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The story is pretty close to the original 1954 film, but Harrison Ford makes the character of Linus much more human and believable than Bogart. There are some occasional smiles and self-deprecating humor and genuine warmth that comes across.

I also think that Ormond is better as Sabrina. She really embodies the role and shows some real emotion. You can feel her heart break at the culmination, while Hepburn's Sabrina takes it in stride as if she knew all along that it was going to go that way.

Bogart's Linus was stiff and robotic and while there were a few moments of vulnerability, he just didn't seem to pull that off without it seeming contrived. Bogart was also just too old for this role. There was no chemistry and it was not believable that Sabrina could find him anything but a father figure (the actor who played her father was 4 years *younger* than Bogart).

At the heart of the movie is the budding romance between the two main characters and the romance between Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond is believable. There is real passion in both of their performances but Ford's performance Is really subtle and nuanced in the way he shows the infallible and ruthless business tycoon on the one hand and the uncertain and almost shy and vulnerable romantic on the other.

This could have been a great documentary, but it was completely ruined, presumably by the director. Almost any treatment of this material would have been an improvement. Let's just hear these guys debate. Camera shots of helicopter rotors isn't what we're watching this for.

I don't need to hear rap "music," I want to hear Hitchens and Wilson! The debate has been diced into tiny snippets with huge long gaps of practically nothing between. If they only had 20 minutes of good material, then they should have made it a 20 minute movie, not 20 minutes of good stuff and 70 minutes of crap.

I've seen Hitchens debate other people and demolish most of the arguments used by Wilson in this movie, yet every time Wilson put forward a lame argument, the movie cut away to some completely unrelated BS. I presume that the bias toward Wilson in this film reflects the personal bias of the director or the producer, but it is perhaps only apparent to someone who has seen Hitchens in other settings.

It's not that Wilson wasn't an articulate and persuasive purveyor of his view; it's just that he offered few arguments that haven't been effectively demolished by Hitchens in other debates. If you want to see a debate where Hitchens doesn't come out on top, watch him debate Al Sharpton. Hitchens just comes across as a blow-hard in that one, which of course he is, though not "just" a blow-hard.

The best part of the show was the "audience questions" which was relegated to a couple minutes at the very end. I wish there had been more of that as well. Some good emotion showed by the audience.

Don't waste your time with this one.

I have seen the first two episodes of the show and have observed how incompetent the CSI team is. Here are some examples:

1) They immediately spot something funny with the shoe in the first show and yet fail to do a detailed analysis of the shoe until they can find nothing else and William Peterson gets an opportunity to offer fatherly advice. I remember when I saw it and then they had the killer sign a sworn statement that he never wore the shoe I figured the first thing they would do is try to prove him wrong. I was wrong; it was the last thing they tried.

2) They had to check the feet of the "lucky" millionaire AFTER they had already arrested a guy because he had roof dust on his feet. Seems like any competent CSI would have spotted it on the victim's feet right away if there was any. Or would have remembered it if there wasn't.

3) They hadn't bothered to check under the fingernails of Holly Gribbs until AFTER they had caught the killer. How lame is that!?

4) They failed to even bother to look for a weapon with which the millionaire was actually killed until after the ME found the real cause of death. Darned lucky that nobody had disturbed the crime scene -- unlike the shoe killer, for instance.

Luckily for them, the perpetrators are even STUPIDER:

1) Who leaves their beeper at the murder scene and then calls it and tells an unknown person how to find them?

2) After you know that they are after you, how could you fail to get THE ONE TOENAIL clipping that could condemn you into the toilet with the other 9?

3) After you've done a reasonable job of covering up, why admit anything to the cops when they tell you how you killed the millionaire?

The next thing I think is lame is how they seem to take every chance to pompously explain how "the victim tells me" or how great they are for discovering (after passing it by the first time) the key piece of evidence that had been staring them in the face the whole time.

The acting is also weak. I know that William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger are actually decent actors (see "Manhunter" and "Erin Brockovich"), but they need to lighten up a bit. They overplay just about every scene.

There are some good points. The guy who gambles and indirectly contributes to the death of Holly is an interesting character, although I find it hard to believe that William Petersen didn't fire him. Paul Guilfoyle does a good job with his, unfortunately demoted, role.

I don't like the way the action is cut, either. The director seems cut from one scene to the next in a way that is very distracting. I suppose that's subjective and some may like the way he does it. Not me.

Someone compared this show to Law and Order: SVU. The errors in investigation this show makes would never be tolerated by Law and Order standards. The dialog is preachy and pompous, and they try to be cooler than they are. It's sorta like "Law and Order" meets "Miami Vice." It doesn't work for me.

The first time I remember seeing James Garner was in this series. It was set in the late 1800s and he played a sort of smart-alec who inherited the name of the founder of the town but basically nothing else. The people of the town kind of looked down on him. He rode around town on a motorcycle, which in those days was like a moped in that it had pedals like a bicycle (in fact that's how you started it).

It was hilarious and I was very disappointed when it was canceled. When I saw Rockford, I thought "wow, that's the same guy that was in Nichols, I wonder if this show will be any good."

Margot Kidder was in this too. I hope someday I get to see reruns to see if it's as good as I remember.

There are a lot of good things about this movie. Fact-based stories always seem to have a better chance than pure fiction because we see people as they really act, and too often in movies people behave in ways that nobody would ever do in real life.

In particular, the scenes on the Island between the two couples was extremely well done, IMHO. There is real tension there and we feel it. On one level we wonder why Mac just doesn't leave the island and get away, but on another level we are told that he will never back down -- and there's also his attraction to Jennifer.

There are also some significant flaws. The sequencing of the story is badly handled. There are flashbacks that interfere with the story for no good reason. They are not all in the same order. Many of them seem to have nothing to do with the story and seem to be there just to fill out the extra long time slot.

Speaking of which, the movie is either too long or edited badly. Lucky I watched it on my ReplayTV and skipped over the boring parts. I would have liked to see much more on the island -- and without all the damned interruptions as we went back and forth between "present" day and the flashback. I think there was enough material to make use of the 3 hours, but the director apparently didn't and so added useless filler.

Finally there were just too many loose ends. Why did the killings take place? Was Buck jealous of Mac's attentions toward Jennifer? Was there really something going on between Mac and Jennifer? It looked like there was definitely something there but again we were shown too little of the island sequence to figure it all out. What about the other visitors to the island? How can we be sure it wasn't someone entirely different?

Four people were on the island. One washed up on shore dead and dismembered. Two returned to civilization. Where is the fourth? Maybe he did it. Or maybe he arranged it with Buck and or Jennifer and intentionally disappeared. Why didn't anyone think of that?

I have read many of the user comments and I think that the film is generally not getting credit for being a smart thriller. Why does the monster have to be on-screen to make it good? Hitchcock said that suspense plays better than action and although this film missed many opportunities to be more suspenseful, it's is at least not stupid.

In how many horror films today does the hero know the monster and its nature when he should? Steve knows what he's dealing with almost from the beginning and his frustration is not being able to convince the authorities.

Yet the authorities act in a totally credible way as well, even the annoying sergeant. Who would believe such a story from a bunch of "kids" (we know Steve wasn't a kid, but his character is).

One key example of the movie's intelligence: Steve is yelling to Dave to get CO2 fire extinguishers long after Dave has already gotten the message and dispatched people to get them. How many movies made in the 90s would be smart about this subtle detail?

I'm really tired of watching movies and having people behave in ways different than they really would in real life (the most irritating recent example is Tom Hanks falling asleep with the flashlight on in Cast Away). Horror films in particular do this in spades (which is why the Scream films have been so popular), but The Blob, to me, stayed pretty true to its characters, and in so doing made a smarter and better film.

Yes there are many flaws, perhaps biggest is Steve McQueen's very uneven performance, but I think they missed key opportunities for suspense that could have turned this above average, kinda scary, kinda funny movie that's a cult favourite into a true classic.

I have seen the first two episodes of the show and have observed how incompetent the CSI team is. Here are some examples:

1) They immediately spot something funny with the shoe in the first show and yet fail to do a detailed analysis of the shoe until they can find nothing else and William Peterson gets an opportunity to offer fatherly advice. I remember when I saw it and then they had the killer sign a sworn statement that he never wore the shoe I figured the first thing they would do is try to prove him wrong. I was wrong; it was the last thing they tried.

2) They had to check the feet of the "lucky" millionaire AFTER they had already arrested a guy because he had roof dust on his feet. Seems like any competent CSI would have spotted it on the victim's feet right away if there was any. Or would have remembered it if there wasn't.

3) They hadn't bothered to check under the fingernails of Holly Gribbs until AFTER they had caught the killer. How lame is that!?

4) They failed to even bother to look for a weapon with which the millionaire was actually killed until after the ME found the real cause of death. Darned lucky that nobody had disturbed the crime scene -- unlike the shoe killer, for instance.

Luckily for them, the perpetrators are even STUPIDER:

1) Who leaves their beeper at the murder scene and then calls it and tells an unknown person how to find them?

2) After you know that they are after you, how could you fail to get THE ONE TOENAIL clipping that could condemn you into the toilet with the other 9?

3) After you've done a reasonable job of covering up, why admit anything to the cops when they tell you how you killed the millionaire?

The next thing I think is lame is how they seem to take every chance to pompously explain how "the victim tells me" or how great they are for discovering (after passing it by the first time) the key piece of evidence that had been staring them in the face the whole time.

The acting is also weak. I know that William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger are actually decent actors (see "Manhunter" and "Erin Brockovich"), but they need to lighten up a bit. They overplay just about every scene.

There are some good points. The guy who gambles and indirectly contributes to the death of Holly is an interesting character, although I find it hard to believe that William Petersen didn't fire him. Paul Guilfoyle does a good job with his, unfortunately demoted, role.

I don't like the way the action is cut, either. The director seems cut from one scene to the next in a way that is very distracting. I suppose that's subjective and some may like the way he does it. Not me.

Someone compared this show to Law and Order: SVU. The errors in investigation this show makes would never be tolerated by Law and Order standards. The dialog is preachy and pompous, and they try to be cooler than they are. It's sorta like "Law and Order" meets "Miami Vice." It doesn't work for me.

This movie starts out being very interesting and involving. The scenes where Nicolas Cage is detecting and trying to locate the missing girl are definitely a pleasure to watch. The scenes with the girl's mother are the best in the movie and we see some excellent work by Cage as he shows the emotions of a man torn between wanting to tell the mother what he knows, but not wanting to lead her to the wrong conclusions.

Even after he begins to explore the seedier parts of LA, the movie shows promise of being an exploration into how you can't remain detached when you delve into the darker recesses of the human psyche, no matter how hard you try. From this promising beginning, the movie makes a terrible turn into one of the "Deathwish" sequels.

Rather than showing the "evil" characters as complex and conflicted, or perhaps even with some level of remorse for what they've become, they are painted in caricature: even the guy who looks like a regular guy ultimately shows his true evil by throwing a knife at the hero.

Finally, the relationship between Cage and his wife is the most unbelievable one I think I've ever seen on film. Could he possibly go through all this without ever even saying one word to her and still claim to be in love with her?

The beginning of this film reminded me a lot of "Hard Core" starting George C. Scott, but whereas that film give you a more complex view of both what we consider "normal" and what we think is "perverted," "8MM" just leaves you feeling used.

I don't understand why people think this is a good movie. The plot is predictable yet not really believable, the hero is unlikeable and the villain, who is supposed to be the movie's moral foundation (go figure *that* one), ultimately pulls the rug out from underneath the movie at the end.

The scene where Brad Pitt allows the killer to escape was irritatingly hard to believe. And what was the Gynneth Paltrow character's (not to mention her unborn child) sin? The killer was careful to choose people who (at least in his mind) deserved to die yet at the crucial climax he completely broke with his pattern in a most incredible way.

And where does a "moral" serial killer come from? Seems like an oxymoron, but of course in the end we see that he's not moral after all. Still, the whole concept rings hollow and leaves one wondering what the point of the movie was anyway? It seems like it was just a story created to give the film makers a chance to show grisly murder scenes one after another in an attempt to shock us.

If you want to see a much better movie along these lines (and much more disturbing because it's believable), watch "Henry, the Portrait of a Serial Killer." And be sure to give it a higher vote than this turkey.

I can't say that this was a really bad movie, but I have to say that I was disappointed considering the quality of the cast. Sad to say, I think the story was not the problem with the movie (obviously, it has been done before and done much better), but rather the actors and acting were.

I must take exception with some of the other reviewers; I think John Malkovich's performance was dismal. He shouldn't have been in this movie at all. Gerard Depardieu was not given anything to work with; perhaps he should have had Malkovich's role. Jeremy Irons, obviously a fine actor, chose (if he in fact chose it himself) a completely wrong attitude for the role. The three of them seemed totally uninvolved in the story, and had virtually no emotion at all. Even when his son was killed, Malkovich merely goes through the motions, not displaying the least amount of real passion. His vow of vengeance rings completely hollow.

The movie is saved from being bad by three performances -- actually four, but by three actors. DiCaprio, in the dual role, rises above the dismal acting of most of his supporting cast to give two solid performances. But the movie is completely stolen by Gabriel Bryne, who gives the best performance I've ever seen him give (indeed, I think it might have been award-winning in a better film), and Anne Parillaud, as the mother forced to choose between the son she raised who is a monster and the one she abandoned who is good. Their characters were so much more interesting that I found myself wishing the movie were about them, and the whole iron mask thing was used as window dressing.

It is certainly the worst movie I have ever seen. I left the theater angry that I had been duped into wasting my time watching it. I would have walked out except that I wasn't alone at the time.

There may have been a point to the movie, but it was hopelessly lost in the horribly muddied plot and melodramatic acting. I think the director must have been enamored with the opportunities to show interesting things in 3D and forgot that a good movie tells a story or provides some insight that we might have not thought of before.

Yet this might have been an astounding visual treat (considering the Andy Warhol connection) but even the 3D effects are diminished by the obvious fakery during the more gruesome scenes. I laughed aloud during several of them, but alas there were too few to make this a camp humor film. The best uses of 3D were the full-room shots where we feel like we're a fly on the wall during an otherwise boring conversation, but again, we are left wanting real dialog between real people about some important topic.

If you want to see a 3D movie, watch "The Mask" on TV next time it's on. Lame as it was, it's *way* better than this.