Problem: negative
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Answer: What was the point of this movie? What was the plot? I do not know. Shaq can't act, people don't know how to direct, and I am Kazaam! A genie who raps? Come on. Maybe Eminem or Linkin Park will be in a movie like this. I remember I watched this just to kill time. It didn't really interest me. I just remember thinking, "Who put Shaq in this movie???" The whole story seemed stupid too. It made no sense whatsoever. I guess an unrealized moral of this movie is that you can find anything in the ghetto and anything can happen. I can't comment much more because this movie is so terrible there's nothing worth commenting about. I "wish" this movie would go away.

Problem: positive
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Answer: This was my second time watching the film (via the French-language version as opposed to the first, which was dubbed in Italian) and I feel that it improves on subsequent viewings.

A compelling if slowly built-up character study that's beautifully shot and with the Parisian settings being equally impressive. In the long run, it's not top-grade Polanski and I would rank it at number 9 in his filmography but it's still a confident mix of subtle chills and, surprisingly, often broad comedy. It also features a fine cast, all of whom are in good form, but especially Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas and Jo Van Fleet.

Even so, I'm a bit baffled by the sudden compulsion for Trelkovsky to 'change' into the previous tenant; apart from the owner of the cafe opposite the apartment building, where he is given whatever Simone used to have without asking him if he wished any different, there is little to indicate (as far as I could discern, anyway) that this is what everybody wanted of him! Okay, so he found Simone's belongings still lying in the apartment but what exactly drove him to wear her dresses and make himself up as her (even if he apparently started doing this unconsciously)? Following his nightmarish visions in the bathroom, the last section of the film (where Adjani all but disappears) is almost anti-climactic - especially the scene where the landlord and the other tenants witness his attempted suicide as if it were a night at the Opera, a concept which had already been used 46 years earlier by Jean Cocteau in THE BLOOD OF A POET (1930)!

The ending, then, is at once predictable and unresolved: just what made the two occupants of this particular apartment jump out of the window?!; I remember this factor bugging me on first viewing as well, and I'm sorry to say it's no clearer now! Mind you, the film's first two-thirds are pretty solid but I wish that Polanski had been less reliant on obscure plot points throughout.

Problem: positive
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Answer:
The Japanese cyber-punk films have never really done a whole lot for me, but of the handful that I've seen, most have been at least visually interesting and at least mostly entertaining. MEATBALL MACHINE is no exception.

The storyline is about a species of parasites that take over human hosts, takes control of their bodies, turns them into "necroborgs", and causes them to fight each other with the sole purpose of eating each other - apparently as a "game" for the enjoyment of said parasites. The film mainly revolves around a shy guy and gal who fall for each other, but whose love-affair is cut short by both being infected with the parasites, and are forced to fight each other. It becomes a test of human-will vs. the parasite's control over their physical bodies...

MEATBALL MACHINE will invariably be compared to TETSUO (as most cyber-punk films are), and for good reason. There are definitely some thematic parallels, though the films are definitely different. There's plenty of fun, splattery moments in MEATBALL MACHINE, and the creature/borg FX are definitely the high-point - a mixture of TETSUO-meets-GWAR that are both elaborate and inventive. Depending on your taste for these types of films, MEATBALL MACHINE may or may not be your thing. If you enjoy hyper-kinetic cyber-punk films with a healthy dose of splatter - this one's for you...7/10