Forensic Science Movie Reviews

This isn't a great film, however there are much worse. The story about a newspaper reporter on a spaceship filled with "cosmonauts" tends to kind of plod along. When they have to defend the earth against total destruction, the story gets a little more interesting. But then it bogs down again.

What really caused me to give this such a low rating is not the film itself, but the quality of the DVD. The source print is full of splices. And even worse, this film is in "color," as it is so proudly described on the box. However, there is so little color left in the print, that it almost looks black and white. In fact, it would have been easier to watch in black and white!

This film is nothing more that a cheap horror film. It's premise, using computer software to control ones mind is a weak plot line which, considering it is the central theme, could have been presented in a fashion that might have been semi-believeable. I don't know which would be worse, being controlled by the games in the movie, or having to sit through it.

The colony is a story about a group of scout aliens sent to check out the earth for the possibility of exploiting it. The story is a bit confusing at first, but by the middle one figure out what is going on. The story revolves arround a small sample of humans that are captured and experimented on. They try to escape and fight back, but in the end their humanity saves themselves and us from these aliens. The special effects are ok for a TV series but not at par with say STARTREK-INSURRECTION. There are also three un-necessary nude scenes which probably earns the film the R rating. The DVD features are basic and the version reviewed did not have a Dolby 5.1.

This film was featured in an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," and one viewing will show you why. The plot is simple: a runaway slave (Bernhardt) escapes from a spaceship to Earth, pursued by his cyborg masters and their dinosaur trackers. On the way he (literally) runs into a novice nun who is a former prostitute and drug addict. She helps him hide from the hunters, and he helps her sort out a crisis of faith. Along the way there are bad special effects, cheesy forced-perspective dinosaur puppets (held close to the camera, they seem massive), and diabolical acting.

In spite of it all, this movie manages to transcind itself and become funny. The fight sequences are a riot, and the special effects are as good for laughs as anything "Dark Shadows" or the original "Star Trek" ever produced. And all in all, the storyline isn't any worse than that of "Jurassic Park" or "Star Wars"; the biggest failing is the low budget and too much reliance on fight scenes to carry the action. If you're looking for a film to pass the time or entertain friends, this one will do the trick ... especially for fans of the "Soap Opera Game" or Mystery Science Theater watchers who want to see the original movie uncut.

Originally released as The King of Kong Island. As Fred Olin Ray points out in this Retromedia release, there is nor King, no Kong, and not even an Island.

The Retromedia disk comes with the US and the European versions. The European version is better and more accurate, but you have to put up with Greek subtitles.

The film opens with two cryptic scenes. In one, a pair of doctors operate on a gorilla and implant a device in its head. In the other, a group of mercenaries are killed by one of their own.

From there we follow one of the mercenaries (he survived being killed) who is looking up old acquaintances in Nigeria. One is a young red-head who seems spoiled and just wants to shoot really rare animals.

Well, we get a lot of jungle footage, some hunting, lots of plot threads, intelligent gorillas attacking, a mad doctor, and the beautiful Sacred Monkey.

This is one strange film but it has its moments. I would give it a higher rating but it lacked enough cohesiveness to really make the film work.

I wish I could say a few nice things about this movie, but I can't. 'Mind storm' is a sad attempt at a psychic thriller. At best this would have been an ok late, very late night TV show on an obscure cable channel. Ok here is the set up; a govt, experiment to give children psychic abilities goes awry and years later comes back to bite some of the same govt officials in the back side. One of the kids grows up to be a cop working to help find missing children. She is played by Emmanuelle Vaugier. She is very sexy, but sadly can't act to save her life. Her half way partner, played by Antonio Sabato Jr needs to go back to Soap acting. Maybe they both do? There were a few high points. Michael Ironside plays the Senator. He always makes a great bad guy. Clarence Williams III player Emmanuelle's adoptive father, and William B Davis (of the X-files) makes a guest appearance as the head mad scientists. Eric Roberts plays the reincarnated childhood friend. Man, what happened to him after 'Runaway train'? The story was weak, as was most of the acting. The sets looked cheap and the special FX were low budget. I say stay away from this one.
Sorry to say but this was a real stinker. I only give it 2 stars because of Ironside and Clarence Williams...

Project Viper is the code name for a terraforming agent that's accompanying the first group of humans to Mars. The basic idea is that it has been designed to excel in the Martian environment, and it's waste products will leave the planet ready for human life. There's only one problem... they never get to Mars. Before the shuttle (yes, a space shuttle was going to mars... without extra fuel tanks... without warp engines... without a lot of food...) leaves orbit the canister containing Viper opens, and the crew is killed.

No problem, it's still in space right? Well there was the second prototype in the lab of course, and it's promptly stolen by well, by some bad guys. We never really find out who they are and it doesn't matter anyway. The Department of Defense calls in Captain Mike Connors to find Viper and clean this situation up. Viper of course gets away, and of course it gets away in a small town, and Connors and crew have to chase it. That's enough plot, you get the idea.

The acting really isn't that bad with the exception of a few scenes, and the special effects were pretty good for what is essentially a made for TV movie. I really wanted to give this one 3 stars, but with the storyline holes, so-so special effects, and totally bare bones DVD I just couldn't justify it. Don't avoid it as a rental though, it is worth watching if your in the mood for a cheesy sci-fi/thriller/b-movie evening.

Teenage Monster is not a good movie. I bought it as an Anne Gwynne fan, hoping for a few campy midnight-movie chills. However, this movie is dull, and almost sad in its ineptitude. Where other movies can triumph despite limitations, this one's script is too poor, and not ambitious enough to be entertaining.

The liner notes explain many of the movie's problems; there were reasons why some talented people cranked out a movie this cruddy. One of its few virtues is good acting by Gwynne (even though she hatedhatedhated the film) as the Monster's mother and Gloria Castillo as the manipulative vixen who brings about the Monster's ultimate demise.

The Monster is unscary, played by a 50-year old man in boots to make him seem taller. And nearly all of his dialogue was re-dubbed as grunts and hoots to make him seem more like a bestial killer than a thinking being. This would be okay, except for the fact that sometimes he CAN talk reasonably well, just because the script needs him to convey a point. I could buy the dubious idea that the women close to him understood his gibberish, but the inconsistency grated on me.

Added to these glaring inconsistencies are the movie's stagnant direction and lack of creepy atmospherics. The sum total is kind of a bore.

A side note- It is called Meteor Monster almost everywhere on the web, but goes by its alternate title of Teenage Monster on the cover. This is somehow strangely fitting, as many of the people involved with this movie probably hope it stays hidden.

The DVD transfer is excellent. Trailers include Teenagers From Space, Robot Monster, Carnival of Souls, Giant From the Unknown, and Cosmic Man. They are the best part of the disc.

This, "Fear dotcom", and "Big shots Funeral" are all the worst movies in the world. I would rather pay not to see it than see it. Got any other bad movies you want me to know about? (please note I had to put one star on this review to have it posted. It should have negative 5 stars).

Well, if you like watching for about an hour people strolling around a deserted surface, talking as they were on a Sunday evening walk and thereby knowingly using up their last oxygen supplies - its your movie. Otherwise, if you want to watch a movie with at least some decent acting, dialogue or any significant plot (and an ending) - go watch a commercial or for that matter anything else. Because this movie is one of the worst I ever saw! Since I wanted at least get the ending I fast forwarded the DVD (for the plot it does not make any difference) and? No ending, really. If you want to watch a (philosophical) SciFi choose "Solaris" or the classics, do not waste your time on this.

This isn't it, but it has a few merits. I would say it's far from the worst film I've ever seen, but it really could have been so much better. Special effects are not the issue. Believable characters and credible mission objectives were missing. Why were these depressed actors (and they were so obviously actors) going to Mars in the first place? They seemed to be on a stage, ready to give up on their viability and their reason for being on the stage much too easily. At no time did I feel I was watching trained astronauts conducting a major expedition to another planet. Plus the narrator, one of the women aboard the ship, sounds like she is explaining a high school science project that didn't go the way it was intended to go.

I want to see a film that accurately conveys the build-up to the start of the mission, the duration of the trip there, the landing and the possible completion of objectives (whether disasters occur in a film or not is completely up to the creator of the film... I like looking at the possibilities), and possibly the trip home. Sadly, I am looking for all of this in each Mars film that comes out, and I feel that the best efforts are ruined by characters that fall flat so much of the time. However, I am inclined to take what I can from each film that I see. I love the thought of humans going to Mars, so I'll keep watching mediocre Mars films for as long as it takes to actually send human beings there.

The sense of isolation and a desolate Martian landscape are conveyed very well. The ending may try your patience a bit. If you love space exploration, you'll want to see "Stranded" one or two times.

It would be easy to dismiss Le Guin's novel as unfilmable, except for the fact that it has already been done and done well, managing to capture the subtleties of shifting histories and universes without having to rely on adding melodramatic subplots or spelling out blatantly what was handled with style and grace in the text.

All of which is a roundabout way to say that you can't watch this movie without comparing it with either the 1980 film or with the original novel and that this version is extremely disappointing. Nuance is replaced with blatant acting and a heavy handed score, slow discoveries replaced by melodrama and all humanity reduced to the emotions of a soap opera.

While it's obvious that many changes would have to be made in order to turn a fairly cerebral novel into an accessible movie, the changes made to this are extremely disappointing and I couldn't recommend this movie to anyone on any level. Leave it well enough alone and hope you can find either the 1980 movie or, preferably, the original book.

The Lathe of Heaven refers to the dreams of George Orr, a seemingly ordinary young man whose dreams shape the waking reality of the world. In fact, his dreams change the entire past, present and future history in such a way that only he and his puzzling friend Manny seem to have any memory of an alternate past after he awakens. Afraid that he may dream some horrible fate upon the world, George turns to drugs for dream suppression --- only to overdose and earn himself court-ordered therapy with appointed psychiatrist Dr. Haber.

Haber starts out with the best intentions, but as their dream therapy sessions progress he finds himself believing Orr's fantastic claims, and temptation leads him to manipulate George's dreams for his own advancement. George soon catches on to what his doctor is doing, confronts him, and sets in motion a race not only for his own freedom but the future of humanity.

TLOH works on the level of a psychological thriller rather than action-based science fiction. A somewhat surrealistic atmosphere underlies every scene, leading us to question whether or not each incarnation of reality after Geoorge wakes may be yet another extension of his dreaming. The philosophical questions provoked by George's unique situation (Is all reality but a dream? Is Manny even a real person? Is George the defacto God of his universe?) have an unmistakable existentialist slant.

I admit to never having read the novel by Ursula K. LeGuin upon which TLOH is based. Therefore, I approached this made for cable TV adaptation with no particular expectations. I thought it was well done for what it was, although by no means could it compete with a high-budget feature film production. Still, the small cast of main actors were exceptionally well chosen for their roles: James Caan was comfortable as Dr. Haber and convinced me that he may well have been a psychologist in another life; Lukas Haas was the perfect innocent; Lisa Bonet, while playing the same character type as always, really seemed suited to the role of coolly mysterious attorney/ dream girl Heather LaLache. In all, the cheerless gray future of @ 30 years from now is realized very plausibly, mainly through set and wardrobe design, with little attempt at "sci-fi-isms" such as robot servants or aliens (which I understand made an appearance in the original version).

If you can suspend your disbelief and appreciate toned-down, philosophical science fiction, you will be able to enjoy the Lathe of Heaven.

-Andrea, aka Merribelle

This update remake of the Ursula LeGuin science fiction classic,
has half way decent performances, but it's hardly as good as the
original, it's been toned down a bit, it does have an ironic twist. Lukas Haas and James Caan are fine as Orr and the doctor.
Lisa Bonet is cute as Heather. Try to check out the original though, which is a better version.