Reviews

I have never played HALO, or otherwise had anything to do with it, until I recently began watching the various cutscenes movies on Youtube.

So, when I found this series on my local Freeview channel, I decided to give it a try.

It was a complete waste of my time. This series has been lifted straight out of the Let's-Make-Another-Generic-Space-Iinvaders-Movie basket and is so lame I could not bear to watch more than half an hour of it. Good luck to everyone who thinks it is worth their time, but I'm going back to the cutscenes.

This production gets worse by the episode. I had misgivings about it from the beginning, when deficiencies in the screenplay writing were clear. I stuck with it, in the hope of an improvement, but nothing has happened. I have seen the two lead actors in other films, where their talents were complemented by good scripts, but, here, they are just speaking words and going through the motions, and getting into the most unlikely situations - the episode I watched last night had the beautiful young shift commander going out into the field with the beautiful young star detective and there, physically overpowering and arresting a man who could have defeated her with both hands tied behind his back. And she did it in high heels... This is dire stuff and I decided last night that I will watch no more of it. One star from me, but only because the ratings system won't allow any less.

It's playing on our TV at this time and we have just watched episode six. Honestly, I have had it. The story started out well enough, but by episode three all the signs and clichés were there and starting to take over. The main character spends the whole time either looking as tense as a wound up spring or looking like a deer caught in a spotlight. His detective sister is little better, and his wife - my gods! His wife! I have reached the stage where I just want to throw something at the TV every time that selfish woman opens her mouth. And the government agents. Seriously? There is not the slightest thing that is original about them and the only thing that they seem able to say, at least once an episode is "National security". I won't be watching any more of this pathetic soap opera.

The biggest disappointment - to me, at least - of the entire Star Wars series. It even had me thinking fondly of Jar Jar Binks.

The last time I felt this let down was when I watched The Hobbit trilogy, after the high standards set by The Lord Of The Rings - The Hobbit Part 1 was good, Part 2 had me squirming in my seat and I nearly walked out of Part 3.

The Last Jedi has ripped up everything that was good about Star Wars and recycled it into toilet paper. I enjoyed The Force Awakens, but The Last Jedi has ruined the story line so completely that I will probably not bother watching the last one, whatever its title will be.

Disney should stick to making animated movies about fairy tale princesses that are aimed at a market of girls no older than eight or nine.

This disaster gets one star from me, simply because IMDB's rating system will allow no less

Goldie Hawn must have been desperate for a job.

Honestly, when you're half an hour into a movie and the best and funniest part you've seen so far is Amy Schumer's right tit hanging out of her dress, you're starting to wonder what you're doing watching this clunker.

Before last night, when my wife and I went to see this movie, I had walked out on only one movie, ever. That was "Dumb And Dumber", which had me squirming in my seat before ten minutes were up.

This alleged comedy is the female version of "Dumb And Dumber" and we lasted 37 minutes.

When this film was released in 1984, I had some misgivings, as putting Frank Herbert's epic novel on to the big screen was always going to rank with the labours of Hercules. So I went to see it and came away convinced that I has just seen the worst big-budget film of all time. Its crippling handicap was the quality of the screen writing. As I watched it, I tried to relate the portrayed characters to their counterparts in the book and found that I could not recognise a single one. I wondered if David Lynch had actually read the book before he wrote the screenplay.

The acting was dreadful and the dialogue was worse. I have seen most of the cast in other films where they were actually permitted to act, which is just as well, or I would have grown up thinking that they were all overblown, second-rate hams. The biggest piece of mis-casting was to have Patrick Stewart play Gurney Halleck - he deserved much better than that and I hope he didn't spend too long regretting accepting this role. Choosing another at random: Everitt McGill as Stilgar was less than memorable, not being allowed to act, but simply progressing from one sonorous pronouncement to the next.

The sets were brilliant - I have no quarrel with that part of the film - but imaginative backdrops alone cannot bolster a production where the quality of the script and acting - or rather, the direction - fell so dismally short of any acceptable standard.

The costumes were also very well done, with one notable, and very important exception: Lynch clearly forgot most of what he had read in the book when he approved the final design of the Fremen stillsuits.

On occasion, over the intervening twenty-odd years, when I have thought about this unrelentingly awful film, it has been more in regret than anger. Despite this, I never really gave up on it and, four months ago, when I found the three-hour extended version, at a price that made it worth the effort, I bought it in the hope that some extra added footage might give the wretched thing some credibility.

It was a forlorn hope. This extended version is an even bigger train wreck than the original theatrical release, and was clearly re-worked for television - it is easy to spot the blanks for the commercial break cues. The editing is quite incompetent and added scenes that have no context in the story line at the place where they were inserted - for example, one repeated scene showed the same Harkonnen ship approaching the landing field at Arrakeen. Another piece of sloppy editing early in the film had Reverend Mother Helen Gaius Mohaim being transported to Caladan, the home world of House Atriedes, by the same two Harkonnen pilots that took Jessica and Paul into the deep desert on Dune, after the Harkonnen attack.

There was one particular, poignant part of the novel that both versions of the film left hanging, and which deserved to be included. That was the death of Thufir Hawat, at the end, after the Imperial forces had surrendered to Duke Paul Atreides. In the film, this life-long servant of House Atreides was left standing among the Imperial captives, gazing vacantly at the ceiling, suffering from the terminal effects of the residual poison that the Harkonnens had infected him with after they captured him on Dune and subverted him to their own service. In the book, however, the dying Hawat was given a poisoned needle by Emperor Shaddam and Reverend Mother Mohaiam and ordered to assassinate Paul, this 'upstart Duke', when he stood before him. Hawat disobeyed, and as he he stood before Paul, he turned to the Emperor in a magnificent gesture, holding out his hand with the needle in its palm and said, "See, Majesty? See your traitor's needle? Did you think that I who've given my life to service to the Atreides would give them any less now?" Then he collapsed and died in his Duke's arms.

I have read that David Lynch wanted nothing to do with the extended version, and he was right to disown it. Even so, with the original release, there was so much that he could have done to turn Frank Herbert's novel into something memorable. Instead, he made an abomination that deserves to dumped into the same rubbish can as that dreadful Starship Troopers.

When a story line pivots around a time portal letterbox, you have to suspend a certain amount of belief - all right, a lot of belief.

I have always liked Sandra Bullock, and while his acting frequently resembles that of a block of wood, I have no real objection to Keeanu Reeves. In this film, however, I thought he gave one of his better performances. Bullock is, as always, excellent. The first films I saw her in were "Demolition Man" and "Speed", both of which were utter crocks, but made bearable by her daffy charm. Critics, and the paying public, like to make a big deal out of actors' limitations, which both these actors undoubtedly have, but, within those limitations, in this film, they perform exquisitely.

The story line is replete with inconsistencies and plot holes, such as the ease with which the two lead characters accept that they are corresponding across time, and the loose floor board in Kate's apartment, in a place that she walks across at least four times a day, but only finds more than a year after moving in. When she discovers what is under the floor, the unanswered question is how did it get there? And where, in the lake house, is the attic? All I could see, sticking out of a flat roof, were clear skylights.

I am a sucker for a happy ending and much prefer a story to end knowing that something worthwhile has happened - I firmly believe that those who deserve a chance at happiness will find it. It is also a pleasure to enjoy a quiet, thoughtful film, where there is no sex/ violence/filthy language - and if this sentence is a spoiler for anyone reading this before seeing the film, then hard luck for you.

This is not an outstanding film, but it checked a lot of my positive boxes and when it goes on sale, I will probably add it to my collection.

My friends and I have just returned home from seeing Robin Williams prove, yet again, his qualities as the finest kind of actor.

We went to Bicentennial Man, not knowing what to expect, other than than the story of a robot who wanted to become human, and found the funniest, warmest film we have seen in a long time.

Isaac Asimov would not be displeased with this arrangement of his story.

In 1959, Robert Heinlein published a reminder of the responsibilities and duties of the citizen to the state. Heinlein always had the view that the highest achievements of the human mind were the twin concepts of 'loyalty' and 'duty', and that when those concepts fell into disrepute, the society so affected was doomed.

Hence, Starship Troopers, a book still condemned for its warlike theme by people who completely miss Heinlein's point that a free state retains its freedom and strength only through the willingness of its citizens to exercise their duty.

When I heard that Paul Verhoeven was going to make a film of the book, my initial reaction was of misgiving as his previous works had been long on special effects and short on just about everything else.

Starship Troopers, the movie, confirmed my worst fears. Verhoeven took a story with a message and reduced it to the lowest possible common denominator, then fleshed out the skeletal remains with overpowering special effects, uniforms reminiscent of Nazi Germany, and a revolting gung-ho jingoism so common in American World War 2 movies. I kept expecting John Wayne or Audie Murphy to walk on.

The original message - that of the duties of the citizen - barely received lip-service as the storyline progressed from one incompetently-managed battle to another on, or in orbit around, what looked at ground level to be the same desert world.

Having been a reader of Heinlein for more than half my life, and having grasped some notion of how his mind worked, I can see why he refused to let any of his books be turned into films while he was alive. Starship Troopers, the movie, is a monstrous parody of the original; utterly lacking in imagination and with acting vile beyond belief. The beautiful young people in the lead cast showed with every word and action that they had graduated with honours from the Academy of American Soap Opera, class of Beverly Hills 90210.

Perhaps I expected too much. Films adapted from books rarely accurately match the originals, but, with a little more effort, Verhoeven could have made a movie that was a credit to the original. Instead, he took the soft option.

As I left the theatre, I was consoled by the hope that in five years time, this awful film would be as utterly forgotten as Independence Day.