Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Can only be described as awful. It is bad to start with and then gets even more bad. When you start you really have to watch it through because it is impossible to believe that it can get worse - but fear not because it does. Another poorly written script for a donkey director for no-talent offspring of past movie stars. It's hard to decide if the script is worse than the acting or whether the directing is worse than both. As for the hero - well he belts up everyone including one scene where he beats the living daylights out of the tough by swinging open the wardrobe door and smashing him against the window with it. And in another scene he gets thrown through a window and crashes 20ft onto concrete - doesn't even blink - then gets up immediately and gets stuck into the baddies. This is a really ridiculous movie. Lucky it only cost me $1 to hire.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: This movie is pretty cheesy, but I do give it credit for at least trying to provide some characterization for it's principles. There are some great moments in the film and the dialogue has some great moments as well.

The aerial assault sequence is perhaps the best part of the movie.

I guess I really like the idea of what lengths a veteran will go for a fellow veteran. Sure it's not all that well done, but the premise is not at all bad.

Tom

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
I am always so frustrated that the majority of science fiction movies are really intergalactic westerns or war dramas. Even Star Wars which is visually brilliant, has one of its central images, a futuristic "gang that couldn't shoot straight." Imagine your coming upon about 600 people with conventional weapons, most of them having an open shot, and they miss.

I have read much science fiction, and wish there were more movies for the thinking person. Forbidden Planet, one of the earliest of the genre, is still one of the very best. The story is based on a long extinct civilization, the Krell, who created machines which could boost the intelligence of any being by quantum leaps. Unfortunately, what they hadn't bargained for, is that the brain is a center for other thoughts than intellectual. The primitive aspect of the brain, the Id, as Freud called it, is allowed to go unchecked. It is released in sleep, a bad dream come to corporeal existence. Walter Pigeon, Dr. Morbius, is the one who has jacked his brain to this level, and with it has built machines and defenses that keep him barely one step ahead of the horrors of the recesses of his own mind. His thoughts are creating horrors that he soon will not be able to defend. The Krell, a much superior species, could not stop it; it destroyed them. The landing party has never been of great interest to me. The rest of the actors are pretty interchangeable. Ann Francis is beautiful and naive, and certainly would have produced quite a reaction in the fifties adolescent male. Her father's ire is exacerbated by her innocence and the wolfy fifties' astronauts (for they are more like construction workers on the make than real astronauts). They are always trying to figure out "dames." The cook is a great character, with his obsession for hooch. Robbie the Robot has much more personality than most of the crew, and one wonders if Mr. Spock may not be a soulmate to the literal thinking of this artificial creature. The whole movie is very satisfying because the situation is the star. Morbius can't turn back and so he is destined to destroy himself and everything with him. There are few science fiction films that are worth seeing more than once; this is one that can coast right into the 21st century.