Reviews

As a matter of personal belief, I must state right from the beginning that I am convinced that man-made climate change is a threat to our civilisation. Unless we will be able to control our consumption of natural resources and pollution output, we will be seeing very bad things happening in a near future. Climate shift is real, and the geo-political changes it could bring about will be much worse than the economic hardships necessary to curb the current trend.

These being said, my opinion is that this movie - and any cinematic efforts in a similar vein - are not only flawed, but actually dangerous. They trivialize a serious issue, and exploit it for cheap thrills.

The science in this film is so bad, it's almost laughable... What bugs me most (sic!) is the fact that the people who made the film were incapable of keeping in line with the most elementary notions of biology (meteorology and climate change do not even come into the picture, except to provide an excuse for another teen slasher movie)...

The smoking gun? Look no further than the fact that the people who made this film - a film about scientists, no less - were incapable to spell the word "vertebrate" in the description of the parasites.

If you get this film in electronic format, look around the 1-hour mark. You will see, written large across the page, the word "VERTIBRATE"... That's right, they weren't even able to get some scientific advisors capable to spell the name of the movie's egg-hatching villains!

As for the rest, the film is just a travesty... Just like another flick that came out this year, it seems that Hollywood (or, more precisely, the film industry, seeing that this piece of trash was made by an independent company) is incapable of portraying scientists as they are - and as they should be: able to think rationally about their actions. All we have in this film is a bunch of morons running around and making the most unbelievable decisions. Scientists making idiotic choices, horny students who are supposed to be brilliant but come apart at the first sign of strain, and so on.

The film's writing is lazy - even including the predictable "it's not over" twist at the end -, the acting is hammy and there are no truly chilling moments.

This movie does not deserve to be compared to John Carpenter's "The Thing", any more than "Forbidden World" deserves to be compared with "Alien". And poor Val Kilmer... why was he in this, is he that strapped for cash? I think a public fundraiser would be a better solution to help this guy... I thought he'd make a comeback in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" and "Alexander", but, sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case.

You can only like this movie if any or all of the following conditions are met:

1) you are under 15, and/or you think "Transformers" was the best movie ever made. 2) you are a relative of one of the filmmakers, or someone else involved with this celluloid catastrophe. 3) you are a "torture porn" freak (and not in a good sense).

If I were a religious man, all I could say after having to watch this would be "God help us all, and deliver us from bad movies and pretentious idiots who trivialize serious matters!"

Make no mistake, this is s boring, tiresome piece of trash, which can't even shock or gross you out.

Entire sequences are lifted directly from better movies - the "Alien" series being the most obvious target, with a character named Yutani, for crying out loud! - and the plot has a VERY strong resemblance to another recent cinematic turkey, "The Devil's Tomb".

And just like "the Devil's Tomb", this flick has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Bad acting all around, terrible dialogue and predictable plot twists. Not worth spending your money OR your time. Find something else to do with your 96 minutes, maybe go out for some sun and fresh air.

This production makes any 1980's low-budget schlockfest look like a masterpiece, by comparison! The only people who gave it more than a "1" must be blind, or have mistaken it for another title.

As far as movies go, this is a nitty-gritty version of "Men in Black", devoid of all the humour and the wisecracks of a slick Hollywood production. What we get instead is a solid and efficient horror thriller, shot directly on video, which keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

This is what "Cloverfield" should have been. I was disappointed a bit with the way they shot the ending, but I guess that's unavoidable these days.

I can't help drawing parallels to "The Mist" - which also takes place in a store. They are both studies in terror and paranoia, focusing on the interaction between characters which may or may not be representative for larger segments of the population.

Watch this film, if you have a spare 90 minutes - you won't regret it.

Take away the Bond brand name recognition, change the main character's name to something else, and try to pitch it to the studios... you'll see how you'll be laughed out of the lot! What can I say... there's much hyperbole about this film, most of it coming from people who call it "spectacular", "Bond reboot" etc. Hogwash! Craig continues to be a thug, there's no REAL resolution at the end (stay tuned for Bond 23!), most of the action scenes are filmed in that horrible "hyperkinetic" style that makes you go "huh? what did just happened?" (this got really old with the Bourne movies), and the plot is just bad, bad, bad. Not to mention that the bad guy is an environmentalist (!??)... oooh, how scary! Watch "Sahara" for a much better take on "environmentalists turned bad"! Come to think about it, there are some unnerving similarities between the two movies, starting with the fact that in both cases the bad guy is a French dude with a bad accent. Except that "Sahara" was a fun and pleasant popcorn flick, while "QoS" pretends to be a dark and brooding contemporary film.

It's sad to see that the studios are so desperate to keep the Bond franchise alive and make some extra cash on the back of the public. Be forewarned...this is probably the worst Bond ever - worse than anything you've ever seen in the series, even the incoherent "Casino Royale" of the 60s. Oh, and the title song (main theme) is also the worst thing I've heard since Lulu offended our ears with "The Man With the Golden Gun".

It used to be that the Bond films had great locations, wonderful stunts, beautiful women and impressive gadgetry. Not anymore. All we have now is a pumped-up dude who beats up people and tosses dead friends in garbage bins. Sad! And what happened to Marc Forster? he is clearly able to make a good film, as evidenced by "Monster's Ball"... heck, even "Finding Neverland"... but this?

It's sad to see great directors misfire on all cylinders, but this is exactly what happens here.

I believe "Sunshine" is one of those doppelganger films developed by competing studios - you know, "Antz" vs. "A Bug's Life", "Volcano" vs. "Dante's Peak", or "Armageddon" vs. "Deep Impact"...

In this case, "Sunshine" must have tried to compete with "The Fountain", and ended up as a failure of catastrophic proportions. It misses the philosophy; it misses the catharsis; it misses the visual style; even the music is uninspired.

While everyone on Earth is freezing their butts, we're supposed to believe that detonating a "star bomb" - a type of fission-fusion super firecracker - will somehow make the sun recover its brilliance. Yeah, right. Even "The Core" had a more plausible idea.

And what about the cast? Leave aside the bad science (one-gee gravity on a spaceship, impossibly efficient heat shielding, and one of the worst clichés you can think of - sound in space!) Leave aside the badly-developed premise. It's really a pity that we end up with unsympathetic characters - do we really care if they live or die? Even "Mission to Mars" had better fleshed-out and more differentiated crew members. Here, we just have senseless interactions and bad, bad dialogue. "Event Horizon" - which had problems of its own as a film - had, at the very least, two great actors with strong physical presence and memorable voices: Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne. "Mission to Mars" had the very competent Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins, as well as the beautiful Connie Nielsen. When you compare these thespians with Cillian Murphy, an individual who mumbles half his lines, has a somnolent delivery, and a permanent, slightly disturbed expression on his face, you can't help thinking that something is terribly wrong. Two other great Asian actors, former martial star Michelle Yeoh and Hiroyuki Sanada (who gave us a memorable performance in "Twilight Samurai") are criminally under-utilized and summarily disposed of, with barely a few lines of dialogue.

The fact is, after wasting 90 minutes of your life on this film, you realize you've already seen it. It's as if someone had taken an element of every great - or at least box-office successful - science-fiction film of the last 20 years, and came up, somehow with something which is less than the sum of its parts.

You have "A desperate mission against all odds"; "An awestruck, loving & sensible female crew member"; " A distress signal which shouldn't be there"; "A mysterious space relic"; "An intelligent, but haunted and secretive medical officer"; "A freak accident which destroys the chain of command"; "A villain of superhuman strength, complete with peeling skin"; "Religious hysteria"; "A rapidly-diminishing oxygen supply (in an otherwise huge ship!??)"; "A dead computer which needs a complicated reboot procedure"; "A space walk without space suits"; "A noble suicide to save humanity"; "A providential bomb which saves the day"... the list can continue, but you get the point. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention "A human who can detonate said bomb following an intricate procedure, at the precise critical moment,better than a computer, and without any other mechanical help".

...Yeah. Sure. May the Force be with you! If you see existentialism and spirituality here, like some other reviewers seem to indicate, you're in the wrong theatre.

Last but not least, I want to express my profound disgust with the overused cliché of "shaky-cam"... I hope the next director and camera-men who think Shaking and Blurring the frame are cool filming procedures will end up with a really bad case of Parkinson's. Shaky frames are not cool, mmmkay? They are tiresome and, frankly, already old. You can't create tension artificially, if that tension is not present in the script and the game of the actors - you're just giving the audience a headache. If you think using state-of-the-art equipment gives you the creative license to shoot video as bad as cellphone footage from a crowded bar, you should stop using whatever medication you're on.

I am really sorry for Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. I can only hope that they take a good rest before proceeding with their next project, which is supposed to be none other than the sequel to "Trainspotting". Because just like the sequel to "28 Days", "Sunshine" is a terrible flop. Honestly, if you digitally remove the name of the director from the credits and insert "Roger Corman" in its stead, you get a better understanding of why this film is so rushed, incomprehensible and, in the end, a disappointment.

I must start with a personal statement - I'm amazed at the silliness of those who bombastically declare this to be the worst movie of all times and so on... Really? Is it really that bad, worse than "Manos - The Hands of Fate" or "Cocoon - the Return"?

I think most of the people who diss this film fall, broadly, in three large categories: 1) those who are so attached to the original short story that they can't stand the idea of an eponymous film with a different vision (although, again, its Gibson himself who penned this script!) This is not "purism", but acting like brats - just like those who criticized the film "Resident Evil" for not "sticking closer to the original games". 2) then, there are those who have a personal dislike for Keanu Reeves, and they follow him over the 'net, criticizing him for "wooden acting". It doesn't matter to them that the Johnny character is exactly what Keanu portrays - an egotistic, self-absorbed bastard, who only cares about his posh clothes, cold Mexican beer and hookers (and there are already so many out there like him, in the real world!). Then 3) there are those who are simply too stupid to actually watch what's going on on the screen, because of personal convictions, education or background (i.e. those who mention Grenpeace and anti-capitalism as if they are capital crimes, or those who think PharmaKom is a Japanese company). I was particularly amused at the user who launched a furious diatribe against the idea of the Lo-Teks being so visible in the ruined bridge, despite the fact that the only time in which they actually identify themselves as the source of anti-establishment activities is the very end, when they also announce they'll be going off the air.

The list could go on. But this is supposed to be a review, not an answer to those who dislike the movie so vehemently.

I believe this is *the* film which, despite its occasional artistic shortcomings, connects "Blade Runner" to "The Matrix". It was a courageous endeavour, portraying an all-too possible near future, and reminded me of another picture, similarly vilified by simpletons who couldn't see beyond the surface - "Starship Troopers".

The sad fact is that the movie was mistreated, and what we ended by seeing on DVD in most of the world is not what the director intended. There is an alternative version (briefly mentioned on this site) which makes some significant changes, and it's available only in Japan.

First of all, the prologue is different and more poignant. Here it is, in this exact form:

"New century. Age of terminal capitalism.

The armored towers of multinational corporations rise above the ruins of the democracies that gave them birth.

Soldiers of the Yakuza defend them.

Hackers, data-pirates, LoTek media rebels are the enemy, burrowing like rats in the walls of cyberspace.

A new plague convulses the cities: Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, incurable, fatal, epidemic, bringing fear and misery as old as the species itself.

But the most precious data is sometimes entrusted to elite private agents, wetwired to function as human data banks.

Mnemonic couriers."

In this day and age, in the post-Enron, post-9/11 world, all the above doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore.

The film is more somber in the Japanese version. We see more of Takahashi's inner desolation, and there are some added bits of gore and violence in the Beijing fight. Johnny himself is much more of a corporate puppet - we see it from a longer dialogue with the hooker in the hotel room, or in the scene in which he acquires the memory doubler. We see J-Bone sticking a syringe in the dolphin, sadistically commenting how the creature is a junkie.

There is also more realism involved (Spoiler alert!): the hero doesn't somehow miraculously recover his childhood memories after being connected to Jones. And we see how Johnny, exhausted, decides to get it over with, despite a dire warning that the "looping" procedure through the dolphin will most certainly kill him. That is a moment of pure redemption, sadly lost in the official European and North-American film versions.

Last but not least, the extended cut gives more screen time to Lundgren's "mad preacher" character. We see him sermonizing in his church, in front of a rapt audience, using words and gestures that are scarily familiar to anyone who has watched an Evangelical TV channel. He discovers along the way that Johnny's "load" is the miraculous cure for NAS, and he covets it for himself - he even shouts he wants to "become (like) God." It's easy to see why "some circles" decided to eliminate all this potentially uncomfortable content... but we ended up with a caricature, instead of a cunning and shrewd film villain.

Johnny, we barely knew you.