Reviews

OK - the Cons first: The obligatory '70's alligator (all right, correction - caiman) with nonmoving limbs is made the worse for scale miniature underwater shots (with the full length of reptile comparative to the size of the boat) utilizing a toy alligator being swirled around the toy boat in broadly lit water - even for nighttime shots!

Unlike most primitives-killing-exploitative-Westerners films, the superstitious natives going bat**** and start massacring the vacationers seems unjustified this time. No one really abused the natives - exploited, yes, but far from abusive treatment. After all it was one of the natives (canoodling with a spoiled supermodel during a taboo full moon) that brought the curse of the River Demon on them, right?

The vacationers are easily annoying (with the notable exception of the token old-soul/mildly blasphemous-little-girl-who-takes-a-shine-to-the-heroes that you often see in 70's Euroflicks), but far from from deserving violent death - unless they were your next door neighbors, mind you. A couple actually get killed being heroic - notable in that none of them fill the role of sidekick. There are only two straight villains in the entire film, so the demises feel more arbitrary than cathartic.

The sequence where the giant caiman crunches down and scarfs thirty tourists in under five minutes will probably strike you as unintentionally hilarious.

The point at which the natives decide not to wipe the surviving Westerners and practically saying "hey, you aren't so bad after all, sorry about that fuss last night" - because they blew up the monster lizard - has you shaking your head as the corny music kicks in. You know, the local military dictatorship will wipe out the village for ****ing with the tourist trade after the credits roll...

The Pros: Barbara Bach. Barbara Bach. Barbara Bach. Barbara Bach. You ALL know WHY you're interested in this film in the first place, right? I thought so. If you're a Bach completist, get the DVD reissued by NoShame films earlier this year (digitally remastered with no real extras to speak of, aside from the director bemoaning the current state of international film distribution).

The hero isn't half bad, being far from an idiot (always a plus in B films) and the cynical little kid provides most of the comic relief.

Worth a look, but get it cheaply!

Plot: A century from now, the Egyptian Gods (actually aliens,it appears)return to earth to put the wayward Horus to a final test before his immortality is stripped from him. Horus must find an unique woman - the amnesiac Jill- one of the few mortals who can bear the child of a god. He possesses & controls Nikopol, a political dissident imprisoned in cryo for thirty-odd years.

Nikopol / Horus track down Jill. Nikopol falls in love with the strange girl, but emotionally detached Horus's attempt to force procreation almost dooms the budding relationship. Nikopol's release from cryo-incarceration opens up a political bag of worm's and assassination plots are hatched. Plot lines dovetail to a vague conclusion.

Review: Enki Bilal condenses the first two albums of his Nikopol Trilogy into a single narrative, but the story remains random and nearly plot less in spite of its beautiful visuals (which at times bring to mind The Fifth Element dipped in H. R. Giger-style sensibilities). The odd mix of CGI humans with real actors is jarring (esp. when the CGI actors are obviously meant to be normal baseline humans and not androids, aliens, or mutants).

Bilal directs a beautifully designed, but disappointingly random film. The motivations of major characters (most notably Jill's mysterious benefactor, John)are never explained, never mind hinted at. One can only imagine what Bilal could accomplish, if he were to work with a stronger screenplay.

Worth seeing for the visuals, and the lead performances of Hardy and Kretschmann, but do not expect it to top your SF film experiences.