Reviews

I'm in the middle of the fourth season. Is this really a scifi show? It's hard to tell aside from the shiny gadgets. Certainly not the space opera it wants to be. The only clues that this is a show that takes place in a space-age era are the occasional blips of space and spaceships. Otherwise, it feels like it all takes place in a pretty small world.

If you want to believe regardless that this a space show, all that goes out the window when you see things like a slow and drifting space capsule somehow find a planet in some far-off system in mere days, somehow not burn up in the atmosphere, and crash land safely. Distant stars are mere hours away while closer ships are days away??? It just depends on the laziness of the writers in resolving plot stuff.

Speaking of lazy writers, I'm tired of ultra-super-human geek characters that are at least 100 times more unrealistic than your average action hero that survives an impossible number of fights. Got a sticky plot situation? Don't worry, just put a computer hacker on it and all your problems will go away in just a few minutes. Such laziness in writing is boring to the point of offensive.

I find myself not caring about the characters or the story arc. They could live or dies, succeed or fail. Who cares? Thus the character development is obviously weak, as is the plot. I do, however, find the banter to be really well written and well delivered by the main characters. I would just like to see that banter and those characters in a more interesting show. The banter makes this show tolerable and a decent watch when I'm stumped for something better.

The first hour or so is a 7-star film. Then, it turns dumber than Blade II quickly (a pretty major feat) and keeps up that level of stupidity through to the end. Suspension of disbelief is thrown out the window when even MacGyver would be ROFLing at the absurdity of what is going on. Hint: super genius is no replacement for R&D, materials, and power sources! Nice helmet design though. Too bad it was wasted on this film.

An example of how to make a mildly-entertaining movie that makes no sense on so many fronts. Your average action-hero flick makes more sense than this.

I thought the historical mashup was working fairly well... until it hit the battle with the French on the beach. The film lost two stars in that scene alone. Where did Marion come from? She suddenly rode nilly across England (and Wales?) with the Lost Boys on ponies in an afternoon? Ponies? And what is she doing in armor? Must we turn every female hero into an action hero as well these days? Nikita was great, but I've become bored with nearly every implementation of the concept since.

It seems there are plenty of people who think themselves geniuses for "understanding" this film -- people who give it 10 stars. Whatever. I understand awful brilliance in films like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes... and I understand that this film is simply a swing and a miss. As a serious film, I give it 2/10 stars. As a parody, I give it 3/10 stars. As a not-very-low-budget cult classic, I give it 1/10 stars.

This film feels like an attempt at a semi-serious blockbuster sci-fi adventure that, when it went bad, they backpedaled to "Oh, we meant it to be a parody." Maybe there's some brilliance hidden in that but, no, it doesn't work for me. The film starts out interesting enough... but then it slips... and slips some more... and more... etc. The humor is spread thin and is mostly weak. By the time I reached the climactic scene, my mind was numb from all the bad directing and editing. If they were going for the most blah climax ever, they nailed it.

It's too bad because there seems to be good potential here. Maybe a AAA editor could save it if all the original footage is still around -- but that's also assuming the director took some interesting unused shots -- which is probably too much to ask. The contrasts between Weller, Goldblum, and Lithgow could have been great but we see so little of it.

It seems to me this is only a cult film because it is very divisive on the love/hate scale. I need more reason than that to like it on any level. I was a young teen when this movie hit but I didn't see it until 35 years later. I grew up in a large family of weird sci-fi fans and, yet, nobody I knew wanted to watch it. Now I know why.

Appears to be a wholesome show but a regular theme throughout is that lying is okay when you are surrounded by evil. The villains in the show are impossibly evil but I suppose that is a regular mechanic in juvenile shows.

This show isn't gripping, it's annoying. It's like they are purposefully using every engaging plot device known and exaggerating and overusing them to some extreme level as some sort of sick experiment to see how much we can stand before giving up on the show. Dr. Smith is annoyingly evil beyond belief and Parker Posey makes her generally hard to watch. Other characters are annoying obtuse or idiotic. Annoying subplots come way too often and take way too long to resolve -- extending over several episodes sometimes. In other words, the same story could be told with far fewer cliche plot devices and still be just as engaging, if not more so. I am still watching this show and will probably continue to do so because there are some likable characters, some good writing outside of the annoying stuff, great production quality, and not enough original family(ish, in this case) content on Netflix. But, I have yet to recommend this show to any friends or family because the overall experience is more annoyance than entertainment.

I see Ender's Game as a book that has two quite different films in it. The first part of the book is basically a sports story about coming of age and the battle room. The second part is a story about command training and/or war. This film guts the most interesting and dramatic parts of both of those stories by trying to tell some abbreviated tale -- resulting in a movie that really doesn't interest me at just about any level (regardless of how much I like the books), even though the production quality was quite good.

So, I started this on a lark while fishing around for free content. The story sounded good enough even though it looked kinda cheap. I mean, there's something romantic about an outpost, eh? Well, maybe to some of us.

Anyhow, I somehow survived the cheap and poorly crafted sets with their overly-obvious modern lumber and plywood. I somehow also survived the really bad CG work (not much CG really). Talk about a low production value. Sheesh. But... looking past all that, something drew me in, in spite of the cheap visuals.

What was it? Little things in the writing kept jumping out at me as surprisingly well done for a show as cheap as this. (How many times have I said "cheap" now?) Anyway, there is some real craftsmanship in the writing and it is backed up by good directing as well. The interactions between characters feels a bit more real and genuine than in most shows. It's as if the writers forgot to study the formulaic rules of script writing and somehow came out the better for it. Weird. And, fortunately, the direction hasn't failed that even if the budget has. And, the acting? Well, perhaps not the greatest there but not bad either and perfectly serviceable for the genre (whatever the genre is -- not sure on that yet). Finally, the fight choreography is pretty good -- sure, probably not gonna win any awards here -- but pretty good; certainly, much better than what can only be described as "Roar! Roar! Roar! Choreography" that I see in many other sword shows.

Someone (or someones) is putting a lot of love into this series despite what appears to be a very low budget, and that love shows. I give it an extra star for that.

A very pretty cast that is well balanced on the diversity scale. And totally dull because of it. While presenting a show where the heroes aren't always "on" because they're waiting for the analysts to do their work (they are the "tip of the spear" as they call it) has some potential to be interesting where other shows in the genre fall short, this show fails to deliver by failing to suspend disbelief in so many other ways.

This film is like some strange mashup between a Sonny Chiba film and a Jackie Chan film. The martial arts choreography is of the highest quality and the actors engaged in the fights are convincing and entertaining............. and the food!............ and then the climax and ending is lame enough to steal a star or two.

--Feb 2003--

My favorite WWII movie. Period. There are many contenders for the WWII title and this one takes it without much dispute. I keep it next to Lawrence of Arabia.

While I am a fan of war movies (along side a couple of other select genres) nothing makes me hate war more than this movie. It is perfect.

Somewhat reminiscent of Hell in the Pacific with its mano-a-mano style.

--Oct 2013 edit--

Looking back at this film years later it is, admittedly, hard to still call it may favorite WWII movie. Band of Brothers/The Pacific, Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, and maybe some others are all very good. So what is it about this film that grabs me (or used to grab me)?

The replay value is not all that great. This is not a film that you could probably sell your friends on at a movie party. I gave the film 10 stars perhaps mostly because I judge a film against its own budget and not against other films (and this is a low-budget film). Yet, the production quality is only pretty good, the acting is only pretty good ... everything seems to point to maybe 8 stars at best and not 10. Most of the great films I watch get an 8 or 9 with 10 going to only the truly landmark or innovative films. How is this one of those?

What it comes down to is this: I remember how moved I was when I first saw it. For that, it somehow earned two extra stars. Thus, while during replay (or some other critical viewing) it may be hard to see this value, isn't the emotional response while watching something the first time the true value of a dramatic film?

The stereotyped, ruthless, WWII Japanese warrior is well known in film. Perhaps fairly--perhaps unfairly. I have spent a bit of time researching Japanese culture and their sense of honor. I 'believe' I get the true message of a film such as Grave of the Fireflies (another great WWII movie--certainly the most depressing one) better than many Americans. The Last Bullet took me someplace wonderful in my understanding of Japanese honor: a place where it is impossible to judge which of the two main characters acted more bravely in a difficult situation. Surprising (a lot like how When the Last Sword is Drawn was another surprising film about Japanese honor). The difference between shame and honor is not always apparent--even in Japan it seems. Showing us the human struggle between shame and honor is what makes this film great.