Problem: positive
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Answer: Hmmm, yeah this episode is extremely underrated.

Even though there is a LOT of bad writing and acting at parts. I think the good over wins the bad.

I love the origami parts and the big 'twist' at the end. I absolutely love that scene when Michelle confronts Tony. It's actually one of my favorite scenes of Season 1.

For some reason, people have always hated the Reincarnation episodes, yet I have always liked them. They're not the best, in terms of writing. but the theme really does interest me,

I'm gonna give it a THREE star, but if the writing were a little more consistent i'd give it FOUR.

Problem: negative
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Answer: Well, what are the odds! At the exact right moment that a few redneck amateur-scientists discover cave paintings indicating that some type of dinosaur monster might have inhabited the area thousands of years ago, a burning meteor crashes into the lake and spontaneously hatches a monster's egg that has been lying there for over a thousand years, I suppose! "The Crater Lake Monster" is a movie that literally must be seen to be believed, but you better do so in the company of many friends and a pile of ganja in order to make the wholesome a little bit easier to digest. Yes, this is a terrible film with the utmost ramshackle screenplay imaginable and numerous irrelevant padding interludes that are downright embarrassing, but it's also irresistibly charming and so clumsily put together that you simply have to cherish some kind of fondness for it. Half of the film at least revolves on the wacky adventures of Arnie and Mitch. These two local yokels own and run a boat renting shop near the lake, but spend most of their days picking their noses and quarreling over fascinating stuff like to spell the word "bait". It is mostly during their prototypic Laurel & Hardy situations that new puddles of blood or decapitated heads are discovered in the lake. Steve Hanson, the heroic but not exactly sharp Sheriff is on the case, but only if he's not too busy chasing big city thugs traveling through the area. Halfway through the film, there suddenly is an abrupt scene about a thug robbing a liquor store and killing two people in the process. This textbook "WTF" moment appears to take on the complete other side of the country, like in New York City or something, and has absolutely nothing to do with the events going on at Crater Lake. Only like twenty minutes later the robber pops up again in Hicksville and there's an "exhilarating" chase through the woods, ending in the Dino's hungry muzzle. The absurd little details in "The Crater Lake Monster" are too numerous to mention! For example, this is probably the only creature-feature in which the players discover the obligatory gigantic footprint AFTER they already spotted the actual monster. The goofs in continuity should be legendary as far as I'm concerned. It's like everybody forgot to pay attention to it. Night turns into twilight into day and back into twilight all during one and the same diurnal course! The monster is undeniably the best aspect about the film, especially since it's accomplished through good old fashioned and adorable stop- motion effects. The cute critter is a Plesiosaur; meaning an aquatic dinosaur looking like a crossbreed between Denver the Last Dinosaur and an alligator. "Crater Lake Monster" is a unique and unforgettable movie- experience that I can only encourage to track down! The miserable 1 out of 10 rating is just out of principle (and because basically, this IS a very bad film) should be put into perspective, because I might as well could have given it 10 out of 10 for sheer entertainment value.

Problem: negative
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Answer:
Chris Rock deserves better than he gives himself in "Down To Earth." As directed by brothers Chris & Paul Weitz of "American Pie" fame, this uninspired remake of Warren Beatty's 1978 fantasy "Heaven Can Wait," itself a rehash of 1941's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," lacks the abrasively profane humor that won Chris Rock an Emmy for his first HBO special. Predictably, he spouts swear words from A to Z, but he consciously avoids the F-word. Anybody who saw this gifted African-American comic in "Lethal Weapon 4," "Dogma," or "Nurse Betty" knows he can elicit more laughter with the F-word than Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy put together. Sadly, despite a few witty one-liners, "Down To Earth" hits Rock bottom both as a contrived comedy and an improbable interracial romance.

"Down to Earth" utterly destroys any good will that the Weitz Brothers generated with their landmark gross-out face "American Pie." This disposable drivel qualifies as a contrived as well as confusing comedy with a thoroughly improbable color-blind interracial romance. Unfortunately, a more than competent castamong them "The Full Monty's" Mark Addy, Chazz Palminteri of "Analyze This," "SCTV's" Eugene Levy, and newcomer Brian Rhodes as Charles Wellington, Jr.are wasted in flat-footed, sketchy roles. Hardcore Rock fans will undoubtedly accuse their favorite comedian with trying to fix something that was never broken. Abysmally written by Lance Crouther, Ali Le Roi, Louis CK, and Rock, "Down To Earth" casts Chris as a messenger who rides a bike by day in the Big Apple and gets booed off the stage at night in Harlem's celebrated Apollo Theatre. Poor Lance Barton (Chris Rock) suffers from severe stage fright. Nevertheless, his charitable manager Whitney Daniels (Frankie Faison of "Hannibal") sticks with him through thick and thin. After Lance learns the Apollo Theatre will hold one final amateur night extravaganza, he implores Whitney to get him in the line-up. Excuse me, but if Lance is such a deadbeat stand-up comic, why does the Apollo keep inviting him back? Meanwhile, fate has something else in store for Lance. While pedaling home on his bike, our protagonist spots a pretty lady, Sontee (Regina King of "Jerry Maguire"), crossing the street, but he doesn't see the bus that collides with him and kills him. Wham! Lance Barton levitates skyward with a halo wreathed around his head. In Heaven, which resembles a cruise ship nightclub, Lance learns that an overzealous angel, Mr. Keyes (Eugene Levy of "Stay Tuned"), timed his death 40 years ahead of schedule.

Heavenly honcho Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri of "Analyze This"), God's right-hand guy, apologizes and escorts Lance back to earth. The snag is Lance cannot reclaim his corpse, so he must inhabit another body. The best that Mr. Keyes can come up with is ruthless, white, 60-year old tycoon Charles Wellington. Wellington's adulterous wife Amber (Jennifer Coolidge of "American Pie") and his unscrupulous personal aide Winston (Greg Germann of "Sweet November") have just tried to poison him. Reluctantly, before Wellington's body vanishes, Lance accepts it conditionally as a loaner until Keyes can locate a more appropriate body. Meanwhile, Lance-as-Wellington encounters Sontee again. She is a nurse activist protesting his decision to privatize a Brooklyn community hospital that serves the poor. While Regina King brings a surfeit of charisma to her role as a crusading health care worker, she plays a character who bypasses credible motivation in her affairs with Wellington. Although he is no longer black, Lance not only tries to woo Sontee but also win a gig at the Apollo.

"Down To Earth" features Rock in his most unfunny role. The comedian's reason for making this movie seems questionable. Reportedly, he ate lunch with Warren Beatty and told Beatty that he loved the original script that scenarist Elaine May had penned for Beatty. Initially, Beatty tried the race-reversal gimmick himself in his own version by trying to cast Muhammad Ali in the title role of "Heaven Can Wait." The deal fell through, and Beatty headlined the movie himself. According to Rock, his longtime co-writers and he thought that they could 'annihilate' this classic. Moreover, he justified his choice of "Heaven Can Wait" based on his philosophy to "Do Something you can only do when you're hot." Earlier, Rock rejected a script about a busload of touring rappers, because he saw little opportunity to stretch his image in such an outing. As a lifeless comedian in "Down to Earth," Rock doesn't so much stretch his image as he inverts it for the worst! This half-baked concert film with an annoying plot does as much to cremate his comic reputation as it does the Weitz Brothers! You know a film about a comedian is in dire straits when a scene at the nightclub is played so you cannot hear the jokes, only the laughter. Similarly, the casting of Mark Addy as Wellington's butler who speaks the Queen's English but is in reality a commoner from Michigan defies logic, too. Addy is an actual Englishman, and he doesn't have to fake an accent; his accent is genuine. The major overriding quandary with "Down to Earth" is the on-again-off-again, look-a-like switcheroo that the characters make so Chris Rock doesn't disappear completely from the sight for more than a few seconds. Although Chris spends half the movie as white guy Wellington, audiences see him largely as Lance, undercutting the comic irony of watching his stocky, bald-headed, Caucasian white, alter-ego perform ghetto humor and chant derogatory hip-hop lyrics. Incredibly, Rock served double-duty as the film's executive producer and one of its four scribes. The mystery is how such a wealth of talent could grind out such an awkward, misguided muddle of a comedy. About the only redeeming feature of "Down to Earth" is Jamshied Sharifi's superb orchestral film score.