Leviathan (1989): 1.5/10

My never-ending quest to watch (or, more accurately, subject myself to) every movie scored by Jerry Goldsmith brings me to this chintzy, low-rent blend of The Abyss and Alien, which is funny for all the wrong reasons. The ridiculous "monster" looks like Stan Winston just picked through unused bits and pieces of all of his other creature shop creations and stitched them together wily-nily. It's not as dumb-fun enjoyable as Prophecy or The Relic, but good for a few stray giggles. Goldsmith's score is fine (far better than the movie deserves), although the recurring "whale song" and electronic woodchipper effects are grating after a while.

It's not as dumb-fun enjoyable as Prophecy or The Relic, but good for a few stray giggles. Goldsmith's score is fine (far better than the movie deserves), although the recurring "whale song" and electronic woodchipper effects are grating after a while.

The last 5-10 minutes are absolutely brilliant in terms of hilarity. The monster's eventual fate, the epilogue, and Goldsmith's seriously good end title make for a fun time -- but the rest of it is an interminable slog. Incredible so many talented people (the screenwriters of Blade Runner and the Fugitive being two of them) cashed the check, but it was one of several "underwater" movies to surface in '89 so one has the impression they flew through the production in order to get to theaters first (I think they ended up being second).

Even Sean S. Cunningham's DEEP STAR SIX was actually a superior film.

AndyDursin wrote:Incredible so many talented people (the screenwriters of Blade Runner and the Fugitive being two of them) cashed the check, but it was one of several "underwater" movies to surface in '89 so one has the impression they flew through the production in order to get to theaters first (I think they ended up being second).

It's amazing the A-list talent involved in this film -- Alex Thomson, Ron Cobb, Stan Winston. I've heard that the script was originally a more original story, but George Cosmatos kept re-writing it until it was just an Alien rip-off.

As I recall, this was also the movie that prompted Goldsmith to change agents.

30 Minutes Or Less: 6.5/10

Sporadically amusing follow-up to Zombieland from director Ruben Fleischer has a few big laughs (the centerpiece bank robbery offering the biggest guffaws) and good chemistry between Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari, but meanders a lot more than an eighty-three minute(!) comedy really should, and the tediously profane and scatalogical screenplay reads like the writers were getting paid by the vulgarity. It's worth a look, but probably not worth it on the big screen unless you can get in a six-dollar matinee like I did.

Paul MacLean wrote:It's amazing the A-list talent involved in this film -- Alex Thomson, Ron Cobb, Stan Winston.

Not to mention the cast...Peter Weller (coming right off Robocop), Richard Crenna, Hector Elizondo, Amanda Pays (very easy on the eyes back then), Ernie Hudson, Daniel Stern...all shamelessly wasted.

Monterey Jack wrote:

Paul MacLean wrote:It's amazing the A-list talent involved in this film -- Alex Thomson, Ron Cobb, Stan Winston.

Not to mention the cast...Peter Weller (coming right off Robocop), Richard Crenna, Hector Elizondo, Amanda Pays (very easy on the eyes back then), Ernie Hudson, Daniel Stern...all shamelessly wasted.

It's a terrible movie...but a good-looking one. Ron Cobb's sets are terrific, and Alex Thomson did an amazing job as well. I have the issue of American Cinematographer where Thomson details his work on the film. Since shooting in a tank was ruled-out, Thompson ingeniously compensated by smoking-up the set and filling the air with light ash particles to create the look of being thousands of feet under water.

CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1972) - [8/10 extended version, 5/10 theatrical cut]. After ESCAPE it was really cool to go back and show how the apes came to rebel against their human masters and began to take over the planet. The film portrays events differently than the original book's explanation as to how apes came to rule the world; I think the book's explanation was more of a social critique and more eerie, though the film's explanation in its 70s context with race relations made sense enough. The movie is disturbing in its own right (though there is definitely a small scale feel to it) and McDowall shines as Caesar. Taking everything into consideration with the first three films, the theatrical "happy" ending does feel wrong to me and undermines CONQUEST as a whole. The title of the film itself suggests something other than mercy and "humanity" in the face of their enemies. I think part of the point of the more violent ending is that the apes will do no better than humanity in the long run, which the other movies suggest/portray. But this certainly is the most thought-provoking seuqel of all the apes film from the 70s.

BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973) - 2/10. I had forgotten what a dud this film was until watching it again. This is an exercise in how not to make a film (especially a climactic last film in a successful series). First, with the slashed budget the really small scale of the film hurts, especially when the Mutants invade Ape City. Second, the screenplay was dumbed down by John and Joyce Corrington...I'd vote this movie as having the dumbest dialogue in all the series. Third, because of the low budget, the editing and continuity are horrible; I guess they had to make it look "bigger" but what a misfire. There are a couple things about the film that I did like though: McDowall once again gives a stellar, dynamic, charasmatic performance that enables him to stand with/match the over the top performance of an antagonist (General Aldo especially). The film's climax between Aldo and Casear was also compelling when it is revealed that Aldo has killed Caesar's son. BATTLE could have been so much more on such a larger scale, but they really failed on this final chapter in the APES saga.

I don't think there has ever been a series that treated its (family) audience with as much hostility as the old APES. Don't get me wrong -- I love watching the sequels (more for nostalgia/unintentional comedy than dramatic effect), but they are relentlessly downbeat and narcissistic, which is just stunning when you factor most of them were rated G and aimed at kids!

CONQUEST I agree Michael is the most watchable of the sequels, though truth be told my favorite moment is when Montalban jumps through the window. Comedy gold right there. The film is interesting though in its raw power...curiously the re-done ending where Caesar tells the Apes to back off is more echoed in RISE than the original intent.

BENEATH is flat out one of the worst sequels ever made in terms of its story -- down to the singular most hysterically awful ending of any movie, ever. I think only ALIEN 3 came close to being as "anti-audience" from a viewer's perspective; and we can thank Charlton Heston for that! It also showed how studios didn't really understand sequels back then. It was like conceptually the franchise continued on in spite of itself.

ESCAPE is fun for a while but turns into a talky, drawn out '70s "political thriller" (and a far cry from a good one) -- and again, that ending!

BATTLE is a movie with conceptually an interesting idea (Apes and humans trying to get along, Caesar finding out his own "Apes society" suffers from the same ailments that plagued the humans) but the cheap budget and the execution is severely, to put it mildly, lacking. I do like the "Lawgiver" ending for a change (wow, cautious optimism -- a rare feat in the '70s!) and Rosenman's score is one of the better efforts post-Goldsmith's original, but the movie feels like an episode of the TV show, which is understandable since the grosses were down and Fox relegated it to B-status since few cared by that point.

That whole series is just a unique and interesting, though IMO very dated collective work that embodies its era to a tee. It is also incredible to think they all came out of the original APES, a cinema classic whose rep I believe was actually tarnished by how poor most of the sequels were -- at least for a time.

In terms of drama, the new APES beats them all from an emotional investment angle, though I've always loved Roddy McDowall's work in all of the films. He's the center that keeps them all together (and he was sorely missed in BENEATH).

PLANET OF THE APES (2001) - 4/10. I remember looking forward to this film with high expectations (much like I did RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES), but ultimately this Tim Burton re-imagining of the classic film falls apart. On the positive side, visually it is outstanding; Burton's work is so visually unique. This film is gorgeous visually from the colors to the shapes and designs of everything in the film. But unfortunately the rest of it doesn't have a lot going for it:

1) Perhaps the film's most glaring fault was the casting of Mark Wahlberg in the lead human role. He was the flavor of the month at the time, but he has no charisma and cannot balance out Tim Roth's over-the-top performance as Thade. Wahlberg is no Charlton Heston, and there was no simian character that really stood out and provided the charisma lacking in Wahlberg's character. Watching this film again made me appreciate how great of a job Roddy McDowall did in four of the five APES films.

2) I really disliked that Burton and the writers chose to ignore the apes' most sacred law: Ape Shall Not Kill Ape. It undermined the story; that one law was what made the apes different from the humans. Once that line was crossed without consequence it basically became a movie about warring factions whose only difference was that one was human and the other was simian. In other words, what was really unique about it? Nothing. Thade was any angry, psychopathic warmonger in any number of films that have been made.

3) The ending was really weak, though I know he did it just in case it made a boatload of money and the studio wanted to do a remake. But even Burton had difficulty in expressing why the ending made sense to him in the commentary track. In addition, there were too many eye-rolling "we've seen it all before" moments in the film: a young, pompous kid almost screws up the plan (staged poorly, I might add), the villain tries to coax his way out of his demise by sweet talking a romantic interest or a compatriot, etc. Were these things really necessary?? Finally (I could go on an on), I really hated the Paul Giamatti character as he provided no comic relief (IMO) or served any useful purpose in the film as a whole.

Overall this movie is entertaining visually but that's about all it has going for it. It was a big disappointment...thankfully, RISE is so good and I'm glad RISE is the last film in the series (as of this point) rather than this turkey.

SKYLINE (2010) - 1/10. Made by the same people who made AVP:REQUIEM (which I admitted to enjoying), SKYLINE is a film that just doesn't make sense to me. I guess I'm not into all these recent apocalyptic fantasies that have come out recently. I didn't understand what the point was to SKYLINE; (***SPOILER ALERT***) if you're going to be bleak and completely rip all hope out of a movie then have the balls to do it....don't tack on an insane "love-conquers-all" epilogue which makes no sense at all in the context of the rest of the film (at least to me.) (***END SPOILER ALERT***) Maybe it was supposed to not make sense and we were to feel the same confusion as the characters...but maybe I'm looking for something that isn't in there so I can justify wasting 1.5 hours of my life. The special effects were nothing that we haven't seen before. The acting was okay (not great but better than AVP:R) but I felt cheated with the ending. At least AVP:R had Aliens, a Predator, and a PredAlien in it.

RUTHLESS PEOPLE - 8/10. Hellloooo Helen Slater! Lol...as stupid as this movie is I admit to having a fondness for it. The cast is stellar: Danny DeVito, Bill Pullman, the aforementioned Helen Slater, Judge Reinhold, and Bette Midler (who normally I don't really like). They made the movie enjoyable and funny, and there are some great lines in the film as well ("This may very well be the stupidest person on the face of the Earth"; "Either the police chief is a complete moron...and complete morons are rare..."). The ending is really bad and unbelieveable but I don't really care. It's just one of those stupid comedies I can't help but laugh through.

2001: A Space Odyssey 4 of 10.
-Why did I sit through this again? Well, it was a $9 Blu-Ray upgrade and I did want to see how it looks in that format since the visuals are the only thing this film will ever have going for it. It's fun to read the more detailed elements of the set, and also I can see more clearly how utterly unconvincing the monkey suits faces are. Other times, Blu-Ray sharpness makes it more clear during the EVAs that they are floating about in a studio soundstage.

-But now for the film. What an overrated piece of self-indulgent directorial narcissism. The more I see this film's narrative drag *especially* now that the visuals are so stunningly clear, the more this film reeks of elitism to me. We could have used a lot less of the self-indulgent "look at how realistic I'm making the experience of space travel" touches and a little more dialogue clarity. And more than ever I have come to DESPISE the "Blue Danube" temp tracks for the moon journey sequences. If Kubrick's intention was to show space travel as mundane now, I think that's a message that could have been communicated more by letting us hear some dialogue and sound effects of the space craft interior and some more traditional scoring of the kind North wrote for this part of the film. A waltz of Old Vienna is simply inappropriate for this (a lot more inappropriate than Handel was for "Greatest Story Ever Told" yet George Stevens still gets raked over the coals for his music editing choices while Stanley gets the free pass).

-The endless sequence of silence and breathing when Bowman first goes out to fix the antenna and then the interminable silence during the failed rescue of Poole. Two more sequences that call out for some dialogue and more believability and instead come off as another case of directorial elitism at the expense of the audience.

-And the more I watch the ending, the more I wish Dave Bowman would have stood up for himself and demanded the right to choose his own future and not be forcibly turned into a Star Child against his own will!

Vent off. The film remains great visuals but the most overrated film I can think of in terms of professing to be "deep" when it really isn't.

I remember when I only gave 3 stars to VERTIGO (which I think was charitable seeing as I've never really cared for that film) and FSM'ers threw bricks at me, calling me all kinds of nasty words. I only mention it because if I'm keeping score Eric, you have now given THE BLACK HOLE a higher score than both 2001 *and* CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, which brings me back to my VERTIGO review (and I've given plenty of movies higher stars than VERTIGO, including RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES!).

Seriously, I understand exactly where you are coming from with 2001. It is boring in places and self-indulgent and in some ways overrated. Technically though it was groundbreaking and visually it is captivating to me...especially in high-def. It's a milestone movie but I'm not sure it's one viewers really return to, watch in full and exclaim about the way people often do with CITIZEN KANE or other "classic" movies -- it's more of an admiration for its cinematography and effects work I often detect with 2001.

In terms of entertainment, I almost think 2010 has more going for it since it has a traditional narrative and characters. I'm not in any way suggesting 2010 is "better" in terms of its cinematic significance, but there are long, drawn out, endless sections in 2001 where you can understand why stoners were the ones who got the most out of it. At least in 2010 it's an hour shorter and has Roy Scheider giving a more human performance than pretty much anything in 2001 -- robots, people or the cavemen.

FWIW, I don't rate "Vertigo" that highly either. It too suffers from an appalling case of talking down to the audience for stretches. If you're going to give us visuals at the expense of ongoing narrative and not even tie things up, then that works for a film like "The Birds" where the viewer becomes spellbound by the terror of the situation that it doesn't matter ultimately that we get no answers etc. but not for a film like "Vertigo" or "2001".

I do give the Cinematography and FX high marks and they are deserved but it's too bad they couldn't have been used for a better film. One other problem lies in the fact that Kubrick and Clarke share screenplay credit and it can be said that neither knows how to *write* for the screen. Just imagine what might have happened if a legitimate film writer had been allowed to punch things up and told Stanley to tone his narcissism (for instance, I think it would have been better to *hear* that conversation Heywood Floyd is having with the captain, played by none other than Commander Straker (Ed Bishop) who gets no lines in the final film. It'd at least convey the same message of spaceflight being routine better than another rendition of "The Blue Danube"!)

2010 does indeed have more going for it in terms of storytelling, though it alas suffers from the unforgivable sin of being ludicrously dated by its attempts to be 1980s topical in a way that was undermined by subsequent history. The one thing I give Kubrick credit for is that he kept politics out of 2001, and the conversation Floyd has with the Russian scientists on the space station could easily be a dialogue in a contemporary setting with officials of a post-communist Russia. The other flaw of 2010 is how it conveniently ignored a major plot point of 2001 (ironic given the lack of plot points in 2001!) in that when Scheider as Floyd declares, "I never authorized anyone to tell HAL about the monolith!" all you can do is say, "Uh, but what about that taped message Bowman hears in which Heywood Floyd says HAL *was* informed?" Maybe Hyams was looking at a fuzzy print and didn't realize that was Heywood Floyd on the tape, but one thing Blu-Ray actually does to its credit is reveal the graphics on the tape message where for the first time you can read clearly the caption, "Dr. Heywood R. Floyd, National Council of Astronautics". This is no small point because after all, the point Hyams was trying to make was another gratuitous slam on the US government to get cheered by 40% of the potential audience (oh well, at least they remembered the daughter from "2001" in a line of dialogue). But yes, it does have the fact that it is Scheider's last film as an A-level star of note, ending the run for him that had begun a decade earlier with "Jaws."

On "The Black Hole". Hey, at least I cared about those people.

I find a lot of Kubrick's movies to be admirable without being terribly entertaining. Like Blade Runner, 2001 is technically astounding (what with Douglas Trumbull working on both) and its influence runs wide and deep decades later, but I find portions of it to be something of a chore to get through. Not to the extent that Eric apparently did (I'd give the film a 7.5/10 or maybe 8/10), but it's the kind of "great" film that I too doubt many people return to on a regular basis for sheer pleasure. 2001 has become one of those sacred cows where if you find any reason to criticize it, most cineastes will turn their noses up at you and think you only like lowbrow Adam Sandler and Transformers movies. There are a ton of important "masterpiece" films I've seen only once or twice, while guilty pleasure flicks like The Relic I'll have seen seven or eight times.

2010 does indeed have more going for it in terms of storytelling, though it alas suffers from the unforgivable sin of being ludicrously dated by its attempts to be 1980s topical in a way that was undermined by subsequent history.

Exactly Eric, and the speechifying dates the movie very badly, which is unfortunate because while not a groundbreaking technical show, the effects and the film otherwise holds up well. I have to think it was a case of Hyams grandstanding his leftist agenda, inserting it where it did not entirely belong (I did read Clarke's book, but I don't recall it being nearly as politically preachy).

There are a ton of important "masterpiece" films I've seen only once or twice, while guilty pleasure flicks like The Relic I'll have seen seven or eight times.

MJ, of course I think many people are like that. You like what you like. I'd rather watch THE RELIC than 2001 as well.