Reviews

This movie works well on many different levels. Holly Hunter is

brilliant as Ruby Kincaid the wife of Silas - the story shows how

her strength of heart and will comes from an inner belief and drive.

the movie also shows how tough it can be at the sharp end of

labor and management battles - the final line where guns are

drawn, both sides back away and then one man is killed before

serious and ultimately successful negotiations are made is very

stark.

The score is also very well done.

Battlefield Earth is not so much a movie as it is a series of large plot holes strung together with extremely unoriginal cinematography. Christian seems to have decided that having a camera at a tilted angle would somehow make up for poor production values - it doesn't. It just makes the movie unpleasant to look at.

Which is a killer for a visual medium.

Unfortunately the plot manages to make the camera work look good. Cavemen learn to fly mysteriously undamaged, thousand year old harrier jets in a week - now there is a training program for the Marine Corps! Gold hungry aliens (ineptly played by Travolta, Preston and others) seem to have missed the greatest store of gold in the world and our hero - the awfully named "Johnny Goodboy Tyler" (played by Pepper) just happens to find it.

This is not so much a saga of anything - it is a sag. A sad sag - the time wasted watching it would have been better spent watching

George Foreman fire up the grill.

As someone who has been at sea on a fishing trawler during a hurricane I have to say that there were parts of this movie that just blew me away. The FX were pretty close to seamless and very, very real.

George Clooney and the crew of the Andrea Gail all play their parts well, not overdone but just the right amount of fear, greed and willingness to take a chance.

See it.

This movie does a good job of catching the spirit of the original play. It points up, in ironic scenes, the class differences in the English Army. It also shows how long and how much tragedy had to occur before the troops turned cynical.

There are a number of memorable scenes and songs that go with them - the scene in the estaminet is incredibly moving. The Church parade, especially the quote from the vicar are noteworthy.

There are many vignettes from the movie which evoke a very strong emotional response. Some scenes do not come off as they were probably intended - a difficulty when trying to use allegory and allusion to make a point.

If you have not seen it - find it and watch it.

If you get a chance to see the play - which I found much more direct in its anti war sentiment - definitely go and see it.