Goggler

I can't say that this film deserves anywhere near the amount of vitriol being heaped on it by some reviewers. Yes, it's bogged down by an overly-padded running time, hamfisted editing, and an overreliance on cheeseball special effects. And it lacks much of the energy a comedy needs to get your average audience member to sit through it without checking his or her watch.

On the other hand, it's also got some laugh-out-loud funny lines, a talented and earnest cast, and the classic underdog premise. Macy, Stiller, and Azaria are brilliant as the "core" team, and Garofalo and Studi do superb work adding conflict and variety to the team. I can't say Reubens or Mitchell added much to the film overall, though each had a few chances to shine.

The plot, as I said above, is your classic "underdog-makes-good" stuff. No surprises there, since you know they're going to triumph. What makes it worthwhile is not the absurd, gaudy heroes and villains, but the dialogue and interplay between the characters. Underneath it all, these people are children at heart, who just want to do right. The best scenes in the film give this film its emotional grounding. Look at Azaria's relationship with his long-suffering mother; Macy's endearing innocence in his unwillingness to accept Cap. Amazing's secret identity; Stiller's rage (not unlike that one weird, spazzy kid you once knew who'd always go into quivering, impotent rages on the playground); Garofalo's desire to avenge her father. This childlike belief that a sense of justice and goodness will always make the world a better place, is the true appeal of super-hero comics; and underneath its parodic exterior, "Mystery Men" shows us why these hackneyed comic-book tropes matter to so many.

It never really gels into a satisfying whole, due to the huge number of half-baked subplots (romance, family life, conflicts within the team, etc.), but the main plot is such loopy fun that it makes up for that. The fact that it's supposed to be good, nonsensical fun seems to be lost on some of the reviewers here, so I'll issue a caveat: if you're the type of viewer who finds his enjoyment of an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon ruined by the unexplained and illogical ("Am I to believe this is some sort of.. *snort*... _magic_ xylophone?"), then you are far too literal-minded and humorless for this film. Go rent a Sandler film instead.

(7/10)

Don't listen to the other reviewers when they claim to have been scared; they don't know any better. I, on the other hand, am a film student at Albuquerque Community College, where I studied the works of the Masters (Tarantino, Schumacher, Cameron), so I know whereof I speak.

This was a horrible movie: not nearly as convincing and frightening as, say, "I Know What You Did Last Summer". For instance, take the lead actress. Her breasts are way too small! And she doesn't show them off! How can they expect to sell this film to a mass audience? And the situations are completely outlandish. These people are being stalked by a killer, and they're not cracking wise and having sex with wild abandon, like the eerily-realistic teens in "Scream"?

I recommend that you, the great unwashed masses, not see this film, and instead spend your money on some quality filmmaking like the new Adam Sandler movie.

I have spoken.

The first 4 or 5 seasons of The Simpsons were undeniably brilliant, start to finish. Episodes like "Patty Wants a Baby" or "Oh! Streetcar!" are prime examples of the perfect half-hour of comedy: the lines are dead-on perfect, and no opportunities for humor are wasted.

After a few years, though, most of the talented creative team that made the Simpsons what it was left, going on to do The Critic and King of the Hill. What we're left with now is an ever-widening pool of recent Harvard grads who think that because they did an article or two for the Lampoon, they can write a silly little cartoon. They can't.

How much longer are we going to endure the smarmy, subtle-as-a-nuclear-bomb humor? The way sly satire gave way to broad, obvious parody? The endless recycling of old plots ("Let's do a Planet of the Apes musical! Let's send the Simpsons to a foreign country!")? The smug, obnoxious Harvard in-jokes, such as their feeble little jabs against Yale grads? The way Lisa is made little more than a mouthpiece for every ill-thought-out, politically-correct ideal espoused by the writers?

Watch the "Australia", "George Bush", or "Lisa Becomes a Vegetarian" episodes, then compare them to ANYTHING from the first few years, and see if you don't agree.

It's apparent that the tone and focus of the new film is quite a bit different from the original trilogy. Instead of high adventure and straightforward good-vs.-evil, we're seeing political machinations and the playing off of sides against one another (an ineffectual Jedi Council and Republic vs. an incompetent Trade Federation). Anakin Skywalker is an intellectual with great tactical sense who will eventually turn to the dark side; hence, it only makes sense that the prequels should be a little more cerebral in nature, and focus more on thought than feeling (the reverse of the original trilogy).

The question is, does it work? I think this movie has suffered quite a bit for the lack of collaborators like Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, who helped write ESB and ROJ. Lucas has gained a lot of power and influence over the years, and I think too many people in Hollywood were too afraid to point out where a scene might be too long or unnecessary, where the ideas and characters were poorly developed, and so on.

The result is that we are given a fascinating tour through the universe of Lucas' imagination, but there is too much emphasis on the settings, and not enough on the characters. What I saw on the screen was an imagination that just wasn't reined in and given *focus*. The Phantom Menace is too often derailed by Lucas' anything-goes approach to world-building: just throw it in and hope for the best. He really needs to collaborate on scriptwriting and direction, before the pacing and flow of the next two movies are similarly marred.

This is not to say that TPM is a *bad* movie; far from it. The ideas are there. The adventure and hold-your-breath sense of danger is there, mostly (albeit through a more vulgar, FX-laden 90's sensibility). And when it all comes together (the beginning, the Pos Race, and the end), it works, and you can feel the Star Wars magic again. But it's not enough. It needs to be sustained throughout the entire movie to truly be considered "a Star Wars movie".

Otherwise, I don't regret seeing this movie at all; I would not hesitate to recommend this film to anyone even passingly familiar with Star Wars.

One last thing: I think TPM has gotten some unfair reviews, here and in the popular press, due to some misunderstandings. You just have to remember that the Trade Federation *never* were a threat, nor were they intended to be; everyone, including the Republic and the Jedi Council, were manipulated into doing exactly what Palpatine / Darth Sidious wanted. That's why it's called "The PHANTOM Menace," not "The Overt, Vaguely Ineffectual Menace." Plotwise, I guess it's more of a Prologue than an Episode One; I suppose we'll have to take it in the context of the next two movies before we can fully understand exactly what Lucas wanted to accomplish here.

Second, the mitichlorions (or whatever) grated on me too; the Force didn't need a biological explanation. However, the Jedi Council implied that they only connect the Jedi to the Force; they are not the Force. So, the Force by itself doesn't really lose much of its mystical significance, and this shouldn't be a serious obstacle to your enjoyment of this film.

I would say that this film ripped off just about everything from _The Terminator_ to _M_, but it's painfully obvious that the filmmakers have never seen a movie before in their lives. They certainly have no idea how to make one.

This movie simply transcends the bounds of "bad filmmaking." Most "bad" films just have wooden actors, a bad script, cheesy special effects. _Future War_ has these things in abundance, yes, but it's one of those rare films that manages to completely blindside you with something so astoundingly incompetent you won't believe that this is supposed to be a serious film.

The characters will be engaging in banal dialogue, when for no apparent reason, the main character will simply narrate *exactly* what's going on in voiceover... You just think, "Gee, thanks, I never would have figured out that the van Damme wannabe was starting to talk if you hadn't pointed it out!" It's as if they were embarrassed by the dialogue, only the narration is just as stupid and incomprehensible. Special effects are nonexistent; they largely consist of someone holding a plastic dinosaur close to the camera so it looks big. I kid you not. Sets are recycled shamelessly, and the set designer must have had a cardboard box fetish. The "church" has to be seen to be believed.

In short, this film cannot be described. Any time you feel you're safely in "B" movie territory, _Future War_ pulls something so astoundingly inept that it forces you to consider using something lower than "Z grade" to describe it.

In other words, this film is NOT TO BE MISSED!

Dull and muddled, as movies of this type are wont to be, but it has absolutely hysterical song lyrics from the protagonist (for whom this was probably a vehicle, in his deservedly failed bid for music stardom).

The director has a leg fetish too. Check it out.

Having seen this film on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I was more than a little surprised to see this in the children's section of the local video rental place. The packaging definitely made it clear they were marketing this to children.

And I thought to myself, of course! We were looking at the film all wrong, through our jaded adult eyes. Why, this film is perfect for children, from the hilarious pee-throwing scene all the way to the whorehouse (setting new standards in fantasy films for how much breast can be exposed without actually showing a nipple).

It's educational too! Why, you'll learn that Archimedes lived contemporarily with the Romans, and he had a secret "stoolhouse" where he kept all the wondrous inventions of Atlantis. Or that Leonardo da Vinci was a cretinous lech who lifted all of his best ideas from the aforementioned Atlanteans. And that everyone in Europe spoke cheesy middle english and wore poofy hats (Europe's all pretty much the same, right?)

So next time Junior's running wild and you want him to settle down, plop him down in front of this film. It's better than a lobotomy for eradicating any remaining joie de vive! (or, indeed, a reason to live)

Nothing in this movie makes any sense at all. And I don't just mean that in the "Hey, it didn't explain how she came to that conclusion" sense; I mean, the events in this movie are just randomly strung together, as if the editor had just taken the snippets of footage, tossed them in the air, and pieced them together in the order they fell. It's fun! Kids, try it yourself! You can't do a worse job than these guys!

There's a drug that makes scantily-clad women dance all the time. Everyone breaks for milk and cookies in the middle. In the climax, the villain "Rat Fink" spontaneously creates copies of himself, and the clones, Batwoman, and her henchmen chase each other around a round, 5'-diameter table for about five minutes. If you want your head to explode, brother is this the movie for you!