trikespotter

For those of you who enjoy shouting at your TV, then this is definitely one for you. I was expecting more from this film due to the cast involved, however, don't be put off from watching this just yet upon my initial hearsay, as it distinctly falls under that well known cliché of, "so bad, it's good". Actually, it's bloody awful, but it's still kinda good in it's own way, and worth at least one watch for the sake of belief.

Very reminiscent of 'X:The Unknown' (1956), and also the far superior of all the intense-heat movies, 'The Day The Earth Caught Fire' (1961), so much so that it's practically a hard-neck, no shame, amalgamation of both, except the drama is pretty much borderline of mid-afternoon soap operas.

If you enjoy seeing lust-filled, dormant rapists bite a clenched fist before they attack, people who have immense trouble in trying to outrun poached Brontosaurus eggs, or pointing fingers at why walkie-talkie batteries aren't as delectable as car batteries, (let alone why the plastic casing doesn't melt), to name but a few perks and irregularities, then fear not, because this is the shout-fest you've been looking for.

To be honest, I'd give it a 1/10 right across the board for it's acting, script, special effects, etc, but due to it's surreal and laughable entertainment value, it's getting a more than charitable 5/10 from me. You could do worse on a lonely weekday night out in the sticks.

If you took the outline plot and characters of 'The Road Warrior', situated them on the penal colony as portrayed in 'Papillon', and then filmed it in the vein of John McTiernan's 'Predator' then you basically get this as an end result. And you know what...? It bloody works!

I first saw this film when it was released on a straight-to-video premise way back in 1994 as a Sunday night filler, and to be honest I couldn't remember much about it, except that it wasn't that bad, but nor was it memorable.

Twenty years on, I managed to grab a copy of it again, and finally forced myself to sit through what I anticipated to be an excruciatingly painful event, as I'm just not a great fan of Ray Liotta or Kevin Dillon to say the least, and what with time being so cruel and all, I expected the cheesiest of cheese. How wrong I was! This gem appears to have magically grown better with time!

So yeah it's a bit corny in parts, and the overall plot only SEEMS to be kinda predictable, but there's many an unexpected twist and turn to keep the story moving at an extremely entertaining pace, with some fantastic camera work reminiscent of 'Predator', and some great one-liners to boot.

Knowing that this was pretty much a mash-up of previous classic movies didn't leave a sour taste at all, and I'd watch it again in an instant. Bloody good entertainment, surprisingly minimal on the profanities, (I think I heard only one quickly blurted F-word expletive from Marek throughout), and highly recommended for those 80's/90's action genre buffs.

A generous and solid 8/10 for overall value and stamina.

This film is about an enforcement officer (Logan's Run) in a future dystopian society (Nineteen Eighty-Four) where artistic expression is outlawed (Fahrenheit 451), and citizens take compulsory daily doses of drugs to suppress their feelings and emotions (THX 1138). He then basically meets a girl and begins to question authority and his own morality. (All of the above in brackets)

It has buildings and airships with domineering screens (Blade Runner), monochromatic vehicles and surroundings (Gattaca), long coats and some chronic Gun Fu (The Matrix), and an underground resistance which is unknowingly infiltrated by the protagonist, who was being used as a pawn all along by his employer. (Total Recall)

I'm sure I've missed a couple of other blatant uses of previous films/books, (such as the long-dead leader still used as a virtual authority figure, which still escapes me due to the annoyance that this trash has corrupted my mind with), but past dystopian references aside from otherwise quality viewing, this nonsense is just absolute chicken teeth.

Riddled with plot holes throughout, and topped off with an extremely dodgy "face-off" one-time CGI effect, and a thoroughly laughable end fight scene in which Angus Macfadyen obviously struggles with the choreography due to some class facial expressions that the editors failed to work around.

I mean, Jeez... When did decommissioned 1980's airport service vehicles become deemed as 'futuristic' for the year 2072? And how the hell did Emily Watson's character manage to get all that make-up in prison, especially within such a bleak and passionless society? AAAARRRGGGHHHH! Infuriatingly appalling!

Writer/Director Kurt Wimmer should have received an award for the most audacious piece of unoriginal, TARFU, plagiarism to have ever graced the silver screen. How it has such a high IMDb rating is beyond me, so I'm giving it a 1/10 for some sense of balance and (ahem) 'equilibrium' that it truly deserves, which is actually 1 more than I'd have liked to have given it. Total pig foreskin.

And if a love for 'The Matrix' did mysteriously bring you here, then seriously, if you haven't already, go and watch 'Dark City' instead.

Apologies for the header, but like most people, and whether he likes it or not, every time I see David Patrick Kelly playing his usual psychotic role in a film, I just can't help myself from blurting out the expected. The guy is a legendary typecast toolbox for the delivery of that one line alone, but I bet he's the salt of the earth in person, as most on-screen psychotics are.

Anyhoo, as for this flick, I was in my early teens when I first saw it, and thought it was a cracker of a film, right up until the mid '90's, at least when I felt I'd moved on, but as time continued forthrightwardness, I still think it's a bloody cracker of a film, despite what any fickle folks say about any ageing or crappy effects.

You just can't deny it's a fundamental premise for the likes of "Inception", and even when it comes to measuring it alongside the first of the "Nightmare On Elm Street" franchise movies which was released in the same year, (but only three months later), it still seems that this movie was ahead of the concept of dream intervention and nut-job infiltration. (No spoiler intended, but watch out for Tommy Ray and his five sharp fingernails.) You see now what I did there now with the header? ...Oh well, never mind...

Thirty years on this year anyway, and I still find this movie thoroughly enjoyable as a decent and compelling sci-fi-ish thriller, and believe you me, that's not just nostalgia orientated, because I could say otherwise about David Lynch's "Dune", but that's just another epic story altogether.

Yes, the effects are dodgy in this day and age, just like ED-209 trying to walk down a flight of stairs, which we've all come to accept and admire for what was and will never be again, but both the story and concept are still fully valid, and very well portrayed without resorting to any tea-kettle-boiling-techno-mumbo-jumbo-filler-crap.

It's compact, gets straight to the point very quickly, no lagging moments, and the momentum keeps going throughout at a steady pace all the way to the end credits, with some brief moments of armchair gripping excitement. (I'd beg to differ with anyone that say they don't flinch when the snake-man receives his 'pipe dream'.)

Not a fantastic film, but a cracker nonetheless that stands the test of time in my books, and after yet another recent viewing, it's gonna stay that way until that snake-man finally gets me in my sleep. Current IMDb rating is 6.3, and I would totally agree with that, but there's no half-measures here, so I'll give it a 7/10, coz 6/10 is just too mean and disrespectful for such a bloody good flick.

"A first-year high school student with a major interest in computer science and technology was asked by his English teacher, (along with all his other classmates), to write a short story of their own choosing, as an introductory stage in order to be assessed on their general language skills for the class.

The pupil in question accidentally watched 'The Lawnmower Man' for the first time only days before, and thought it was so great and practically unheard of within his generation, he decided to base his "original" assignment story upon this film, which of course had very little relevance itself to the original Stephen King brief work of literature.

Once the project was submitted for evaluation, the teacher, who stubbornly owned a Nokia 3310, a 14" portable TV, and grew up in a generation of scraped knees and weekend World War II re-enactments, thought to himself that it was a reasonably clever concept, but only gave the student a C+, in order to discourage him that the story was of any greatness. However, the teacher had other devious plans, and decided to just correct any minor spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, then submit the story to Hollywood in the hope of making a fast buck.

The story was eventually accepted, the teacher was given a princely sum of coinage, bought himself a Nokia 5510 and 21" Pensonic, and during the four years in which this full process took to make it onto the big screen, the student had since forgotten all about his crap re-telling of a crap re-telling, and was now happily playing bass in a garage band, and pursuing girls who looked old enough to buy him alcohol. He had also recently watched 'The Lawnmower Man' again and wondered to himself what the hell he was thinking when he thought it was any good in the first place, and then lit another herbal doob."

This, in my opinion, is how this film came to see the light of day. It's honestly the worst thing I've subjected myself to since 'After Earth'. The story, script, dialogue, delivery, and acting are all completely abysmal. Not one single character was likable or even rational, just like kids are when going through puberty. I don't care who's in it, it's absolute shite to the power of twelvty. Even the special effects weren't up to much, and it looked like the majority could have been done using Adobe After Effects CS4 plug-ins.

Now all I have to worry about now, is for someone stealing my review story of how this film came about, and then making that into yet another sketchy movie for the masses. Seriously though, I weep for the future if this is the kinda crud we have to look forward to in later years. I need to go and watch 'Maximum Overdrive' now for a gradual and regressive mental flushing.

Like many films of this era, it tries to be clever, but fails miserably. In a word, "Atrocious".