4) The blank spot on the map as described by the Nepalese -- if they know all about this mysterious area, then why the hell is their map blank in that spot? (5) At one point, Polly and Joe have to give up their clothes (they are burned) -- Joe is given new clothes that were identical to his old clothes, yet Polly is forced to wear some very odd looking bulky dress, then in the same line of continuity suddenly Polly has her original clothes back.

*sigh*. How far off am I supposed to switch my brain to watch this crap?

We are supposed to be exhilarated by the over produced music, even when nothing interesting or remotely exhilarating is happening on screen.

And the acting? We're supposed to be impressed with a bunch of bad British accents? Which character isn't annoying? I think Ling Bai's dialogue was probably the best in the whole movie (she doesn't have a single line). The dialogue wasn't camp, and doesn't even rise to the level of cheese. Its just bad and annoying. These people aren't hero's or compelling; they are the kind of people you would try to ignore or disassociate with if you ever had the misfortune of meeting them in real life.

I can't believe that this movie gets an above average rating here on IMDb. IMHO it should be competing with "Batman Forever" in the bottom 100 of all time.