wackyfuncrazy

Back in the day, we all wanted a film that combined Stallone's and Schwarzenegger's over the top characters where they would work together. Unfortunately, this never happened until this film where they're both geriatric.

I do enjoy action films set in prison: Stallones's Lock Up and Schwarzenegger's The Running Man are two of my favourite films of all time, however I feel that if this had some younger (more believable) lead actors in it, it would've been perfect. As it happens, we get 'new' Stallone, and by that I mean he's no longer the humble underdog like he is in Lock Up or Over The Top, he now has to trade witticisms with Schwarzenegger and others. We get the 'new' Schwarzenegger, (which started with True Lies), who is aware of what a cliche he is and dishes out his jokes and one-liners with far too much irony.

The film itself is pretty standard stuff, and again, would've been much better with younger lead actors, but it's rescued from true mediocrity by the supporting cast. Jim Caviezel is brilliant and menacing as the prison warden and Vinnie Jones is also surprisingly effective as his chief henchman. Sam Neill also puts in a low key effort as the prison doctor. However, Curtis Jackson was pretty forgettable as Stallone's employee.

As an action film, it's better than contemporaries, but as a Stallone or Schwarzenegger outing, it really is 20 years too late.

I recently watched the first four episodes before deciding I couldn't watch any more. Here are my reasons why:

Theo James. I didn't find him believable as a duke and not just because of his awful accent that reminded me of Dr Lucien Sanchez from Garth Marenghi's Darkplace played by Matt Berry. He seems to have no screen presence and I wasn't convinced that he cared about any of the crazy situations in which he found himself. Also, how did he get out of the army so quickly?

Kaya Scodelario was just too obvious and cliche as the tough as nails 'woman in charge'. I would've preferred her to be a little more vulnerable: I wondered why she needed anyone working for her since she seemed to be able to do and handle anything.

I felt Vinnie Jones was just put in this to make it seem like an 'authentic' Guy Ritchie production. He was completely wasted and they could've done so much more with him.

I barely knew Joely Richardson was in this which is enough said about her really.

I could already see that the woman who tricked Michael Vu's character would end up liking him. There is no way that is even remotely credible. Speaking of Michael Vu, he was in this for too much and his character was extremely irritating.

Ray Winstone. Again, it seemed he was just in this to make it seem more authentic. Useless character and another waste.

Giancarlo Esposito. Only in this to make fans of Breaking Bad go 'ohh it's Gus! I bet he's really vicious underneath!' I was hoping he would be a cameo but no, he kept coming back. He's pretty much just another Gus to give cheap appeal to a wider audience.

This is one of those series where the main plot will never get wrapped up, they'll make it up as they go along and then they'll cancel it before the ratings topple. We've seen all this before: the mixing of brutal gang violence with humour, the 'witty' dialogue, the ridiculous crimes and the over the top characters which would never exist in the real world. It should be getting long in the tooth for everyone now really.

Pulp Fiction is another film that I really enjoyed when I was growing up. Kids at school would love to quote it because of all the expletives and the profanity-ridden dialogue. I rewatched it a few days ago and I've realised that as I've grown older the movie has become less essential for me. This review will summarise my thoughts after the recent rewatch.

The worst aspect of it for me is Sam Jackson. That was how he was known before this film catapulted him from supporting actor to main star. I prefer him as a supporting character actor in films like Goodfellas, White Sands and Jurassic Park. Starting with this film he plays exactly the same character in everything he does: perpetually angry with his high-pitched voice dishing out profanity at every opportunity, and it gets old really fast. Without him , the film woud've been a lot better. We can all blame this film for why he's some sort of cultural icon now.

I didn't mind John Travolta in this but his role was supposed to have been done by Michael Madsen and I feel that would've been better. Again, we can blame this film for all his roles in the nineties after he shot back to stardom. I agree with some critics that his scenes seemed to glorify drug misuse, we could've done without the hideous graphic detail in his scenes.

I still can't see the appeal of Uma Thurman. I thought her acting in this was worse than when she was in Batman and Robin. She's also not much to look at either.

Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames were good I thought but again, their scenes were needlessly disgusting and just provided more bait for 'edgy' teen humour where the dialogue would be quoted non-stop. 'Oh my goodness, the shopkeeper said the N-word and talked about gimps.' Although to be honest, I never found it funny when I was younger.

The scene also has multiple plot holes. If Rhames were a gang boss, why was he out getting his own food? Why didn't the pawn shop proprietor or the security guard know who he was? If they didn't know who he was and were racist, how could Rhames BE a gang boss in that town/city? What would they have done with Rhames and Willis after they'd finished with them? Multiple witnesses saw them crash and go into the pawn shop. Stupid.

The only decent scenes were with Harvey Keitel although they were slightly ruined by Tarantino's cameo (he really can't act). His cameo included probably the most quoted part of the film by edgy teens. Why would he use the N-word so casually if his wife is black?

Lastly, the film was very unsatisfying in that Sam Jackson's character didn't get his comeuppance. He was a completely homicidal maniac and he gets to live the rest of his life content? At least Travolta's character got what was coming to him.

I believe this film, like the Harry Potter franchise, came out at the right time and, coupled with its appeal to edgy teens, caused it to be lauded much more than it deserved to be.

I recently watched the whole series. I'm going to sum up my thoughts here.

The show got off to a good start with plenty of action, but the bland plot and dull characters became its downfall.

The characters were extremely one-dimensional. Reacher is some sort of stereotypical superman. We never see him go to the gym or do any exercise, yet he's roided up to the hilt and I never once thought he was in any real danger. Also the actor playing him was a little wooden.

The detective's back story has been done a million times before: he's the best of the best and went to Harvard but losing his wife made him go for a job in a little known backwater.

Bruce McGill was surprising and was so obviously evil they might as well have had him twirl a moustache while holding that cane.

The military woman was a little contrived. She seemed to be a plot device to have Reacher get military intelligence and equipment wothout it seeming too ludicrous.

The female strong cop has been done to death and it feels unnecessary to talk about how every part of her personality was cliche.

The main baddie dying at the end was a little disappointing. He gives some sort of psychotic speech and then gets too easily dispatched. Again, I never once thought our roided up superman was in any danger whatsoever, particularly with Commando style bullet dodging and shooting accuracy.

I thought the show felt cheap and badly written. The plot was quite predictable with characters double-crossing each other and the like. It was easy to guess who the baddies were and what the end was going to be.

People complain about the Tom Cruise films, and while I'm not really a fan, I would rather watch them than this.

If you like bland action and a very predictable 'mystery' go for it, otherwise it's hardly groundbreaking stuff you're missing here.

If you want something fun to do while watching this, count off the number of American war film cliches as you get through it. Here's my list:

Mel Gibson's character being the all American hero and 'natural leader' chosen by top brass because he's THAT good: he even went to Harvard or something. He would never leave his men (even shouting at top brass who want to extract him from the battlezone), is respected even by the grizzled old grumpy sergeant major (more on him later), is a great dad and loving husband... you get the idea; it's unbearable really.

All the American war film cliches are here: we have a 'kurnel', a 'sarge', several 'lootenants' and 'capuns'. The only thing missing is a 'mister president' to call when things get really tough.

The stepford military wives back on the base are extremely one dimensional. All we see are bad attempts at trying to be upset when they get 'the news' that their beloved has been killed or whatever.

The grizzled old grumpy sergeant major is just too much. He's played by Sam Elliott (who seems to play similar characters on his other films). He's tough, but underneath is a good man with a heart of gold. He even shows sappy respect for a sarge at one point, which is as much character development to expect.

The attempt at humanising the NVA was completely pointless. They just get mown down anyway and the one that had a diary with his 'girl back home' was pretty stupid. While I cheered on his attempt to stab Mel Gibson (who effortlessly turns around and shoots him in the head cleanly by the way), why didn't he just shoot the kurnel when he got close enough?

The depressing music as the photographer character learns of the horror and tragedy of war. Oh, the humanity! The film ends on a high though as grinning Mel returns to his cookie cutter bland wife and family and the NVA big baddie leaves a little old glory fluttering on a tree stump. AMERICA WILL BE BACK! USA! USA!

Lastly not a cliche but Gibson's prayer in the church with one of the lootenants was in terrible bad taste.

If you like war films that have bland copy/paste characters with absolutely no development, if you want to see scores of men brutally killed and you like Mel Gibson's smug face, watch it, otherwise steer very clear.

This film was the beginning of the end for Hellraiser. The first two films, especially Hellbound, are for me two of the best horror films of the 80s and the story arc was wrapped up nicely at the end of the second.

The makers of the third film however, had different ideas. They obviously realised that Pinhead was the breakout character of the first two despite only really being a side character in both so they made the third with the intention of creating another 'horror baddie mascot' like Freddy Krueger or Leatherface. In order to do this, they not only had to contrive a way for Pinhead to come back but they also changed his character quite dramatically. In the first two, Pinhead wasn't necessarily evil and was a being who was actually fair and could be reasoned with. He tortured his victims because the victims wanted to be tortured deep down since they were looking for different pleasure. The Pinhead in Hellraiser III is drastically different: he's purely evil and kills for the sake of it. The film explains why this is with a truly awful plot contrivance: Pinhead's evil is so strong that it's manifested itself into its own being. He's also played far too ridiculously by Doug Bradley this time. In the first two, Pinhead was calm and calculating, here he's lost all subtlety.

The plot consists of a news reporter named Joey who learns of the puzzle box and then tries to investigate it. Joey is played by Terry Farrell from Star Trek DS9 and is just as wooden here as she is on that show. Along with Joey, we get Terri, an ex girlfriend of JP, a man who owns a nightclub and the current owner of the puzzle box. All can't really act to save their lives and it's really not surprising that their careers never went anywhere.

Towards the end of the film, Pinhead starts to create an army of new cenobites. We get cameraman cenobite who films his victims with the camera in his head (which also doubles as some sort of rocket launcher) and then gives one liners like 'that's a wrap' and 'ready for your close up Joey?' (get it? It's because he's a cameraman and he just murdered someone by sticking his camera through someone's head, so clever!). We get CD cenobite who somehow has an endless supply of CDs which he throws like ninja stars (apparently CDs are razor sharp and can penetrate skulls). He also bizarrely makes whirring robotic/mechanical sounds as he moves. We get flamethrower cenobite who somehow has an endless supply of GASOLINE! Bottles. This character is probably in the worst scene of the film: he's just thrown one of his bottles on a police car and a policewoman shouts (extremely woodenly) 's**t!, GASOLINE!' and instead of running away like a real person, actually stands there while flamethrower cenobite (while the camera looks at him side on, to hide the gas hose of course) slowly blows flames and explodes them. The scene has to be seen to be believed. We also get JP cenobite who has a drill in his head (drew the short straw for special powers I suppose) and Terri cenobite who just has a cigarette jammed into her throat and is also bald for some reason (also drew a short straw for special powers). While this is happening, Pinhead leads the way with the cops shooting away which of course does nothing.

Other terrible plot points and contrivances include:

The first half of the film has Pinhead trapped in some sort of statue (!) (similar to the one at the end of Hellbound) and JP's latest conquest gets devoured by Pinhead so that he may escape. I must say that the woman's skin comes off really easily: almost like removing a latex glove; ridiculous for many reasons. After this happens, the actress playing her just screams woodenly rather than actually portraying someone who would be in intense agony.

The club JP owns is called 'The Boiler Room.' Why not just name it the 'The Janitor's Closet' and have done with it.

Pinhead's killfest in the nightclub has some really bad effects: a woman's drink floats out of her glass, takes the form of Pinhead's face and then forms an icicle which stabs her in the mouth. Laughable rubbish!

The film tries to follow the ending of Hellbound by telling us how Pinhead was originally a soldier who wanted to experience new things and discovered the box. Apparently, he wants to stop his evil self and concocts a plan to get Pinhead into limbo so he can amalgamate back with him and be sent back to hell. Yeah it makes no sense at all. We also get the obligatory church bashing with Pinhead needlessly mocking the crucifixion: it adds nothing to the 'plot' believe me.

Not even Ashley Laurence wanted to be in this and just did a quick cameo for it.

They should've stopped at Hellbound. Avoid!

I remember being very excited to see this when it first came out after liking Arnold's previous films but there are several things I just could not like about this film:

Despite his acting range still being terrible, Arnold is just so smug in this one. It's as though he and the Hollywood executives realised most of his films were a joke and tried to cash in on it but it's just unbearable. Arnold delivers the one-liners except this time they're said almost ironically and Arnold intersperses this with awful attempts at serious dialogue which reminds me of the equally as bad Last Action Hero. We get all the Arnold lines such as 'Get Down' etc except we're supposed to take it seriously (gud shooding mareenz).

Tom Arnold. I just cannot bear him, especially in this. His chirpy attitude, the attempt at being Comic Relief and the cliche of talking about his ex-wife or whatever, ugh.

Jamie Lee Curtis. Like Sarah Jessica Parker, Hollywood executives obviously believed that people would start to think she's some sort of beauty the more they put her in front of a camera. She is painful to look at and the strip tease scene made me gag. Also, why didn't she just jump out of the car sun roof before it fell off the bridge? Why did Arnold need to grab her? Stupid.

The fact that all the baddies are typical non-descript miscellaneous brown people who just want to do terrorism for the sake of it is bad enough but how they actually had the gall to include a token good guy brown person on Arnold's team to try and balance it was just too obvious for me.

The fact that Arnold is some sort of renaissance man here. He's now an expert not only in hand to hand combat and all weapons a la Commando but can now pilot some sort of Harrier jet. Also his attempt at acting suave at the beginning was sickening to say the least: Arnold isn't and never has been some sort of James Bond heart-throb, yuck.

Eliza Dushku. Thankfully this non-entity has gone into greater obscurity since finishing with Buffy and Angel. There is no way her character would be brave enough to steal the key at the end. Her character was a carbon copy of the joke character of Arnold's daughter on Last Action Hero.

Arnold's films really started to worsen in the 90s: Junior, Eraser, Last Action Hero, Jingle All The Way and this is no exception. If you like the old Arnold films from the 80s you will be very disappointed in this.

Gervais' latest series is about a widower who's recently lost his wife to breast cancer and decides to take out his anger on the rest of the world (anyone with whom he interacts) by being obnoxious. He ironically calls this his 'superpower.'

It's an interesting premise and, being a former fan of his (his only decent project is 'The Office'), I decided to give this a go.

Firstly, Gervais' character works at a local newspaper, which he belittles to anyone who will listen, including his boss. Despite being a small newspaper that covers silly local stories, it can afford to pay Gervais a salary that permits him to live comfortably and even give quantities of money and expensive gifts to strangers.

Secondly, Gervais' character seems to think that evidence of the wonderful relationship he and his dead wife had is an endless supply of video messages from his dead wife watched post mortem on a laptop. These messages all have the same theme: 'Gervais, you're such a wonderful, amazing, funny, etc man. You need to move on etc.' These messages are interspersed with contrived flashback memories of Gervais and his dead wife having a fun, happy relationship. Gervais seems to think that happy, romantic memories are playing stupid pranks on his dead wife such as pouring water over her and waking her up and then laughing the fake laugh he does in his other projects.

True to his ego, Gervais' character inexplicably has loads of friends and is liked and lauded by everyone: even strangers he just meets. They all heap praise on him, calling him good, funny, amazing or whatever, despite only having known of him for less than a day and having heard nothing from him but cheap insults to others. He even has little patience for his own father for forgetting his name., who has Alzheimer's disease and lives in a nursing home.

If you've seen some of Gervais' terrible stand-up, in which he has to read from a script, constantly jokes about fat people and bandies around expletives like a teenager trying to be edgy, you won't be surprised to hear that most of his 'superpower' comprises calling people ****s.

I believe Gervais' ego dangerously verges into believing he's some sort of religious figure. I inferred from the series that his character takes pride in being friends with marginalised members of society and seeing their 'humanity.' He makes friends with a drug addict (to whom he purposely gives money knowing he will use it to overdose on heroin) and to a local prostitute (whom he pays to be his cleaner, not to sleep with him, in a contrived way to look moral).

Despite Gervais' character assisting in a suicide of a visibly depressed drug addict, threatening a 10 year old boy with a hammer (after joking that if he were a paedophile, he wouldn't be interested in him because the boy is a... you guessed it, a fat ****), constantly bullying his colleagues and scoring drugs in front of his nephew, everyone bizarrely loves him because he's just that much of a wonderful human being.

The whole show has a cheap, rushed feel to it; every episode has the same scenes: office, house, nursing home, therapist etc. With the exact same camera angles. I found myself watching out for faces of has-beens to try and alleviate the boredom. Paul Kaye (Dennis Pennis) plays his therapist (Gervais' character even has money to afford this), Penelope Wilton (the woman from Clockwise) plays a widow Gervais meets at a graveyard who just knows how wonderful, funny and amazing he is and Ashley Jensen (having lost her gummy smile from 'Extras') plays the tough old carer from his father's nursing home whose no nonsense, cliched tough love sets Gervais' character onto the right path.

The ending is horridly rushed and feels like a school production of A Christmas Carol: Gervais' character sees the error of his ways and makes amends with everyone. I was wondering how he was going to make amends for the assisted suicide but it's forgotten about.

Gervais' fans will lap this up, but anyone looking for something original should avoid this.

There are several things I will always remember from this film.

The first is Stephen Dorff's tongue as he kisses some blonde haired woman playing a cop with some awful dramatic irony thrown in. Seriously, everytime I'm reminded of this film, the first thing I always remember is this.

The second is Steven Berkoff's horrendous portrayal of some sort of criminal who's disguised as a southern preacher. We're introduced to him in this scene in a church that has Berkoff talking with what must be the worst impersonation of a southern accent I've ever heard; it truly has to be heard to be believed.

The third is Stephen Dorff 'cheekily' telling a policeman that he has 'rollerblades' in his bag after Dorff and co. (having changed outfits) rob a bank while wearing rollerblades. Just the way he says 'rollerblades' while trying to appear both confident and suave will return to my mind every time I'm reminded of this film.

The fourth is some male cop saying 'you're giving me one h*** of a h**d-on.' The man playing him really can't act and that line didn't do him any favours at all.

The fifth goes to Steven Berkoff again: this time he's asking for 'barrow bonds.' I had absolutely no idea what 'barrow bonds' were during the whole film and looked them up afterwards. I found out that Berkoff was trying to say 'bearer bonds' the entire time. I'd like to say that this caused the film to make more sense but I still have absolutely no idea what was happening.

The sixth and last thing I remember is Steven Berkoff's awful wig. I know he takes it off in the film but seriously, how could his character think that the wig was a decent disguise?

The acting, the plot, the direction and the camera work are all much below par here. The only redeeming feature is the stuntwork, which is actually pulled off quite nicely at the start and made me think this film had promise before it degenerated into the stinker that it is.

For me, Quantum Leap is a programme that has not aged well. I used to love it as a kid, but rewatching it as an adult has only magnified its many flaws for me.

The characters are just completely 2-dimensional. Sam Beckett is a self-righteous goody-goody who is always in the right. Despite being a time-traveller with a 'swiss-cheesed memory', he's an expert at psychology and can always talk the jumper off the bridge or repair a broken marriage or two. His morals are always the correct ones and he has no shame in poking his nose into others' business. Al is a womanising flamboyant dresser who never stops making the mistake of talking to the characters that can't hear him like someone who talks to the TV.

For a supposedly sci-fi show, there is surprisingly little sci-fi. Most of the episodes involve preventing a murder or a suicide, repairing a broken marriage or preventing someone from going into a care home and it really gets long in the tooth when preachy Sam starts delivering his tired monologues about how people should come together and love one another or whatever.

I can count the really decent episodes on two hands. The pilot episode had a lot of decent time travel sci-fi and showed the potential of the show. Future Boy would've been better if Captain Galaxy HAD time travelled like he was starting to do at the end, but no, we get him reconciling with his daughter who then decides not to have him committed to a care home. The Leap Back was great and I really enjoyed the premise of Al and Sam switching places. Of course, I knew the 'return program' wouldn't work. The episodes with the evil leaper were painful because it showed what the show could've been: decent sci-fi. I longed for more episodes explaing who Alia and Zoe were, their origin and the mechanics behind their leaping technology, but no, we get more of the same like Sam leaping into Dr Ruth of all people to save some woman being stalked by her boss.

The worst thing of all is that the show ended in the worst way! The final episode was supposed to be a cliffhanger for how Al was going to start leaping and going after Sam in season 6 (check youtube and reddit for the footage and the script etc.) but the network cancelled at the worst time and slapped on a cardboard cut-out ending that couldn't even spell the main character's name correctly, similar to Poochie's exit from Itchy & Scratchy. I really enjoyed the ideas in the final episode: Al knowing who Sam is, Sam being in charge of his own destiny, Stawpah being a leaper and the flashbacks to previous episodes etc. What wasted potential!

Finally, the terrible plot holes: not just the times we saw Sam's real reflection or when Al cast a shadow etc. But having the barman say to Sam that he's in charge of his own destiny and then having Sam leaping to save Al's marriage! Why couldn't Sam leap home AFTER he'd done that? Why was it go home OR save the marriage? Also, surely there are more important things to prevent than someone's marriage? What about the kids never born from Beth's remarriage? Are they not important?! Car accidents happen every day, why not prevent one of them? Oh because that would prevent Sam from preaching his morals of course!

Wasted sci-fi potential.

I'm a former fan of Ricky Gervais. I first saw him in his earlier days with his skit on The 11 O'Clock show in which he moaned about the disabled and their 'minibuses.' It wasn't really funny and I mainly watched it for Ali G (the only time Ali G was funny) and I forgot about him quickly. However, I really liked 'The Office' when it came out a couple of years later and was excited to watch his new series 'Extras'.

After watchng this, I was no longer a fan.

Gervais is clearly a one-hit wonder. In his attempt to make something original, rather than make different characters, Gervais more or less has the same types of characters, the same types of situtations and the same jokes except he made his character permanently looking despondent with exactly the same mannerisms and observations that Gervais has in real life: he effectively plays himself.

Gervais plays 'Andy Millman', a 40 something who mopes around film sets trying to get lines in films in order to try and become famous. He's assisted in this by his agent, 'Darren Lamb' who's played by Stephen Merchant. It was obviously Merchant's turn to be David Brent so he plays 'Darren Lamb' exactly like Brent except with the subtlety of a drag queen. Gervais' character knows Merchant is incompetent yet continues to employ him. There's even a scene in which Gervais finds Merchant 'tossing off over a pen.'

Gervais is also tailed by Ashley Jensen's 'Maggie,' another extra who's vapid and stupid. I have to say this: Jensen has a hideously gummy smile and it's really off-putting to look at. Jensen can barely act: the character has no depth whatsoever.

Gervais' ego had really started going to his head at this point and it shows. Each episode has cameos from other actors and actresses playing exaggerated versions of themselves (obviously inspired by The Larry Sanders Show). You just know Gervais is patting himself on the back that he's 'working' with these big stars and getting them to appear. The problem is that the caricatures are all the same! Each caricature is an egomaniac who thinks they're one step away from a deity. It really does become tiresome after the second episode.

The show relies far too heavily on the cameos and the awkward moments that ensue. The similar moments from 'The Office' were fresh and just subtle enough to be believable and work but here, they're just unbelievable and come across as contrived. There's no way that anyone would refer to an Asian woman as 'yellow' and that Ross Kemp would kiss his bicep while acting tough, it's too ridiculous.

The friendship between Gervais and Jensen doesn't appear to be based on anything apart from their both being extras, I found their jokes and banter quite contrived. Also, why would Gervais be friends with her after she maliciously tried to get him in trouble with the BBC producers?

In the second series, the show seems to lose its premise: Gervais gets his own series, which is a parody of low-brow sitcoms like Mrs. Brown's Boys. Gervais' ego causes him to have disdain for anything that relies on catchphrases and cheap laughs, despite the fact that Gervais is himself a one-trick pony and relies on cheap laughs. One scene has Gervais opening a bottle of water that he thought wasn't fizzy, only to have it explode in his mouth; another scene has Gervais making crude, camp jokes while portraying a genie; another has Gervais and co. at the BAFTAs while a doll keeps spouting Gervais' catchphrase, while another scene has Ian McKellen shouting out for Vaseline while he and Gervais are standing half-naked in a dressing room; there's just no subtlety here whatsoever and it gets really long in the tooth.

The last episode tries to be all emotional and tug at heart strings as Gervais tearfully apologises to Jensen's character while 'on-air' in Celebrity Big Brother. Gervais gets on his moral high horse and abandons fame for his friend in an unintenionally cringe-inducing moment.

Gervais really let his success with 'The Office' go to his head and it shows here with the lazy writing, poor acting and dialogue and repetitious themes.

Simon Pegg plays the same character in all of his films; it was funny in Shaun of the Dead but it grew tired quickly and bizarrely he still does it. Needless to say Simon Pegg's "everyman" character is every bit as annoying as it was the last dozen or so times he played it. I found myself transfixed more on his hair transplant than his lines.

The talking dog played by Robin Williams could have been done so much better. The lines the dog was given were like a cross between Dr Dolittle and What Women Want: "what if a dog could talk?! Oh I bet it would say how much it likes biscuits and wants to hump your leg!" Predictable bilge.

The "chemistry" between Kate Beckinsale and Simon Pegg was strained and unbelievable. There is no way that she would like or even consider Pegg's charisma-less neighbour. We also never find out why Rob Riggle's character liked her so much or the details of how they met. Speaking of Rob Riggle, I expected more from him really.

Eddie Izzard was completely bland in this. He can't act, he's not funny and he should stick to walking around in lipstick and his pink beret preaching the virtues of a "fair and equal society" while enjoying his millions like the rest of his celebrity peers.

The aliens were completely unnecessary and the "Monty Python" "team" playing them were humourless too. "Monty Python" was and never will contain an ounce of humour: just tired jokes and idiotic quirkiness.

The only saving grace of the film is the exploration of questions like what would happen if everyone had enough food that they wanted and a home they wanted. However, despite knowing the film was a "comedy", I found myself nitpicking for plot holes. I lost count of the number of times Pegg's dull character could've wished to improve things. On one occasion, his friend begged him to stop some woman literally worshipping him, which he could've done in a second but of course he was too busy so we were treated to more of this stretched out, unimaginative "joke".

The ending was also nonsensical. Why would the aliens give anyone enough power to destroy them? Very disappointing.

Westworld is one of my favourite sci-fi films. When I heard there was a sequel, I rushed to track it down convinced it couldn't be that bad a film. What I wanted to see in this film were more robots, and more great action scenes but what I actually saw was quite different. Here are my complaints: Two bland lead characters about whom I couldn't care less. The man was too smarmy and smooth and seemed to be suspicious the whole time. I wanted to see someone who was surprised the resort was bad to add some suspense. The woman was annoying as well and the way the man kept calling her "Socks", ugh what a horrible nick name for someone he barely knows.

Harry. Harry is some sort of mechanic who lives in the basement with his pet robot who has no face (one of the few robots we see). His character is unbelievable and he's portrayed as some sort of nincompoop.

The evil scientist and the ludicrous conspiracy. There's some sort of evil scientist who wants to replace every world leader with a clone (not a robot but actual clones) so that the world will not shut down the resort. Words cannot express the sheer cartoonishness of this plot: it's completely nonsensical.

Where are the robots? The only robots we see are all the workers who are robots whom we only know to be robots because they either say "I'm programmed for blah-de-blah etc..." or because our bland hero says they are. We aren't treated to much of the inner-circuitry at all. There is a cameo from Yul Brynner but it's in a dream sequence and absolutely forgettable.

Yes there's a machine that can record dreams and our hero perversely watches a dream described as a fantasy lover or something.

The ending. We're supposed to be kept in suspense by not knowing whether the clones or the real versions of the two lead characters got away at the end but I knew the real ones had won. We're then treated to the hero giving the mad scientist the middle finger and that's the end. Why didn't the scientist go after them?

This film is nothing like the original and seems to be an amalgamation of various 1970s sci-fi clichés such as cloning, dream sequences, space, mad scientists and ridiculous conspiracies.

The special effects are terribly outdated. The original didn't need that good effects because the acting and directing were so good. The cloning machine, the dream machine and the horrid chess set sequence are all examples of this.

I absolutely detest this film because it offered so much promise and it sullies the original so much.

I turned on the TV a few nights ago to see if any good films were on as it was late and I was bored. I turn to Ip Man 2 which after first thinking it was a film based on a video game character, I learn is supposed to be a biopic.

The first half of this film was a standard martial arts film with lots of Chinese men fighting each other. I think the main character Pac-Man - sorry, Ip Man was apparently not respected because of his style but gains respect from masters of other styles after he beats them. The fight scenes are pretty ridiculous and over-choreographed; wires were obviously used. The first half was therefore acceptable standard fare for Hong Kong films.

Unfortunately, the second half is where it gets worse. All the way through it, I was asking myself "what on Earth is happening?" and "how is this even possible?" There is no way any of this could be real, it's just too stupid.

Firstly, all the white people are complete caricatures of colonial stereotypes. Every white person hates Chinese people and mercilessly beats them, subdues them and oppresses them. There were three main white characters: firstly, a police chief who said his lines so woodenly and with so little emotion that he couldn't possibly be an actor: he just can't be; secondly a police inspector who has so little respect for the local population that I fail to see how his superiors thought employing him was a good idea: he was bound to cause an incident sooner or later; and thirdly, a British boxer who for some reason hates everything Chinese with a passion: he also couldn't act.

Somehow, and I kept asking myself how the plot turned this way, the police inspector organises a boxing competition by importing a British boxer named "Twister" (we never actually hear his real name; perhaps he's like Cher and has only one name). The boxer is so one-dimensional he makes Dr. Evil look deep. Anyway, the boxing tournament with only one boxer (!) was supposed to follow a demonstration of Chinese martial arts. The boxer can't contain his contempt and anger and no one seems to stop him when he starts beating up every single martial artist in the ring single handedly. Following this, a middle-aged martial arts master called Well-Hung or something feels disrespected and demands an apology and surprise surprise the boxer will only give it to him if he loses in a match to Well-Hung.

By this time, I thought I was watching a comical, ironic parody. The boxer wears his gloves and easily defeats the martial arts master, Well-Hung, and kills him in the ring. Why on Earth would this happen? The boxer is wearing gloves, and only uses his fists while the martial artist uses bear knuckles and kicks! It's ludicrous! After Well-Hung dies I realised this film is quickly turning into a blatant rip off of Rocky IV except not as good. Pac-Man looks on while the master is dying, he refuses to throw in the towel because Well-Hung wants to defend his honour even at the cost of his own life and then Pac-Man decides to fight the boxer in the ring to get revenge. There's even a small training montage with Pac-Man's wife and son looking on! How can people take this Rocky IV parody seriously?! The pre-fight talk where Pac-Man challenges the boxer has some sort of speech by the boxer who says that he will fight someone for as long as a joss stick burns. He then laughs about how stupid joss sticks are and Pac-Man gets offended. Needless to say, we never hear about joss sticks again.

So we get to the fight and we KNOW what's going to happen and who'll win don't we? Firstly, problems with the fight: Pac-Man seems to be able to defeat numerous skilled martial artists and masters sometimes simultaneously as seen in the first film and in this yet he has difficulty with ONE boxer who only punches AND is wearing gloves; believable? As if. After Pac-Man kicks the boxer and performs low blows, the judges change the rules so that he can't kick. Except, he still kicks afterwards, oh and he does rabbit punches, elbowing, choking, eye gouging, arm twisting and other moves about which no one complains all with no gloves on. Why did the judges only think of the rules after the fight starts? They would KNOW Pac-Man would want to do all these moves!

The boxer knocked down Pac-Man twice and was beating him mercilessly and the referee didn't stop the fight and one time he was knocked down, the count went to nine and he wasn't up on ten yet was allowed to continue! What sort of boxing match is this? It's completely unbelievable! After getting knocked down again and remembering his fallen hero, Well-Hung, Pac-Man decides to get up again and uses various moves the boxer isn't allowed to do and gets him down and starts punching his face repeatedly all while the referee does nothing. Why does the referee allow Pac-Man time to get up when the boxer knocks him down but allows Pac-Man to punch the boxer repeatedly in the face after he's been knocked down? Oh, but the boxer's unfair too because he got ONE (count it, ONE) punch in after the bell went. All while this was going on, I was asking "what the hell is happening here?" The Rocky IV rip off continues afterwards too. Pac-Man gives a speech about how we should all get along with the boxer listening from the corner and the evil white men clapping along in the audience having changed their minds and gained respect for the foreign underdog.

Awful, awful rubbish. The acting, the concept, the plot, the fight scenes and the clichés make this film one of the worst I've seen.

The Simpsons Movie was so over-hyped I looked past the fact that the series' episodes haven't been funny since season 12. The characters aren't funny anymore and seem to do the same things again and again becoming caricatures of themselves: Bart does badly at school and unlike originally, is now completely amoral. Lisa is no longer just clever, she's a mouthpiece of the show's liberal mindset. Marge is just so boring now and just nags non-stop and every episode seems to invent a new way for her marriage to Homer to be on the rocks. Homer himself is now a complete nincompoop who just acts like a slapstick buffoon. This film almost parodies how one-dimensional the characters have become.

The plot is completely nonsensical much like the episodes are these days but it's made worse because it's been made four times as long as an episode. At least the episodes finish in twenty minutes, this tortures us by making us think it will somehow become entertaining - believe me, it doesn't. Like other reviewers on here, I thought the film version of the show played like an overly-extended episode from the unfunny later seasons.

The show itself has become a liberal mouthpiece these days and the film is no exception. Almost every joke is predictable and is about the liberal agenda: Mr Burns said something ironic about how rich white men don't control America, Christianity is made fun of repeatedly as is Intelligent Design, the American President is Arnold Schwarzenegger who, shock, horror, is stupid and controlled by a big evil white corporate executive or something, (I thought this character would be funny as he has the same voice actor as Hank Scorpio which reminded me of when the show was good). When the family arrives in Alaska some man said something about how oil companies are destroying the environment which might be true but it's NOT FUNNY. Please stop preaching to me!

I didn't laugh once through the whole film whose plot is borrowed from other episodes: Marge and Homer's marriage is in trouble again, Springfield is polluted again and produces mutated animals again (seriously, how many times are we going to see that?), Bart thinks Homer is a lousy father again, no one is listening to Lisa's wisdom again, Maggie's hidden intellect is unnoticed by Marge again etc etc. There's nothing new in this to keep me interested and by the time the film was halfway through, I watched it to the end for the same reason I watch the episodes to the end: in the hope I might watch something funny.

A Simpsons film usually is about the other characters too but they're so underused in this that they feel more like cameos.

A Simpsons film would've been a good idea in the mid-1990s when the show was still good, but not now. This film is completely unentertaining.

It's time to put Terminator to sleep. Everything since T2 has been abysmal and this attempt at milking the franchise for even more money with a series doesn't work. Because the series was wrapped up at the end of T2, T3 had to use more time travel to invent a continuation of the plot and this is no different; time travel is used far too much in this series.

The first season was watchable and the plot was OK even though the characters were unlikable. The second season had so many people coming and going through time that not even the characters themselves were aware of who was who and what was going on and why. Almost every new episode in season 2 introduced either a new human or terminator and I was left wondering for whose side they were fighting and why. They even had a T-1000 badly played by the lead singer of Garbage who was at first evil, then good, then by the end, not so sure. The season didn't wrap up nicely and I was left wondering what the significance of John Henry was.

The characters are terrible. John Connor has been played by so many different actors that one could be forgiven for thinking he has multiple-personality syndrome. The actor who played him had "school-teenager with a secret double life" in mind. Sort of a Buffy of the Terminator universe. Sarah Connor has metamorphosed into a woman now so strong that she can fight and win against any man, no matter how big and I was thinking why a good terminator was needed when this super strong woman was taking care of things. Also, the actress that played her had one of those mouths that when she smiles her lips actually go down rather like Kate Winslet. The good terminator was of course a woman who for some reason found it easy to pretend to be human in the first episode then after she was "outed" found it extraordinarily difficult to mimic human emotions. Bizarre indeed. She played the character much like Kristanna Loken did from T3 which is a bad copy of Robert Patrick's excellent performance. Other characters were introduced like Kyle Reese's brother but I found them boring and an attempt at adding soap opera emotion to a series famed for its action.

A convoluted plot, bad acting, bad writing, plot holes and another attempt at making more money from the Terminator franchise equals a very bad show. I'm pleased that TV executives binned this and didn't listen to the protesting no-lives.

This film is one of the worst robot sci-fi flicks I've ever seen. The actor who played the lead role was worse than awful - he can't say one line correctly in the whole film. The plot is nonsensical - the aforementioned robot is a security guard or something who is super-strong and knows martial arts (although why he needs martial arts when he's almost indestructible isn't explained) finds its boss attempting to rape a woman and kills him. The corporation then retaliates by sending HUMAN mercenaries after the robot! What did they expect? That the humans would somehow destroy the super-strong, super-intelligent robot? They should've sent super-strong ROBOTS after him - they had enough of them! I was never in any doubt that the robot would win every time - the mercenaries never come close to killing it. The viewer is expected to feel sympathy for the robot and the other robots despite the fact that they're busy taking jobs from the humans as well as killing them - I was rooting for the humans all the way. They even have this ridiculous "sorrowful" scene with a robot head with no body with the woman saying something like how awful and cruel it is! Yeah, the next time I throw a broken toaster away I'm going to write a eulogy and say a few words... a truly nauseous scene indeed.

As I said before, the viewer is never in any doubt that the robot would win, the mercenaries never had a hope; and I'm expected to delight in the killing of the mercenaries trying to make a living by a homicidal machine? Ha! The "twist" at the end takes the biscuit though. We find out the woman who was being attacked at the beginning is bizarrely also a robot and one of several hundred at that. Plot holes abound because of this: why are there hundreds of the same model? If the woman were in fact a robot, why didn't she have the super-strength like the protagonist had which would've enabled her to stop her attacker? Why didn't the man who was killed for attacking her know she was a robot and why didn't the protagonist robot know? Also vexing is the knowledge that the man was killed for attacking an advanced blow-up doll who wasn't even human and therefore was committing no crime thus making the robot even more homicidal and malfunctioning.

The producers seem to have wanted to make some sort of film highlighting the "plight" of robots except they seem to be unaware that robots don't exist and thus support for their film from the oppressed minorities of electrical beings is therefore impossible.

The morality, the plot, the acting, the characters and the general look of this film are completely amateur, unentertaining, predictable and formulaic. You've been warned.

I remember watching this as a series when I was younger and noted that it was created by the same person who created the A-Team. It's different from the A-Team and aimed at a more mature audience. People get shot, die and the plot is a lot grittier.

The action scenes are a lot better than the A-Team. For one thing, there are real fire fights in which people get shot, the fights are choreographed much better since Lorenzo Lamas is a very good martial artist and there aren't silly one-liners to spoil them. In the A-Team all we got were punch ups that were obviously fake.

The characters are well developed. Bobby Sixkiller's character is explored in many episodes and I came to like him a lot. Cheyenne became superfluous towards the latter half of the show's run and I think removing her from the cast improved the show. Series creator Stephen J. Cannell played the series' antagonist Dutch Dixon and one can see that he really enjoyed playing him. The character is completely amoral with no sense of good in him at all and it's sometimes funny how he always seems to choose to do the most evil thing possible in any situation. I'd say that the episodes with him in are the best as he's played very enthusiastically by Cannell. Reno Raines on the other hand is completely moral and it seems impossible for him to do anything wrong, even when it would be in his benefit. Dixon and Raines were good opposites and the show benefited from this contrast.

The plots in the non-Dixon episodes are pretty much either Reno (Lamas' character) chasing evil villains who turn out really to be evil after all or episodes in which the people Reno chases are actually innocent (like him) and Reno and the gang trying to prove their innocence. There is a good mix of different criminals: rapists, murderers, mafia, terrorists, thieves, white collar etc and the criminal mind is explored a lot with a few plot twists thrown in for good measure.

The complaints I had of the show were that sometimes the episodes were padded out with scenes of Reno riding his motorcycle with shots of his face, legs, the wheels etc being flipped to back and forth. The scenery was nice on the show so it wasn't that bad to watch this episode padding-out so to speak. The other complaint I have is that the show's extras were composed mainly of people who looked like supermodels. During the episodes we were treated to shots of half-naked beautiful women and while most would see this as a plus, I thought it made the show look cheap. Anyway, these complaints are small compared to how much I enjoyed the show. The action of the show is superb and I watch with anticipation every time Reno or Bobby are fighting villains.

There are a few plot holes such as why Dixon finds it so hard to catch Reno even when he's promoted to U.S. Marshal and that Reno is always hanging around Sixkiller Enterprises so he must be easy to find; but it's easy to ignore these minor details and enjoy the show for its many good points.

First off I'll start on the basics that others have mentioned. The acting is bad from the three child-actors. I thought this might be because they were so young but I've seen the fifth film and it still doesn't improve. Their acting is on a "school play" level with over-emphasised lines and facial expressions. Daniel Radcliffe was chosen for this film because he looks like the character but by the fifth film he no longer looks like him. The silly glasses make this slightly better but it's a cheap effect. The ginger kid was annoyance personified and I could write an essay on his irritating habits. I detest the way he uses soft swear words like bloody with that fake working class accent. The girl overdid the "goody goody girl" role.

The fact that they were friends from the start and stayed together the whole time was so unbelievable, by the fifth film they're still all together mainly. Rowling obviously copied this from other children's books but it doesn't make it any more believable. Those sort of "group" friendships never happen in school in real life.

"Harry Potter"? Couldn't she have thought of a better name. Only "John Smith" would have been more generic. A book or film in which the main character is called Harry Potter could be about anything. When I first heard about the books and the plot i.e. a boy who goes to wizard school, I immediately thought that it was just a copy of "The Worst Witch" by Jill Murphy. That book is more consistent, has better characters and is a true pleasure to read as a child. Regardless, Rowling's ideas have been done so many times before. I tried Harry Potter and I found it unreadable, how anyone could actually enjoy reading this pap is beyond me. The only explanation of why the books are so popular is because of media hype. The series came about just at the right time and was lucky in that the media and publishing companies were looking for something to hype so as to make a lot of money because the series is so generic and plagiarised it's not even funny.

Other characters were generic too. Robbie Coltrane's character is a standard in many children's books. He's the big, burly gentle giant grounds keeper or whatever who, although being big and strong, is actually very gentle, kind and becomes a friend to the children. The worst thing about this character though his his clichéd west-country accent. Arghhh! It's just so predictable! DumbleBORE is also generic: he's the wise old wizard who is both kind and tough but fair. He even has the big old white beard which practically every wizard in literature also has. There's also the supposed obvious "evil" character played by Alan Rickman who surprise surprise turns out not to be evil after all. Was that the big "twist" of the film/book? Good Lord, this must be aimed at the 50-90 IQ range. Harry's nemesis is a sort of young blonde Dracula lookalike who also can't act. His badness is never explained, it's obviously hoped by the producers that the watcher will not question why he's Harry's nemesis and just accept that he looks bad, does bad, says bad and that's that.

The story itself lacks imagination regarding the characters (see above), the setting and the plot. Rowling manages to incorporate a large number of overused mythical creatures and objects which causes the story to feel as though a child wrote it to include all her little fantasies. Everyone seems to ride brooms, even the men and boys despite that only witches traditionally rode them (she even gets that wrong); potions are brewed in cauldrons and it's never explained why potions are needed when wands seem able to do everything. I just don't get this "magic" thing (perhaps it be because I'm a "muggle", ugh horrid cutesy word makes me cringe). Magic seems in large to replace the need for modern technology. In fact, the whole setting at Hog-Farts seems to be a medieval castle where the children write using quills and flame torches hang on the walls. One would be forgiven for thinking that the need for magic would go if they had electricity. Just because magic is a fact of life why have all the other creatures and beasts of folklore to exist? Quidditch. What a ludicrous, pointless game. Despite the use of broomsticks (see above) Rowling still couldn't think up a better game. I had to pause the film to let the silliness of the game sink in: A whole team (yes a team!) of players goes against another in a sort of flying football/polo sort of game in which balls must go through goals to score points. It seems simple and unsilly enough albeit lacking imagination but the fact that each team possesses a player called a "seeker" who just flies after a golden ball with wings and if one of them catch it, their respective team wins immediately. What's the point of the rest of the game and players? A team could be winning easily and about to win and then the opposing team's seeker catches the golden ball in the last few seconds and wins! How utterly ridiculous! Why not just make the whole game about catching the golden ball and forget the other players and their task?! The plot of this film is incoherent and dull. The first three quarters are an ego trip for the special effects department and just show generic Harry exploring Hog-Farts with his new generic best buddies and gazing in awe at the wonderments inside. The last quarter is explaining some generic evil wizard who wants to come back from prison or something. Needless to say, generic Harry saves the day and is a hero and his "house" wins some cup or something. Big whoop. The old British actors they hired were just to legitimate the whole sordid affair.

This show started out as quite an enjoyable show for the first few episodes and then I saw a pattern develop among the story lines.

James Caan woodenly acted the same character over and over again. He shows no emotion and acts the same whether he be angry, happy or sad. In fact I never knew when he was angry, happy or sad because there was no change in his facial expression. His favourite saying is "whadaya gut." I believe it translates into the question "what have you?" or "what do you have?" although it barely sounds like English. He says it at least twice an episode.

For the entire first season I didn't know exactly who the four women were, what they did or what their names were. It took me till the second season to learn what Nikki Cox's character's job was and to be honest I'm still not entirely sure. James Lesure's character chops and changes throughout the show: he's an engineering graduate who works as a valet and then moves into security. After that we never see any more of the valets. It was incredible (in a bad way) just how much of a renaissance man his character actually was.

I lost count of the number of times the casino was bought and sold and by whom. Sometimes the owners were never seen and other times the owners took a direct role in running the place. I remember one episode where one of the players who turns out to be a cheat said to Vanessa Marcil's character "I don't know what a casino host is." After watching the first season I still didn't know what one was or what her actual job was for that matter.

The people who play at the casino generally fell in either one of two categories: nasty cheats who are always portrayed as vile, evil etc; or lovable idiots who end up losing all their money and at whom the main characters laugh.

Celebrity guest stars were used far too often in this show obviously in an attempt to gain cheap ratings. It was laughable the excuses they gave for their being in the casino.

The show never made me care for the characters and I found myself wanting James Caan and his lanky sidekick Josh whatever-his-name-is to lose every time they were in a fight or getting shot at. Apparently, anyone who actually wins in a casino, unless he or she (usually he) be a lovable idiot, is always cheating no matter how complicated it is. One quote from "Danny" made me laugh. In the third season episode "Mothwoman," Danny says to a man who has been using an autistic man to count cards "the only one thing I hate more than liars is people who take advantage of the less fortunate." Excuse me, "Danny" but don't casinos do just that? People gamble their money away because they're "less fortunate" and want to be rich or want money to pay bills and end up worse off. Hypocrite. "Danny" also makes fun of an old woman who uses a Zimmer frame in the fourth season episode "Wines And Misdemeanors." He bets Mike that she won't make it to some performance in 35 minutes because she walks so slowly. What a nasty piece of work he is.

Every female character in this show is Hollywood-beautiful which means they all look like plastic surgery addicted skinny models who mostly have big breasts. Here's a little game to play while watching an episode of this tripe: count the number of times the women say "hot" when referring to a man in the casino (except Marsha Thomason's character because she has an English accent). On average it's about three times per episode and as they say it in an American accent it sounds like "he's hut." It's cringe worthy. Molly Sims' character was supposed to have a "genius IQ" yet I saw no evidence of this as she was just another sex-obsessed maniac who lusted after every "hut guy." On the subject of Marsha Thomason's character: did anyone else wonder why her hair style seemed to change on an almost daily basis?

I was surprised that the surveillance team never had any lawsuits filed against them. They punched and kicked people and broke various bones and were never charged with assault. They should have been.

I would have liked to have seen fewer celebrity appearances; more dark episodes where there isn't a happy ending as opposed to 99% of the episodes that had a happy ending wherein everyone is safe and happy; and I would have liked to have seen more gambling as there was surprisingly little gambling for a show about a casino.

After the awful Enterprise, this is another attempt at making Star Trek cool and appealing to a new audience. After watching this however, I would happily sit through the whole of Enterprise's four seasons. This is another attempt at rehashing a cheesy old series or film and making it "cool" for a new generation. This happened with Star Wars, The A-Team, Batman etc. I'm waiting for the Quantum Leap one next. Apparently, the overpaid executives in Hollywood are quickly running out of ideas for new material.

I had high hopes for this film and I watched Star Trek: Nemesis (the last Next Generation film) beforehand to get me in the mood for it. What I watched disgusted me mainly because it wipes out everything that happened in The Original Series, The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine and all of the films (I don't really care about Enterprise, whether they wiped out what happened in it or not). People seem to hate Star Trek Nemesis, but as a fan of The Next Generation, it really is a million times better than this rubbish.

The actors who portrayed the characters were chosen either because they looked like the originals or because they sounded like them. The man who played Kirk played him like a Jason Bourne character who was some sort of genius who is wasting his talents. New Kirk is such a hero that he can get beaten up by a super strength half-Vulcan and not walk away with a scratch let alone a black eye. They make New Kirk copy Tom Cruise from A Few Good Men by having the "bad boy" officer eat an apple while he's on duty. I didn't like it with Tom Cruise, why is it here? Somehow they resurrected the character of Christopher Pike who is now some sort of ace Captain who hangs around bars looking for losers to recruit into Starfleet. The man who played Chekov was just some man putting on a horrid Russian accent. He was chosen just because of the accent. He looks nothing like the original. They hired some random Asian to be Sulu (they all look alike apparently) and Sulu is now a ninja. Uhura was again just some random black woman except she wasn't a 60s type black woman but a 21st century "gangsta" type black woman complete with attitude and accent. She's also a genius except this time in languages. As soon as I saw Scotty I thought "oh no not Simon Pegg." He was good in Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead etc but really, he shouldn't be doing this; his Scottish accent was horrible and again, he looked nothing like the original. I have to give credit to the one who played McCoy as he almost had the same mannerisms as the original but they mucked up the character. This time he's a divorcée! He must have married young! His nickname of "Bones" is no longer a reference to his medical profession but because his "divorce" left him with nothing but his "bones." Is it me or is that the worst way a nickname has ever been acquired? Imagine if he'd said his divorce left him nothing but his clothes, would "clothes" be the new Kirk's nickname for him? Complete drivel. Lastly, Spock now has a history of being bullied because he's half human. Apparently even logical, emotionless Vulcans are capable of "racism." Oh yeah I forgot, the new gangsta Uhura and he are in love and keep kissing or something. I don't know I wasn't paying attention to it. This is supposed to be Star Trek. Still interested in watching this pap?

Onto the plot. Yes, it's time travel AGAIN. In the Star Treks the time travel episodes are the worst because they're a lame plot device to make anything happen and anything possible. Apparently a Romulan mining ship blames Spock for not saving his planet from an exploding star because Spock was too late. So he's gone back in time and exploded Vulcan as revenge. Why didn't he go back in time and save Romulus? No that's too simple. To do this he's acquired stuff called "Red Matter." What next for the sequel? Green Matter? Perhaps we can have a whole load of films with matters all the colours of the rainbow. I was cheering for the good guys to lose and was glad when Vulcan was destroyed as Vulcans aren't even how they should be anymore. Even Spock's father was saying how much he "loves" his wife and Spock removed himself from command because he was too emotional. Wrinkly Spock was talking about how he needs friends or something. What's happened????

The thing that made me cringe and which gave me surprise was Leonard Nimoy's appearance. Despite his entire past having been erased (and therefore he shouldn't exist), the same old wrinkly Leonard Nimoy Spock is still living long and prospering luckily on the exact random ice planet and luckily the almost same location onto which the new Kirk was jettisoned. What luck! Even luckier is that the new Scotty was on the same planet and nearby too! Damn, that was so lucky it must've been destiny! Apparently, this dreck of a film was good enough for wrinkly Spock to appear in but Star Trek: Generations wasn't? Perhaps they offered him more money I don't know. He's certainly "sold out" by appearing in this tripe.

I'm now going to purge my mind by watching a few old Original Series episodes. Avoid if you're a Star Trek fan. If you have time check out startrekxisucks.blogspot.com and read the "100 reasons why it sucks."

I'll start off by saying how much better this is than the tedious DS9. However, that doesn't mean the show was perfect. I'll begin as usual by reviewing each character.

Captain Janeway is a feminist's dream. A little woman who has the voice of a chain-smoking American film star from the 60s is in charge of a big ship. The main problem I had with her was she's the hackneyed "tough chick" who seems to stand up to the big nasty men of the Delta Quadrant including members of her own crew who all seem to tower over her. I'll say this: it's pretty unbelievable. She keeps on saying "when I was at the "academy". I am sick to death of hearing about that place. I question her loyalty. She goes back in time in the last episode to save Chakotay. Why doesn't she go back in time to save her original first officer Lt. Commander Cavit? No sense of loyalty. One last thing that got to me is that every time she introduces herself to another species she has to say "Federation Starship Voyager". When she says Voyager her head ALWAYS lowers. Just one of those things.

Chakotay was the worst character. A Maquis criminal who should have been left on the first planet to rot is promoted to first officer after the first episode! Erm... security risk anyone? That irritating tattoo and that spiritual BS with the pan pipe music made me cringe. How could Janeway betray her officers so they'd have to salute a criminal all the time? Tuvok was for the most part a good character. The problem with him was he tried too hard to be Spock. He talks slowly, putting emphasis on every word and sounding irritated in an attempt to sound logical. But mostly I enjoyed his character.

Torres was supposed to be half Kilingon yet Worf's half Klingon wife looked much more Klingon than she and was less grumpy whereas Torres just had a few ridges and was angry all the time. She was made Chief Engineer over a Starfleet officer despite being a criminal. Yet another betrayal by Janeway. She "fought" with the same double hammer punch like Major Kira which shows the lack of originality from the producers. I remember that episode where she wore a bikini which showed her scrawny, skinny body in all its hideous glory. Avert your eyes is my advice. Seriously she's very ugly. Like with DS9, the addition of any Klingon gives the excuse for endless episodes about boring "Klingon honour". These episodes are very skippable.

Kim had a funny way of walking and was a real crybaby. You'll get sick of hearing him whine after a few episodes but I don't hate him as much as the other reviewers do.

I got sick to death of Paris's annoying jokes each episode. Every time Janeway would end a discussion on the screen Paris always has to make some unfunny comment about them. If I were the captain I'd tell him to SHUT UP! Still he must be brave to kiss Torres's mug...

Neelix was a superfluous character really and for the most part he can be ignored but his constant cheeriness got tiresome. What I don't understand was how suddenly he left Voyager. I thought he wanted to go to Earth.

Kes was a good character. I was intrigued by her psychic abilities but they got rid of her and replaced her with...

Seven who was just a ratings booster. I got sick of her arrogant demeanour and those metal bits on her face. Why was she allowed on the bridge? She's not even enlisted crew let alone an officer yet she's consulted on every decision! I think the chain of command on Voyager was mucked up. What was with that skin tight suit anyway? She looked practically naked!

Finally, the Doctor was an interesting character but after they'd wasted his potential his episodes ended up being about holographic rights. He gets married to a real woman at the end. How would that work? He neither sleeps nor eats so he wouldn't be much of soul-mate would he? His character was good if given in small doses but by the end I thought the series was too dependent on him. I saw loads of crew with blue uniforms helping out in sick bay when there was a ship-wide emergency yet they were nowhere to be seen for the rest of the series and they had to rely on Kes and Paris. Why?

I thought the series was good as a whole with a few dud episodes along the way. TNG is much better still though. Voyager was supposed to be about conflict between the Maquis and the Starfleet crew yet that is mostly forgotten and the crew behaves like another TNG crew for most of the series. Personally I think that's a good thing. I hated the idea of the Maquis and wanted to forget about them and luckily they were. The species and episode plots were much better than DS9.

This series was great fun at the start. I remember watching it and thinking it was like Quantum Leap (QL). Unlike QL, this programme had a lot more science fiction in it which was something QL lacked greatly. Each episode, the four sliders were transported to different Earths where history was different so the worlds had different political climates, different societies, different diseases... you get the idea. It was very enjoyable because each week was a different adventure for the four. What's more is that the device used to travel between worlds has a timer which always meant an edge-of-the-seat race to get back together again at the end of each episode.

For me, the most enjoyable character was Professor Arturo who was played by John Rhys-Davies. He always knew what he was doing, had lots of answers and had a commanding screen presence which was almost too good for the show. Quinn was a good character too in that he was the hero of the group who rescued people in danger.

Unfortunately, halfway through season 3 something terrible happened: they fired Rhys-Davies and killed off the best character in the series. This happened during a two-part episode called Exodus. Exodus is a really boring episode where the four slide to a world where the Earth is about to be hit by asteroids and only sliding technology can save them. For some bizarre reason the world's military forces are commanded by Roger Daltrey who not only is unable to act but also wears a beret which fits so poorly it makes him look like Frank Spencer. He also has some disease that makes him have to inject other people's spinal fluid into his brain! The episode also starred Kari Wuhrer (a model with not even a fraction of Rhys-Davies' acting ability) as Maggie Becket: a terrible clichéd attempt by the new producers of the show who had recently taken over to appeal to mainstream teenagers by having a tough, military chick with big boobs. It was an attempt to get a "seven of nine" for the show as they obviously felt that having Arturo who was a scientist made the show too geeky. Maggie Becket fitted in better with the new direction of action movie rip-offs the show had taken since a third of the way into Season 3.

Gone were the episodes about politics and different societies. Instead we had episodes about zombies, chasing after the previously mentioned military commander who now conveniently looks different because of a medical condition, and fighting Kromaggs. I just have to say this: KILLING OFF ARTURO AND REPLACING HIM WITH MAGGIE BECKET RUINED THE SHOW! Maggie Becket was just so annoying. A skinny little model with big boobs who always has to take command of the situation. She didn't fit in with the group at all and you can tell the producers knew it because they kept changing the cast over and over again trying to get a cast that worked together. They got rid of Wade at the end of season 3 and in possibly the worst example of nepotism I've ever seen, they replaced her with Quinn's brother who was played by Jerry O'Connell's real life brother Charlie and who had never been mentioned before. If you thought Cleavant Derricks' acting was bad wait till you sample some of Charlie O'Connell's. Even the O'Connell brothers left after season 4 and they replaced them with a random black chick and a bad actor who played a fusion of two Quinn Mallorys who looked nothing like the original.

If you see the later seasons you won't recognise it as Sliders anymore (I watched a few odd episodes from seasons 4 and 5 just to see how bad they were). I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd killed off Rembrandt or Wade as they weren't that good but killing off Arturo was too much. The episodes in season 3 after he died are really sub-par. What annoyed me was that they introduced Maggie and added her on the opening credits on the next episode as if to say "you have Maggie now and like it or lump it you just have to put up with it." Why in the story do the sliders have to take Maggie along anyway? Why did they think there has to be four of them? Just dump the whining tart on some world and move on as a trio.

Just watch the first three seasons up until Exodus where Arturo dies because afterwards the story isn't worth following anymore. Quinn finds out he wasn't from Earth Prime and the Kromaggs take over Earth Prime and the story turns into fighting Kromaggs not exploring different Earths. In short it turns into a new show. It amuses me how the only original cast member in season 5 was Rembrandt and he was the least interesting character of the original four!

I first saw this when I was about ten years old and I'll admit I found it quite frightening so I watched it again a couple of years ago for nostalgia purposes. I was amazed I ever enjoyed this!

Firstly, the actors/characters. The boy who played Bill was OK but couldn't imitate a stutter and neither could the adult version of him who was played by the actor from the Waltons. Bev was mediocre at best except for the irritating way she kept saying "my heart burns there too". I STILL don't understand what that poem means. "Your hair is winter fire, January embers, my heart burns there too." What? Your heart burns in hair???!! The boy who played Eddie couldn't act and neither could the one who played Ben. I was surprised by just how camp homosexual the adult Eddie is. He went from being smart Alec to being effeminate. John Ritter as adult Ben was better but I don't think he looked comfortable in this role. Yet again we see the classic case of an older black character being played by a young black actor who apart from being black looks NOTHING like the older Mike. Seth Green was good as Richie and he's the only actor from the young seven that went on to have success as Stan's actor sure didn't. The older Richie looked nothing like the younger one and acted differently too. At least the others acted how their young counterparts acted. He mopes around during the second half looking embarrassed and moaning about how he wants to go home like a spoiled teenager. The characters weren't developed enough. All we see are the ways they got frightened, killing the clown, them being older, killing the spider and then moving on. I was interested in Eddie's placebo thing in the Pharmacy but stuff like that wasn't elaborated on. All we got was more and more hugging, patting and kissing! I forgot to mention, Bill's wife Audra has the worst acting in the film; her lines are delivered so woodenly, they should've been cut.

OK next comes my complaints about the story. As I said I watched and got scared by this aged ten and I wasn't scared a bit when I watched it again when I was older. The scares are the kind that frighten kids not adults. A photo winks, blood comes out of a basin, a werewolf, some bony arm out of a lake, killer shower heads and a mummy that walks halfway down the stairs. NOT impressed. The whole story made no sense. The clown (played brilliantly by Tim Curry and the only good performance in the film as he was let down by the rest of the cast) seems to be able to kill individual children yet is apparently unable to kill these children when they're on their own. Why this is so is unknown. The film is about seven kids who resisted this monstrous clown yet the clown picked on them first in a seemingly paradoxical twist which had the clown picking his own executioners. Why didn't the clown just kill them? He had them alone every time and left them there being scared. He killed the other kids. It wasn't because they didn't "believe" because they all did until they realised their parents couldn't see it. Makes no sense. If anyone can enlighten me on why the clown didn't kill the kids, please message me. I just cringe when I remember that feel good scene with them all building that dam and then they repeated it in the restaurant with those cheap looking fortune cookie monsters. What were they? The snapping claw made me laugh though. Another cringeworthy scene or rather scenes is the endless hugging and patting and holding hands. Just KILL the clown and stop remembering stupid "deadlights" or "brown thrushes".

This bit was so funny it needs its own paragraph. Mike opens the fridge and a head of Stan is in there who in fact wasn't scary but was actually unintentionally hilarious. It makes good jokes about all the characters and the humour is better quality than Richie's who was supposed to be the comic of the group. The bit at the end when he says with his teeth clenched "they ALLLLLL float; they ALLLLLL FLOAT!" I dare anyone to watch that without laughing. Every fridge should have a wise cracking head as standard. I'd buy one!

Lastly, again about the characters, they didn't work out the ages of them did they? Richie is apparently forty years old while Henry is only a few years older and looks about sixty. Which reminds me, the bit with Henry in the lunatic asylum, the clown in the moon (lucky it was a full moon that night huh?) says that he needs Henry's help as he can't kill the group because they don't believe (see above) yet Belch comes out from under his bed GIVES Henry his old knife, turns into a dog AND kills the guard so Henry can escape. Make sense to you because it's lost on me.

The last and most complained about thing is the end. Somehow Eddie dies by falling 15 feet from that spider. How did dropping that small distance kill him? Why does the clown have to take the form of a spider to feed? Why didn't they find the spider's cave as easily when they were young thirty years before? Who lit the candles leading to the spider's cave and who built/designed the tiny door leading to the spider's cave? Again, why was it a SPIDER? How did that spider manage to fit inside the small pipes so it could get Belch and come out of the drain to kill the girl at the beginning? Why does Mike rent a hotel when they could've stayed at his place for nothing? Why didn't the other guests complain that they stayed up all night talking? Too many unanswerable questions.

Great sitcom with all series being top class. Series 1 has a different actor for Matt and it was weird getting used to the new actor in the second series but both actors had their own way of portraying him and were equally funny. Both were great as the loser that tries to act tough and bullies Martin. The other two characters for me were just support characters as the Matt Malone character stole the show. His antics with being scared to go outside and not knowing Jason was a homosexual were very well scripted and well done. The addition of Archie in the third series made it not as good as the earlier ones but still enjoyable. More series of this would've been nice but I suppose with the idiots at the BBC we were lucky to get the three series they made considering the state of British comedy these days (Little Britain, League of Gentlemen).