danixdefcon5

Back in '89, I was 8 yrs. old and living in a small town with no decent theaters, and *no* cable TV service. This left me with home video rentals as my only option ... and most of these were cheesy B-movies. But this one I do respect.

It is an Abyss look-alike (which curiously, I watched BEFORE Abyss) and back then I liked it a lot. In fact, so much that I taped it and still preserve the movie up to this day. Of course, watching it about 18 years later kind of made me look how bad it was, but it is still enjoyable. It feels kind of some weird mix of Abyss (underwater aliens), 2001 (killer computer), Aliens (megacorps and hidden interests) though looking like it was filmed with a budget on par with Turkish movies a-la "Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam".

Kind of good to watch, but only if you have lots of time to waste and really really like underwater movies.

Well, maybe it is because I am actually near the intended target age group (those nearing 30, and I'm 25). Its got an interesting philosophy, it actually fits better than other recent Mexican movies, which seem to have matured from the god-awful "charro" movies from the 50's or the "Lola la Trailera" low-budget action flicks from the 70's and 80's.

It is mostly a comedy about 4 (well, 4 main, and some secondary characters) that re-unite 12 years later in a high-school reunion. They're about to hit 30, and well the movie tackles on some of the issues related to hitting 30, specially with some of them not having their teenager dreams fulfilled.

During the whole film, and in the closing dialogue, this movie also shows one thing: everything we do has Side Effects, which might be good or bad.

Well, I have to begin with saying that the movie by itself was good. Despite going in a very different tangent than the Videogames (no hell, and well at least as far as I remember the teleport device was only in Phobos and Deimos, maybe Mars in Doom3 which I haven't played), the movie itself had a decent plot line.

Hell, this is the FIRST damn science-experiment-gone-wrong movie where the quarantine procedures actually WORK! Olduvai Station is fully operational when the RRTS guys go in, it isn't overrun except well, the sector where all hell broke loose (no pun intended). Plus, when they find out there is something inhuman in the area, they do not hesitate. They evacuate the whole complex. Quick thinking! No shitty "they got killed b/c some jackass didn't tell them to run in time". (Though what happens later is independent from these decisions, ya know?) However, they could've kept most of the original storyline w/o having to totally keep the "from hell" explanation. The Doom Novelization books were 100% sci-fi, and used an interesting gimmick to explain this as "genetically produced demons", based on what the aliens knew humans were afraid of.

But oh well, it was OK, even if there was no hell. Still would've liked the original Doom1 setting ... the Phobos and Deimos moons. Cause Phobos means FEAR and Deimos, TERROR. Now that is some setting!!!

How old was I when this came out? 12. However I did not have Internet access, and was kind of cut off from most mainstream games. Played Wolfenstein shareware for Mac in December 1994. But voilà!!! somewhere in mid-1995 I got a CD with lots of shareware games ... including DooM.

The game had things that no other game had: while 3D FPS were already there, most of 'em were like the corny Area51 that were basically "your character moves, shoot, reload and pray they don't hit you". Wolf3d was good, but lacked a true 3d system as it was basically a series of rooms with always 100% lighting. Doom was Different. It had different levels, interiors AND exteriors, a sky, lifts, doors, switches, you call it. But most important: dynamic lighting. Or should I say, darkness??? First thing I found out with this game was that some lights flickered, some other lights turned off, like level 1-3 or some other nice traps. But level 1-5 "Phobos Lab", now that's DARK. I mean "I'm scared like hell" kind of Dark. This level was so spooky for me that most of my stuff kept being dubbed "Phobos Lab" for ages, even currently. (Cultural Note: Phobos means "fear").

Even though it may look like cheesy by today's standards, this game set standards back in its time, mocked by Duke Nukem, and well set the bar until Quake for graphics, and Half-Life for game-play. I proudly still own Ultimate Doom, Doom2 and some of the add-ons. BTW get Doom95 and you will be able to run DooM w/o resorting to DOS! :)

This movie's been called a rip-off from Gone in 60 Seconds. Well I'd add up No Man's Land (1987) to the list; minus the unhappy ending. Same story: undercover cop goes into the biz, gets the thrill of racing. Difference is that this flick looks "cooler" because of the cars, the hard rock, the chicks ... even though this clandestine drag-racing exists, it was pushed to the "way too unreal" world. I doubt any street racer would have his car filled with "Verisign","Verizon" and other propaganda; it would bring even more attention to the cops. Its street racing, not NASCAR.

It is mildly entertaining, but there is merely ONE car chase scene in the whole movie (more like a "chase the bike" scene). The dialog's cheesy, the plot's swiss-cheesed (full of holes), and there is no real action (except for the aforementioned scene). There's not even enough racing, for the movie tries to develop the "plot" ... without success.

If you are looking for car chase movies, go get No Man's Land (1987), The Driver or Ronin. This isn't that kind of movie.

If you watched this movie when it came out (1992) you might even wonder why did the TV spin-off get so serious ...

Originally this movie came out as a satire about vampire stories; a twist in the traditional lines of vampire/horror movies. A superficial blond (the kind that usually gets killed in other movies) ends up being the "vampire slayer". Mostly the movie keeps you laughing. The vampires look kind of fake, but hell, it's a comedy, it is supposed to look corny !!!

The movie by itself is an ingenuous comedy, something that makes you laugh without going to the extremely stupid (and gross, sometimes) like recent movies do now (Pootie Tang, Nutty Professor 2).

When I watched this movie, I was 12 yrs old. I can watch it today and still laugh !!! The TV series doesn't appeal to me, it takes the whole thing serious; it just doesn't match with the movie.

I was expecting an excellent movie. A very fun movie. It turned up to be only fun. Not bad, actually... I just think that the whole "daddy worries more about his work than about me" stuff just crashed down the action... that must've added been because of it being a "family movie" (argh, I relate "family movie" to dumbed-down Disney flicks). I expected this to be something like a James Bond movie (by the way, did you notice that Mr. Tinkles is the SAME kind of cat Blofeld had?).

It was entertaining ... its nice to see the cats and dogs talking and taking the lead roles in the movie (unlike 102 Dalmatians). The whole HQ complex was cool, though you don't get to see much of it. I hope that future "animal movies" follow this trend and not the 102 Dalmatians one (where human actors have more presence than the pets).