Reviews

The system of law in the UK had been developed over many hundreds of years. Yet, Barney was not given a fair trial by any means. Firstly, Barney was not fit to plead, having the mind of a young child. Secondly, the crime was not investigated properly. Thirdly, the reason capital punishment was abolished was that it cannot be reversed. Greg and Abby seem to be so keen to blame Barney as quickly as possible that a mistake was almost certain to be made! And it was. That makes four deaths Abby was responsible for. The three 'Angels' where she took the plague to with no thought and Barney. Although Abby liked to think of herself a leader making responsible decisions, in reality she only thought of herself. Greg was not much better, except he had a loud voice!

If I said remote cabin in the woods, young people running through the woods screaming, unknown threat. You would immediately know I was describing every zombie film ever known.

The only difference is that the zombies were replaced by aliens!

The fact that Wesley Snipes not only starred in it but funded the film was a mystery!

Don't bother seeing this mess of a film, you'll be wasting your money!

A poorly made film with very little investigation made into the facts.

Fact one: when Crawford's was in hospital, obviously badly injured. She was put in a private room with one nurse hovering about.

The patient should have been in the Intensive Care Unit. We had very good ICU's in 1968 hospitals.

Fact Two: The Judge sat there half-asleep and should have been taking copious notes through out.

I've decided not to list anymore as it can become boring.

To be quite honest, the attitude and demenour of Crawford would lead any jury to find him guilty, and I was hoping that's the verdict they would have brought in!

Kevin McCarthy must be turning in his grave at this dreadful remash of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). There should be a law that says if you can't make a better film than the original, then DON'T!

Do studio executives sit around a table and say 'it won't be anywhere near as good as the original but we need to waste some money for tax purposes!'. That's the only reason I can think of for producing this dreadful mess of a film.

The three protagonists are made up of Ms Perfect (Nicole Kidman), her son Master Perfect (Jackson Bond) and her Perfect best friend/would be lover (Daniel Craig). All are too good to be true characters. Everything about them is unrealistically perfect.

Unfortunately, like most modern films of this genre, Kidman and the boy are part of a standard dysfunctional family. What that adds to the plot is still a mystery. It just seems to be a fashion in film making these days.

Finally, why does Kidman feel she has to wander about the house in see-through pyjamas in full sight of the young boy? Why does she also feel it necessary to get changed every five minutes? Is it just to show off her undies? She never seems to run out of tight jumpers to show off her boob job? These things are not essential to the plot, but they maybe essential to her ego!

This review has revealing SPOILERS in it. Do not read if you have not seen the film!!!

When I was a schoolteacher, many of my English students would write a potentially good story but then run out of ideas towards the end. They would then resort to the 'and then I woke up, it was all a dream' scenario to wrap things up quickly. As a teacher I found this, not only boring but very lazy writing. Needless to say, I discouraged this type of ending in all creating writing exercises.

But what have we here? The writers of Archive have done exactly the same thing! They have quickly wrapped up a very long and quite boring film with the good old standby 'it was all a dream'! But to be 'clever' they said let's make it his dream, not hers! Lazy writing and would get an F in my creative writing class.

Nothing wrong with the acting performances. In fact, Rhona Mitra was exceptionally convincing. It's just the lazy writing that gets me. Or was it some executive poking their sticky fingers into the script? I can hear them now, "you know, it's nearly 2 hours long and we must wrap it up as soon as possible, otherwise we'll lose our audience (and our takings)." Perhaps we shall never know.

For those of you who are utterly confused by this film, the solution is quite easy.

Justine is a manic depressive and every scene in this movie revolves around her illness. Her mother and father have obviously known and tried to cope with it for some considerable time. From their behaviour, they have totally given up and pretend that her wedding will somehow 'cure' her. It doesn't, of course, and they turn their back on her.

Her fiance also knows but is in complete denial. When the wedding fails to 'cure' her, he deserts her immediately after the ceremony.

The only person that supports Justine as best she can, is her sister Claire.

When Justine goes to live with Claire and her family, the planet Melancholia comes into their lives. The impending doom symbolises Justine's effect on the family. As the planet passes Earth, it appears everything is going to be alright. But, just like manic depressiveness, it turns around and returns with a vengeance!

Even the, seemingly inexplicable car scene at the beginning of the film, represents Justine's difficulty to attend her own wedding because of her debilitating illness.

All in all, not a bad film, if a bit over-long.