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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Deeper and nuanced exploration of original themes
This movie is just about a worthy successor to the original set of movies from the 20th century.
Like them, it uses state of the art special effects to wittily investigate contemporary questions of ethics, humanity, status and prejudice while distracting the popcorn crowd with an engrossing adventure of exploration, captivity and escape in a make-believe world that, in what is a strong science fiction tradition, is recognisably a few "what if?"'s away from our own.
Unlike the original five movies, where each sequel was originally unplanned, this is clearly a new "chapter one", taking the time to introduce some elements that will feature in the upcoming sequels.
Over and over it evokes the sense of wonder of the original handful, with plenty of specific visual, musical and thematic evocations. There are reognisable influences from the 1970s TV show and even some of the Apes comic book stories of that era. But, it is also unmistakably a post-Lord of the Rings epic, the influence showing up in how various action and travel sequences have been shot.
While there is not nearly so much sly humour as the originals, the socio-historic themes are more nuanced, closer to the surface and harder to miss. Questions of defining civilisation in terms of laws are answered in a way that will ultimately resonate with modern audiences; a layered and varied spectrum of responses to enslavement is shown; and as expected, anti-monarchist revolutions will always play well in the USA.
Non-Americans may roll their eyes a little at the very earnest equating of eagles with capital-L Liberty (one can't imagine Charlton Heston's sardonic and cynical George Taylor from the 1968 movie being very impressed), but on the plus side, Peter Macon's wonderful Raka just about matches the delightful charm of Kim Hunter's Zira and Roddy McDowell's Cornelius from the originals. Owen Teague also does a good job as Noa.
The various fight scenes are competent without being overly thrilling (the most exciting action is a cornfield chase vaguely inspired by the original 1968 film), but the deeper probing into the various sub-texts and a fine selection of minor characters keeps the interest levels up. One could pick nits about some of the physics shown in the last twenty minutes, but it's hardly the first Hollywood film to sacrifice strict logic for spectacle and it surely won't be the last.
Overall, this does a good job of working on several levels and should appeal to a good range of audiences.
Cunk on Earth (2022)
If you adore this high quality mockumentary, try these....
If you enjoy the straight-faced absolute nonsense that this show does so well, you may well enjoy some of genius Brit John Morton's tv series, such as:
People Like Us (1999-2001)
A (fictional, performed) documentary series typically following a day in the working life of a small group of people in a different industry each episode. Teachers, police, clergy, airline staff, real estate agents and more are featured on screen, interviewed by the never-seen host. It all looks and sounds authentically like a low budget social documentary, until you pay close enough attention to the content to notice the densely packed absurdities in the narration ("By half past nine, it's nearly time for ten o'clock") and the intense stupidity of most of the subjects.
Broken News (2005)
Each episode mimics the viewing experience of channel surfing across a dozen recurring fictional 24 hour news channels, mostly British but with a few US ones. Whether the segment lasts a few minutes or mere seconds before the "channel is changed", the satire is precisely crafted, and much of it can now be seen as prophetic! Awful tv journalism in a wide variety of styles and flavours is brilliantly skewered, the nonsensical absurdities land every few seconds. "Statistics show that as many as 3 out of 5 in every 7 students today don't understand basic mathematical concepts"
W1A (2014-2020)
The closest to a traditional sitcom, with continuing characters and stories, this still blithely shows many characters so incredibly thick they are totally oblivious as to how inept, stupid and awful they actually are, but sprinkled with a few normal people enmeshed in their ongoing disasters. It is presented as a documentary giving a behind-the-scenes look at BBC TV, covering people working in a wide range of positions, ranging from sub-entry level to (not quite) the top.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Surprising and at times exhilarating, Marvel's first horror movie delivers
SPOILERS especially for comics readers!
This was described in promotions as the MCU's first horror movie (in a way analogous to how the Winter Soldier was MCU's first espionage thriller), and it delivers a genre-stretching blend of horror and superhero adventure.
It's not the relentless roller-coaster horror of continual jump scares a la Evil Dead, but director Sam Raimi does effortlessly pull out a couple of them at judicious moments, just to prove he still can. The supernatural almost existential horror of possession, demons, monsters and apocalyptic landscapes all get a good solid look in, as does the "powerful superhero gone bad rips through loads of good guys" trope so popular this century. Perhaps the most deeply effective horror evoked is the quiet contemplation of the implications of the truism that in an infinite multiverse, every possibility is out there somewhere. What if at a pivotal moment you had done X instead of Y? Somewhere in another universe, another you did X and is living (or not) with the consequences.
Marvel has developed a very skillful way of seeding forward-looking hints and subtle preparations for upcoming projects in its works. In Spiderman: Far From Home, Mephisto pretended to be from another universe as part of his deception, but it let Peter Parker get in a small excited speech in about the concept of the Multiverse and parallel/alternate universes. This, just a throwaway bit of dialog on the surface, was a good introduction for something that turned out to be real and a key part of future projects, including Into the Spiderverse, What If? And Spiderman: No Way Home.
The biggest event in Marvel comics the last decade was the new Secret Wars. Comics fans, last chance... SPOILERS In a parallel universe we not only meet the local Illuminati, but they explain about Incursions, and later we get to see a different world that visually evokes an Incursion. Really, this laying the first paving stone on the path to a SECRET WARS arc is the biggest spoiler in the film, although a lot of people seem very focused on just who is IN this Illuminati (Mordo, Black Bolt, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel, Reed Richards and Professor X) and what happens to them (hinted in an above paragraph). That's not really news, we already knew FF and X-Men are coming to MCU. But SECRET WARS!?!?!
Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)
Hits the right notes
Fans of the tv show and earlier film will get the most out of this, with plenty of dangling plot threads deftly picked up and woven into a satisfying series of resolutions.
There's plenty of strongly emotional moments here. It plays like one of the Christmas specials but more so, and combines an appropriately high stakes 19th century historical family mystery with an examination of an industry on the cusp of a revolution, as metaphor for Downton and the Crawleys doing their best to survive in a changing world. Hints are given how they will manage it.
This is not the place to start with Downton, and the movie assumes wise viewers know that. With so many characters, with so much history, the audience are given not so much introductions as little reminders.
As is traditional, Maggie Smith gets most of the best lines, but there are no weak performances. There's even a scattering of wisdom here and there among the drollery and drama.
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)
Incredibly Ambitious, Still Packs Many Punches
It's just a melodrama? Maybe, but one of the most epic ever conceived! This was the "Inception" of a hundred years ago, with its ambitious (and at the time, ground-breaking) weaving together of multiple storylines and having faith in the perspicacity of its audience to follow along. There are plenty of wonderful scenes, characters and moments throughout, but the final reel, with multiple fast and suspenseful chases/races against time is absolutely thrilling.
The spectacle of the sets (everyone justly praises the scenes in Babylon, but check out the size of Jenkins' offices in the modern story!) is overwhelming. The gore, violence, sexuality and nudity are all astonishing to someone who equates black and white movies with Hays Code restrictions. The use of the camera is powerful, with judicious and impressive tracking shots in and across the frame, massive excellent close-ups, and depth of composition hardly ever seen since.
The Christ story didn't need to be any longer, since the general audience was far more familiar with the gospels, and far more invested in them than audiences today. The majority of people in 1916 wouldn't have needed more than a few striking evocations, which is what they got. The St Bart's Massacre also was probably a much more familiar slice of history to audiences 100 years ago than it is today. Griffith understandably spends most time in the present day, and in exotic Babylon, about which much more had been just learnt in then-recent decades. The Mountain Girl is a fantastic character, no shrinking violet, no damsel in distress, but a perfectly convincing and compelling character who exemplifies the thesis that human nature is eternal across the ages. Her very sad and bleak ending is an effective tightening of the suspense for the end of the modern story, a dreadful dip on the emotional rollercoaster.
The very last few minutes may seem over the top today, but remember WWI was ongoing while this was made, the most awful war to that time, on an unprecedented scale and no guarantee of how it might end. The evocation of mechanised warfare in the Siege of Babylon (including a primitive "tank") is paid off with scenes (with tanks) set at the Western Front of 1916. A war-ending intervention from a heavenly choir may seem cliche or cheesy today, but I bet it would've been as emotionally releasing, satisfying, uplifting, moving and cathartic to a wide audience in 1916 as, say, the end of Titanic (Rose, now young again, returning to the ship and being reunited with Jack among the welcoming applause of all the ghostly passengers) was to a huge number of people in '97.
An absolute masterpiece. Not recommended for the MTV or Tik-Tok generation, though.
Pascali's Island (1988)
Criminally under-rated
Wonderfully made, deeply involving
Sometimes you just take a punt on watching a randomly selected movie, maybe because of the cast or the setting or the image on the poster. You go into the cinema (or switch on the tv) with no expectations and almost no knowledge about what you're going to see. Perhaps this is the perfect way to begin watching a movie, letting you set out on a journey of discovery with no more idea of what the characters are in for than they themselves have.
This was the case for my viewing of this. With no preconceptions, I was receptive in turn to the political, historical, philosophical, romantic and tragic strands that are woven into this marvelous Turkish carpet of a movie.
The performances of the main cast and the layered depths of their characterisations are magnificent. While the photography, music and art direction are all impeccable, convincing and skilled, they all support the story.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the low rating out of ten on the website, but it's a pity if it prevents people from discovering this rare and buried artistic masterwork from long ago...
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Huge crossover exceeds expectations
This review is no more spoilery than what's already been in the tv ads...
There's a shot in one of the tv commercials for The Avengers set in a forest where we see for the first time together on screen, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America facing each other. The spine tingling electricity that engendered in me lives fresh in my memory: "Look at them, all together at the same place! It's just like a scene from the comics!"
Avengers: Infinity War taps into that same power source, amplified by an order of magnitude or more. There are so many wonderful interactions between never-before-seen combinations of characters, watching it is regularly delightful. (Particularly entertaining is Thor amidst the Guardians of the Galaxy, but Stark, Strange and Spider-man have some great moments also.)
The tv ads already give a hint of the scale and scope of the battle in Wakanda, but fortunately the actuality exceeds expectations. In fact so many moments from the film have appeared in the tv ads that one might be worried the whole story (or at least too much of it for its own good) has been laid out in advance. It's a real strength of this movie that it has avoided this risk. There are plenty of plot strands barely hinted at in the promotions, many hitherto-unseen (did I really just say that?) powerful moments that deliver hugely satisfying or heart-breaking emotion, and regular genuine surprises.
It's a busy movie but never confusing or flustered. There are references or call-backs to pretty much every single preceding MCU movie, which add to the enjoyable feeling of watching a shared universe develop. Being familiar enough with earlier movies to recognise these various elements adds to the pleasure of watching, but is not really required to follow and enjoy the story.
With criss-crossing subsets of heroes grouping and regrouping across multiple locations on multiple missions, it really does capture the feeling of reading one of those massive company-wide summer crossovers so popular in mainstream comics these last few decades.
It's a great success. If you've seen and enjoyed any MCU film in the last decade, there's something here for you and you shouldn't miss it (and I hope and expect you won't)!
Hill Street Blues: What Are Friends For? (1985)
One of the scariest, tensest, most suspenseful episodes they did
Hill Street Blues is one of the premier achievements of narrative television, and this episode is in my opinion one of the ten best they ever did. (It's currently the highest ranked episode of the show on IMDb, so I'm not alone in appreciating it). It gives us a villain scarier than around which many movies (without the codes and practices restrictions of network TV) are built, along with many of the usual Hill Street ingredients such as ironic humour, surprise, action and emotion. Like with many episodes, you get the most out of it if you're familiar with the characters and their histories - i.e. if you've been watching previous episodes. However, this is structured so you get a pretty good payoff watching it in isolation, too. Very highly recommended, and one that springs to mind easily years after I first saw it.
Hill Street Blues: A Wasted Weekend (1987)
Another strong entry from one of the greatest shows of all time, and one of the most stand-alone episodes they did
Mark (Twin Peaks) Frost directing a David (The Untouchables, State and Main) Mamet scripted episode of Hill Street Blues! How can you go wrong? Jablonski, Hill, Renko and Goldblume are taking a long weekend to go hunting. It's no spoiler to say things don't turn out as planned.
Three main stories run through this episode; two follow the already-mentioned characters, the third follows Buntz's conversations with a minor character we haven't seen in a while. Each of the three threads in various ways touches (sometimes indirectly) on a common theme of handling situations that are apparently of the kill-or-be-killed variety.
Hill Street Blues has a well-earned reputation for long-running plots and detailed character growth across seasons. This episode, though, may be one of the most stand-alone they ever did. It could plausibly slip almost anywhere in the episode list with very little modification.
The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914)
Read the poem first
The poem of the same name that this film was based on was very popular and much better known at the time than it is now, and the film benefits from having read it; as with most parodies of specific works, there is at least a layer of enjoyment that depends upon knowledge of the original work, so one can appreciate what has remained intact and what has been changed - and how. Because of this, this isn't as much a stand-alone piece of work as most of the other Keystone Chaplins.
One gag I haven't seen mentioned in other reviews, that still works if one remembers how risqué and erotically charged it would have been in historical context, is when we see Artist Charlie in flashback apparently draw a model's curvy backside.
The copy I saw was missing the numerous "lengthy titles" (apparently altered versions of extracts of the poem) referred to in David Robinson's book. But I must mention that Charlie's pants in this film are spectacularly baggy! This isn't one of his funniest films by a long shot, but familiarity with the poem DOES make it funnier.
The Knockout (1914)
Must see for fans of early silent comedy
This short silent comedy features a great, large cast, and many hilarious scenes. The large number of characters help support a plot more complicated than the average 1914 Keystone comedy.
For a 1914 Keystone, this has it all, or almost all: cartoon violence, street fights, fraud, romance, a cross-dressing heroine, Arbuckle's acrobatic slapstick, a (brief) love triangle, death threats, menace, the funniest boxing match of the decade, with Chaplin as a guest star and the Keystone Kops! The last ten or so minutes in particular (of the 25 minute version I saw) were outstanding: densely packed with ludicrous action and surprising gags. There's easily enough going on to reward multiple viewings. It's one of Chaplin's best Keystone films (though he's only in a few minutes), one of Arbuckle's best Keystone films and has the funniest Keystone Kops sequence of the handful I've seen.
Recommended!
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Puts the comics on the screen
Tony (Iron Man) Stark and supporting cast have been continuously published for up to almost half a century now; there must be something entertaining and appealing about these characters. This movie (unlike some other comicbook adaptions this century - yes, "Azrael Begins", I'm looking at you) actually puts recognisable versions of the published characters on the big screen.
If you've been reading Iron Man for decades, as I have, then there are many resonant moments and stirring visuals that will bring a smile to your face. I don't think you can go much more than 5 minutes at a stretch without experiencing some frisson of gleeful recognition.
If all you know of the character is the first movie, this will not disappoint. It has the same mix of comicbook physics, great performances and entertaining action in another script smarter than the genre usually supplies. There's a layer of enjoyment accessible to long-time readers that you won't tap into, but you won't miss it.
(It was great to see Howard Stark presented as the Walt Disney of the Marvel Universe here! Great cultural shorthand.) Superior popcorn entertainment masterfully done!
Twenty Minutes of Love (1914)
Pretty good even after all these years!
In his autobiography, Chaplin recorded that "Twenty Minutes of Love" had produced "continuous laughs throughout", even though it had been shot in a single afternoon. It has not weathered as well as many of his later comedies, but while re-watching all his shorts in chronological order, this is the earliest one in which I've found a laugh-out-loud moment of true hilarity (described in some detail below). It may not be coincidence that (in August of 1914, when his memory was fresher) Chaplin stated this was the first film he had directed himself.
It's an early example of a "park" film, no more difficult to follow than others of the genre, once one has attuned one's attention to performance styles and conventions of the times. Luckily the film is short enough that it can easily be viewed multiple times without hardship, to help train one's eyes and mind to follow a story without sound.
DETAILED BUT SMALL-SCALE SPOILER The various conflicts with various couples are pretty standard; the instant of magic for me involves a twice-stolen watch. Charlie has stolen it from the pocket of a man he does not know is a thief. Chased by the thief, and alarmed at the proximity of a policeman, Charlie attempts hurriedly to sell the hot watch to a man asleep on a park bench, who unbeknownst to Charlie, is the watch's original owner.
The transaction (like all of Chaplin's silent conversations) is communicated brilliantly and (if you watch, and think) clearly in pantomime. We see Charlie offer the watch and set a price. We see the owner perceive the watch as familiar and check his pockets, discover his watch is missing and realise that this is indeed his own stolen watch being offered back to him.
We see the owner try to tell Charlie that this is his watch, and Charlie agrees "yes, it's yours once you pay me". After a more forceful repetition from the man, Charlie understands that this man is claiming to be the true owner of the watch! It is Charlie's reaction of quickly pulling the watch back with suspicion, disbelief and resentment at what he considers so transparent an attempt at fraud, that I find still works so well.
It's a complex set-up for the time, and modern audiences who through inexperience with the Keystone-era silent comedy find the fast-paced action confusing enough to lose track of the characters and their histories will miss it entirely. It's a very well-constructed gag, though - the audience alone knows the full truth, while each character has a partial view that seems to contradict the other's. The audience understands perfectly the confusion of the characters. (Alas that the dissection of gags is never as funny as the gags themselves.)
There are other laughs in the movie, but for me this was the best by far.
Mabel at the Wheel (1914)
Charlie Chaplin's Ford Sterling impression (or "Atypical early Chaplin has points of interest for the fan")
When Chaplin arrived at Keystone, Ford Sterling (head of the Keystone Kops, among other roles) was the top comic at the studio. By all accounts Chaplin spent his first few films being asked to act more in Sterling's frantic trademark Keystone style, and none more so than in this one. By the time "Mabel at the Wheel" was shot, Ford Sterling had left Keystone, and Charlie, who had spent the majority of his previous films dressed in his famous Little Tramp costume (even if the soulful, wistful characterisation thereof was yet to be created), not only was made up in the Dutch comic style of Ford Sterling (a false goatee to go with his false moustache) and given Ford Sterling's frock coat to wear, but the whole style of his performance, down to his facial expressions and physical mannerisms, echo Ford Sterling's established screen persona. There is hardly a trace of the tramp in this film, but Chaplin's imitation of Ford Sterling is a model of accuracy.
The film is more interesting than amusing. Some of the wide shots of the crowd at the race feature actual spectators visibly amused at the antics of the actors, which is always fascinating to see after so many decades of movies carefully framed and set-managed to avoid such things.
That said, there are a few funny moments, and one "special effects" (by the standards of the time) shot almost shocking in the unexpectedness of its technique, in which a tilting camera is used to create the illusion that one of the race cars is tipping over in the race.
Tango Tangles (1914)
Fascinating for the experienced viewer
Watching silent comedies is an almost lost art, one that today's younger viewers must teach themselves through an open-minded exposure to multiple examples, always reminding themselves that the intent to tell an amusing story clearly is always there, even if at first glance the impression is of fast-paced incomprehensible chaos. With practice one can learn to understand the conventions of the day, follow the action and enjoy the multitude of jokes and amazing performances.
Even someone who has managed this for comedies of the 1920s, and who can both appreciate and enjoy, say, The General and The Gold Rush, may find their first exposure to Keystone material of the 1910s throws them back into bewilderment. Yet once one adjusts to the conventions of the time (such as the fast paced, physically detailed and extremely demonstrative acting that makes most '20s performances seem restrained by comparison), even these very early, frenetic and largely improvised Keystones can delight.
This one is particularly interesting for several reasons already cited in other reviews: the lack of character makeup on Chaplin and Sterling (both almost always appearing in other films with fake facial hair of various sorts), the amazing athleticism of Arbuckle, the wholly natural reactions of the actual onlookers in the "found" dance hall location to the antics of the leads. It repays a second and even a third viewing for those seeking to learn the skill of following early Keystone comedies.
This was one of Sterling's last handful of films at Keystone and one of Chaplin's first. At the time, Sterling was the bigger star. They work very well together here, especially in their fight scenes, which have tell-tale signs of being more improvised than rehearsed or precisely choreographed, yet are nevertheless creative, clearly told and quite entertaining.
If you've never seen a silent Chaplin short, this is not the one to start with. (Try one of the Mutuals, like Easy Street or The Immigrant) But if you've some familiarity with the genre, the circumstances of the shooting of this one make it one of the most interesting of his first half-dozen or so.
The Truman Show (1998)
Incorrectly considered a goof
The site won't accept my correction to a goof, so I'm placing it on record here. Perhaps someone who has access will correct it.
SPOILER!!! The incorrect goof says "Factual errors: Near the end when Truman is on the boat, Christof uses some extreme weather conditions to try and stop Truman leaving. However, he is on a sail boat in an environment were the weather can be controlled, all Christof had to do was stop the wind or change its direction to go back to port; a sail boat goes were the wind goes."
Changing the wind's direction would not have helped: sailboats can sail to upwind destinations by tacking. See any standard reference on sailing for confirmation (such as the wikipedia article at en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Sailing#Sailing_upwind (spaces inserted in case urls are forbidden here)).
If Christoff had stopped the wind, Truman could have used the motor on the boat (which we see him trying to start at one point).
As for the movie? Genius. Jim Carrey's best, and (a much weightier accolade) probably Peter Weir's best.
The Pledge (2001)
Never have so many people got the killer's identity wrong
A brilliant movie, surely one of the masterpieces of 21st century cinema to date. It is its fate to be under-rated and under-appreciated, but to those who can see, its genius is obvious and compelling.
While the identity of the murderer is definitely NOT the point, it IS clearly and unambiguously revealed; however, judging from countless misinterpretations and misidentifications, both here and overheard in the cinema when I saw it, this apparently counts as a spoiler even for a lot of people who HAVE already seen the film...
SPOILERS The killer is seen only in passing. He is the man, called "Oliver" by his wife, in the "Land of Christmas" shop. If you re-watch the movie closely, this should be apparent. If you need more explicitly listed evidence, keep reading.
The killer, known as the Magician, is very tall, to the point where one of the victims calls him a giant. Note the shot from above the door of the "Land of Christmas" shop when Nicholson enters. The camera is inside the shop, above the door, looking down towards the floor. The bell that rings catches our attention, but if you look again you will see how unusually high this door is - see how much taller the door is than Nicholson? Much higher than a normal-sized door. This shot is also repeated near the very end of the movie, in the sequence where all the clues to the killer's identity are summarised.
When we do glimpse Oliver in the shop, in the scene where Nicholson enters the "Land of Christmas" asking for directions to the girl's grandmother's house, he has the grey hair that we see the killer has when driving towards the rendezvous at the end of the film (which he never reaches due to the accident). We learn subsequently that the girl would visit the "Land of Christmas", also.
After the killer has started his drive towards the rendezvous, as part of the "clue summarising" we return to the "Land of Christmas", with his wife calling out for him.
The absolute clincher, though, is the fact that the "Land of Christmas" sells small chocolate "porcupines". (We see his wife mention them and take out a box of them when she is searching for him.) It was of course these that he would give to his victims, as depicted in the child's drawing.
Incidentally, the point of the close-up of the rear-vision mirror in the burning car is to show the small porcupine figurine hanging from it. The Tom Noonan character is a decoy, and definitely not the killer.
Hopefully anyone re-watching it after reading the above will be able to see for themselves. :) One fascinating angle I've not seen commented on is the way Penn's tirade at Nicholson at the end of the movie would, word for word, apply just as well as if Nicholson had been abusing her daughter himself... Rewatch the scene and see how well that jibes.
The Dead Pool (1988)
Greatest car chase ever
The most boring and senseless cliché of cinema - the car chase - is here given a truly surprising, clever and entertaining twist (no, I will not spoil its nature here). The movie is worth seeing for this sequence (the best in the movie) alone.
It's also interesting, and somewhat chastening, to compare this sequel with the original movie to see how far towards political correctness the Dirty Harry character has moved. While in the original, Harry is presented (at least initially) as an intolerant racist, here it is the Lieutenant that is presented as racist, seeing Harry's partner condescendingly only as a "token ethnic" whose pairing with high-profile Inspector Callahan will be good for the police department's public relations image; Harry relates to the Chinese officer in question as "Al", an equal, from the start, and mocks the Lieutenant's attitude.
Lobster Man from Mars (1989)
Funniest SF film since Dark Star? (or: Earthman beware, He's after your air)
"He came from the Stars, Lobster Man from Mars...
Earthman beware, he's after your air!!!
No place to hide, Lobster's right outside!!!"
The theme song suggests we are about to see a bad, bad movie. Not so.
This is a hilarious and great movie about a bad, bad movie (which turns out to be better than expected), and is probably the funniest science fiction movie since Dark Star. (It's a bit like a small-scale version of Mars Attacks with a smaller budget and more(!) jokes.)
I was quite surprised to see such a low score here for it. I suspect a few people who rated it poorly are just unfamiliar with the style of films it is parodying (think "Robot Monster"), or see only the surface "badness" of the movie in the movie without realising it is deliberately "awful" and does not take itself seriously.
In other words, the low quality of this film is only a translucent veneer; one sufficient to fool a surprising number of people, apparently.
Mild, small-scale, incidental spoilers:
There's a lot to like about this movie. The earnest over-the-top melodrama, the in-film narrator, the deliberately wonky effects, the range of stereotype characters from multiple genres added to the mix (how many sf movies have a hardboiled gumshoe as a supporting character?) all contribute. The music is especially perfect: the theme song, the spooky warbling electronic chase music, and the use of Siegfried's Funeral March could not be bettered.
But these are all touches of finesse to a great parody. The quality and caricatured accuracy of the parody is what makes this film so entertainingly amusing. This affectionate and good-humoured homage to low-budget science-fiction monster flicks is probably the funniest such since at least The Rocky Horror Picture Show (while being considerably different in tone!), and possibly since Dark Star.
The sheer ludicrous excess and exaggeration of the evil of the Lobster Man, the goodness of the heroes and the stakes of peril are all almost operatic, and would not seem out of place on the stage of Victorian melodrama (science-fictional trappings aside).
Many, many images, plot points and lines are delicious: the Lobster Man's entire character design, the way we see that most of the characters are sexist but the movie makers (at both levels) aren't, phrases like "smoking bales of Big Monk"...
If you've a passing familiarity with drive-in science fiction, and a sense of the ludicrous, I think you'll enjoy this little film; if your idea of visual science fiction starts with Star Wars and finishes with the X-Files, or you think humour and sf shouldn't mix, you may not.
Screams of a Winter Night (1979)
Incredibly Good Opening Sequence, So-so Film
Tiny spoiler
When the funniest part of a comedy is the out-takes in the final credits, it's probably not a very funny movie. Similarly, when the most frightening part of a horror movie is the opening credit sequence, it's probably not a very scary movie. But the opening credits would make a fantastic three minute radio play. Unfortunately they set the bar so high the rest of the film is a disappointment by comparison. However, the opening by itself really is worth the price of admission - though no doubt it's more effective when it can take the viewer by surprise (i.e. when you forget that there's something special about the opening by the time you get to see the film).