brownmane
off kilter
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This description reminds me of Severance tv series (Apple tv). Though the premises behind each seem different.
Science Fiction: Films & TV
- Thread starter ramonmercado
- Start date
Last night I discovered that the 1989 film 'Millennium' (which I asked help with identifying some time back) is available in the full 'not messed about with' version on youtube.
So I sat and watched it all the way through. Which is unusual for me - I usually get sidetracked* easily.
* - bored
So Kris Kristofferson plays 'Bill Smith', an air crash investigator. After the crash of a plane he goes to check the debris and then they find the cockpit voice recorder which gets listened to, and just before the plane crash (after it hits another aircraft mid-flight) one of the crew can be heard saying about the passengers "They're all dead....."
This reveals the plot of the film, which is that people from a thousand years into the future are travelling back in time and swapping living people who are about to die in airplane crashes with already dead doubles, or summat.
Cue a series of interactions with Cheryl Ladd as 'Louise Baltimore' as she attempts to regain a couple of lost 'stunner' devices that are essential to the body-snatching stuff.
It is also revealed that 'Bill Smith' was the only survivor of an airplane crash many years previous.
It's all a bit disjointed as she travels back to different times, out of sequence, but handled well by the director and editing.
Acting 9/10 for the main characters, but the supporting roles are a bit hammy.
SFX 10/10 for the obviously advanced (for 1989) CGI stuff, but the solid props are a bit plasticky, and the futuristic costumes and 'robots' (blokes with egg-cartons stuck on them) are laughable.
But the story bumbles along nicely except for some 'eating each other' almost-sex scenes which go on a bit too long, and the final 15 minutes of the whole shebang seems a bit like they weren't sure how to end it.
So on the whole, enjoyable, but be ready to sit through some few bits of groan inducing stuff.
So I sat and watched it all the way through. Which is unusual for me - I usually get sidetracked* easily.
* - bored
So Kris Kristofferson plays 'Bill Smith', an air crash investigator. After the crash of a plane he goes to check the debris and then they find the cockpit voice recorder which gets listened to, and just before the plane crash (after it hits another aircraft mid-flight) one of the crew can be heard saying about the passengers "They're all dead....."
This reveals the plot of the film, which is that people from a thousand years into the future are travelling back in time and swapping living people who are about to die in airplane crashes with already dead doubles, or summat.
Cue a series of interactions with Cheryl Ladd as 'Louise Baltimore' as she attempts to regain a couple of lost 'stunner' devices that are essential to the body-snatching stuff.
It is also revealed that 'Bill Smith' was the only survivor of an airplane crash many years previous.
It's all a bit disjointed as she travels back to different times, out of sequence, but handled well by the director and editing.
Acting 9/10 for the main characters, but the supporting roles are a bit hammy.
SFX 10/10 for the obviously advanced (for 1989) CGI stuff, but the solid props are a bit plasticky, and the futuristic costumes and 'robots' (blokes with egg-cartons stuck on them) are laughable.
But the story bumbles along nicely except for some 'eating each other' almost-sex scenes which go on a bit too long, and the final 15 minutes of the whole shebang seems a bit like they weren't sure how to end it.
So on the whole, enjoyable, but be ready to sit through some few bits of groan inducing stuff.
And last night I found that the 1984 film "The Philadelphia Experiment" is also available in full.
So I watched that.
2 US navy chaps on the USS Eldridge in 1943 jump overboard during an experiment to hide the ship from radar, only to travel forward through time to 1983, and the ship vanishes too.
They go on the run after being chased by a helicopter (which gets blown up) in the desert near where a whole town has vanished during a similar experiment (which doesn't really get explained much).
After an encounter in a desert 'diner' they kidnap a woman, end up in a city being chased by army types, one of the guys has a hospital stay because of SFX and then he vanishes from his bed.
The other chap and the kidnapped woman travel back to his hometown, try to speak to the chap who disappeared from the hospital (he went back to 1943 apparently) but to no avail, more army types, another escape in a 4wd SUV followed by a journey back to the place where the whole town vanished.
Scientist Army Type bloke tells him he has to go back to 1943 to destroy the gubbins on the USS Eldridge that made it disappear.
So he dons some kind of spacesuit (for 'reasons') and somehow gets launched from the back of an army van into a storm vortex, flies through much SFX lights and stuff, and reappears on the deck of the ship in 1943.
He takes an axe to the gubbins, then jumps back overboard, reappearing in 1983 to meet up with the woman again.
I never heard of any of the actors before, or since, and they do an okay job of a relatively poor script so they get a solid 7/10.
7/10 also for directing as the pace of the film and all the filming is done quite well.
6/10 for SFX which are copied heavily from the crazy end stuff of '2001' and from 'Star Trek - The Motion Picture'.
A few loose ends, unexplained bits, poor picture and audio quality in places, but otherwise enjoyable.
I see 'T.P.E. 2' is also available which is the one where a Stealth Bomber gets sent back to WWII Germany and it changes the course of the war etc.
Think I'll watch that next as it was one of the films I asked about before.
So I watched that.
2 US navy chaps on the USS Eldridge in 1943 jump overboard during an experiment to hide the ship from radar, only to travel forward through time to 1983, and the ship vanishes too.
They go on the run after being chased by a helicopter (which gets blown up) in the desert near where a whole town has vanished during a similar experiment (which doesn't really get explained much).
After an encounter in a desert 'diner' they kidnap a woman, end up in a city being chased by army types, one of the guys has a hospital stay because of SFX and then he vanishes from his bed.
The other chap and the kidnapped woman travel back to his hometown, try to speak to the chap who disappeared from the hospital (he went back to 1943 apparently) but to no avail, more army types, another escape in a 4wd SUV followed by a journey back to the place where the whole town vanished.
Scientist Army Type bloke tells him he has to go back to 1943 to destroy the gubbins on the USS Eldridge that made it disappear.
So he dons some kind of spacesuit (for 'reasons') and somehow gets launched from the back of an army van into a storm vortex, flies through much SFX lights and stuff, and reappears on the deck of the ship in 1943.
He takes an axe to the gubbins, then jumps back overboard, reappearing in 1983 to meet up with the woman again.
I never heard of any of the actors before, or since, and they do an okay job of a relatively poor script so they get a solid 7/10.
7/10 also for directing as the pace of the film and all the filming is done quite well.
6/10 for SFX which are copied heavily from the crazy end stuff of '2001' and from 'Star Trek - The Motion Picture'.
A few loose ends, unexplained bits, poor picture and audio quality in places, but otherwise enjoyable.
I see 'T.P.E. 2' is also available which is the one where a Stealth Bomber gets sent back to WWII Germany and it changes the course of the war etc.
Think I'll watch that next as it was one of the films I asked about before.
"The Philadelphia Experiment 2"
I had some difficulty finding this available anywhere, but eventually discovered that the full version was viewable via Amazon Prime, on 'freevee', with a few ad breaks slotted in (no probs).
So our main man from 'T.P.E.' has moved on, 10 years, it is now 1993 and we start the film with him getting medical tests from some sort of doctor chap, then we cut to a baseball game. One of the lads playing turns out to be our mans son. They drive off to some remote farmhouse type of place where they live alone - "Yeah, I miss her too" says our man talking to the lad about his mum, who we never get to see or find out what happened to her.
Then we're in some sort of scientific lab type place with large electronic gizmos. Our 'baddie' is explaining the equipment about to be tested that will totally hide an aeroplane but also move it from one place to another, through time and space, and demonstrates it with a model (yeah, we know, what could go wrong?).
When they hit the 'on' switch for a test, we cut to our man in his house cooking breakfast or summat, his son 'playing ball' outside, and his surroundings begin to 'flex'. He falls over with a nosebleed and the lad comes in concerned. Obvs our man is still suffering from his previous experiences.
Later the scientist baddie wants to increase the testing with a full size plane, a stealth bomber, and when they hit the 'on' switch at a higher power, our man finds the whole world changes around him.
He runs from his house (now dilapidated) to be chased by a helicopter firing at him, and a team of guys also trying to catch him, but comes across some sort of 'resistance group' led by a young woman, who looks after him.
The rest of the film follows his attempts to get back to the correct timeline. He meets up with the same doctor chap who gives him some advice. Eventually our man ends up at the baddies lab, and during a raid there by the resistance group he manages to jump into the beam from the equipment and gets transported back to 1943, to the site where the stealth bomber is (it got transported back in time accidentally somehow to Germany).
But the baddie also goes back there, wanting to change the past so that the stealth bomber doesn't accidentally get blown up by the nuclear bomb that it will drop on Washington DC (the event which changed the timeline) to preserve it so they could build many more.
But one of the nazi scientists working back in 1943 is our baddies father, and our man realises this, shooting him, which makes our baddie disappear (grandfather paradox thing going on there, of sorts), and despite getting a bullet himself, our man manages to make it back through the swirly portal thing, back to 'modern day' 1993, and everything is back to how it should be.
We see him and his son returning to the baseball game, and one of the other parents there is the young woman who was leading the resistance group in the alternate timeline.
Altogether an enjoyable film that moves along at a decent pace.
Direction, however, is often lacking, and loses track of things in many places, so 6/10 there.
Acting is pretty good generally, but none of the actors are anyone we know, except for the chap who plays the baddie (pretty good), I've seen him in various films - Gerrit Graham (also appeared in Star Trek in various roles, Babylon 5, and others) who is 73 and still working.
So 8/10 for acting.
SFX are a mixture of pretty good and fairly awful. Very little CGI but plenty of shooting and flames, and scenery/set dressing is done well, with a light touch. so 7/10.
Actual film picture quality and audio are both good though, and the plot is reasonably easy to follow with only a few unexplained bits and loose ends.
Next I need to find that film with the chap who does the time travel with a hand-held device, goes back and forward through different time periods to evade being caught (no, I don't think were talking about time-cop here) with a short period in the wild west, and a problem getting into a top secret establishment IIRC which he resolves by going back in time to before it was built so he can get through the perimeter fencing, and he ends up being behind 'the fence on the grassy knoll' in Texas when JFK is assassinated, but because he manages to close a loop in time he then disappears, or summat. Or maybe I'm conflating two different films there. Dunno.
I had some difficulty finding this available anywhere, but eventually discovered that the full version was viewable via Amazon Prime, on 'freevee', with a few ad breaks slotted in (no probs).
So our main man from 'T.P.E.' has moved on, 10 years, it is now 1993 and we start the film with him getting medical tests from some sort of doctor chap, then we cut to a baseball game. One of the lads playing turns out to be our mans son. They drive off to some remote farmhouse type of place where they live alone - "Yeah, I miss her too" says our man talking to the lad about his mum, who we never get to see or find out what happened to her.
Then we're in some sort of scientific lab type place with large electronic gizmos. Our 'baddie' is explaining the equipment about to be tested that will totally hide an aeroplane but also move it from one place to another, through time and space, and demonstrates it with a model (yeah, we know, what could go wrong?).
When they hit the 'on' switch for a test, we cut to our man in his house cooking breakfast or summat, his son 'playing ball' outside, and his surroundings begin to 'flex'. He falls over with a nosebleed and the lad comes in concerned. Obvs our man is still suffering from his previous experiences.
Later the scientist baddie wants to increase the testing with a full size plane, a stealth bomber, and when they hit the 'on' switch at a higher power, our man finds the whole world changes around him.
He runs from his house (now dilapidated) to be chased by a helicopter firing at him, and a team of guys also trying to catch him, but comes across some sort of 'resistance group' led by a young woman, who looks after him.
The rest of the film follows his attempts to get back to the correct timeline. He meets up with the same doctor chap who gives him some advice. Eventually our man ends up at the baddies lab, and during a raid there by the resistance group he manages to jump into the beam from the equipment and gets transported back to 1943, to the site where the stealth bomber is (it got transported back in time accidentally somehow to Germany).
But the baddie also goes back there, wanting to change the past so that the stealth bomber doesn't accidentally get blown up by the nuclear bomb that it will drop on Washington DC (the event which changed the timeline) to preserve it so they could build many more.
But one of the nazi scientists working back in 1943 is our baddies father, and our man realises this, shooting him, which makes our baddie disappear (grandfather paradox thing going on there, of sorts), and despite getting a bullet himself, our man manages to make it back through the swirly portal thing, back to 'modern day' 1993, and everything is back to how it should be.
We see him and his son returning to the baseball game, and one of the other parents there is the young woman who was leading the resistance group in the alternate timeline.
Altogether an enjoyable film that moves along at a decent pace.
Direction, however, is often lacking, and loses track of things in many places, so 6/10 there.
Acting is pretty good generally, but none of the actors are anyone we know, except for the chap who plays the baddie (pretty good), I've seen him in various films - Gerrit Graham (also appeared in Star Trek in various roles, Babylon 5, and others) who is 73 and still working.
So 8/10 for acting.
SFX are a mixture of pretty good and fairly awful. Very little CGI but plenty of shooting and flames, and scenery/set dressing is done well, with a light touch. so 7/10.
Actual film picture quality and audio are both good though, and the plot is reasonably easy to follow with only a few unexplained bits and loose ends.
Next I need to find that film with the chap who does the time travel with a hand-held device, goes back and forward through different time periods to evade being caught (no, I don't think were talking about time-cop here) with a short period in the wild west, and a problem getting into a top secret establishment IIRC which he resolves by going back in time to before it was built so he can get through the perimeter fencing, and he ends up being behind 'the fence on the grassy knoll' in Texas when JFK is assassinated, but because he manages to close a loop in time he then disappears, or summat. Or maybe I'm conflating two different films there. Dunno.
No, not that. Def not that.
I think our man in that was some sort of history buff.
Ahah. I have solved part of my search as described above.
A 1985 episode of 'The Twilight Zone' titled "A Profile in Silver".
Watched this last night.
It starts with our man, a history teacher, who goes back to his office (?) in the school where a mystery glowing outline of a person appears and resolves itself into a white-coated woman, evidently a colleague of his from 200 years in the future - he is a time traveller.
They have a discussion about his work, after which he travels forward to the following day to see JFK give a speech in Texas, taking a 3D filming device disguised as a contemporary camera.
As JFK enters Dealey Plaza, our man spots a rifle poking from the bookstore window and shouts to alert JFK, who ducks down and avoids getting shot.
He ends up being invited to meet JFK and travel with him on Air Force 1 to his next destination.
Afterwards, our man interrogates his wrist device, which tells him that his actions have brought about one of either 2 scenarios - nuclear war or biological/chemical wars, both of which are globally destructive.
He tells JFK about his real identity and what has happened and JFK realises that the timeline must be corrected.
Our man decides that the only option is to send JFK into the future, to our mans 'own' time, whilst our man replaces JFK in the motorcade in Dealey Plaza at the moment he is shot.
When the body which is thought to be JFK (our man) is autopsied, the person doing the autopsy is revealed to be our woman from the future, who covers up what has happened.
Quite a good story for a half-hour programme, well thought out, but with a couple of paradoxical loose ends.
Acting is good throughout, 8/10.
Direction also good, and needed to be to fit the story into the half-hour, also 8/10.
SFX were only that which was absolutely necessary, and the 3D filming device giving a playback was handled well. 9/10.
It is a shame that the only version of this that I could find to watch was recorded in such a low resolution - it was often blurry, and all very 'beige', a typical colour palette for the mid 1980s.
________________________________
(So I'm still left with the film with the chap who does the time travel with a hand-held device, goes back and forward through different time periods to evade being caught (no, I don't think were talking about time-cop here) with a short period in the wild west, and a problem getting into a top secret establishment IIRC which he resolves by going back in time to before it was built so he can get through the perimeter fencing, I think in order to access some documentation or technology.
Later he ends up being behind 'the fence on the grassy knoll' in Texas when JFK is assassinated, but because he manages to close a loop in time he then disappears (I think he took the fatal shot from that position) and the final bit in the film is that as he walks away his image slowly fades and the 'end credits' begin to roll.
I seem to have some memory of him being chased by a woman with a similar hand-held device who is able to track his movements through time, but not his location.)
A 1985 episode of 'The Twilight Zone' titled "A Profile in Silver".
Watched this last night.
It starts with our man, a history teacher, who goes back to his office (?) in the school where a mystery glowing outline of a person appears and resolves itself into a white-coated woman, evidently a colleague of his from 200 years in the future - he is a time traveller.
They have a discussion about his work, after which he travels forward to the following day to see JFK give a speech in Texas, taking a 3D filming device disguised as a contemporary camera.
As JFK enters Dealey Plaza, our man spots a rifle poking from the bookstore window and shouts to alert JFK, who ducks down and avoids getting shot.
He ends up being invited to meet JFK and travel with him on Air Force 1 to his next destination.
Afterwards, our man interrogates his wrist device, which tells him that his actions have brought about one of either 2 scenarios - nuclear war or biological/chemical wars, both of which are globally destructive.
He tells JFK about his real identity and what has happened and JFK realises that the timeline must be corrected.
Our man decides that the only option is to send JFK into the future, to our mans 'own' time, whilst our man replaces JFK in the motorcade in Dealey Plaza at the moment he is shot.
When the body which is thought to be JFK (our man) is autopsied, the person doing the autopsy is revealed to be our woman from the future, who covers up what has happened.
Quite a good story for a half-hour programme, well thought out, but with a couple of paradoxical loose ends.
Acting is good throughout, 8/10.
Direction also good, and needed to be to fit the story into the half-hour, also 8/10.
SFX were only that which was absolutely necessary, and the 3D filming device giving a playback was handled well. 9/10.
It is a shame that the only version of this that I could find to watch was recorded in such a low resolution - it was often blurry, and all very 'beige', a typical colour palette for the mid 1980s.
________________________________
(So I'm still left with the film with the chap who does the time travel with a hand-held device, goes back and forward through different time periods to evade being caught (no, I don't think were talking about time-cop here) with a short period in the wild west, and a problem getting into a top secret establishment IIRC which he resolves by going back in time to before it was built so he can get through the perimeter fencing, I think in order to access some documentation or technology.
Later he ends up being behind 'the fence on the grassy knoll' in Texas when JFK is assassinated, but because he manages to close a loop in time he then disappears (I think he took the fatal shot from that position) and the final bit in the film is that as he walks away his image slowly fades and the 'end credits' begin to roll.
I seem to have some memory of him being chased by a woman with a similar hand-held device who is able to track his movements through time, but not his location.)
blessmycottonsocks
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Ahah! Yes, I remember the Red Dwarf episode in which they use their time travel doohickey to go back to the 'school book depository' etc, but had forgotten that it ended like that.
So my;
"behind 'the fence on the grassy knoll' in Texas when JFK is assassinated, but because he manages to close a loop in time he then disappears (I think he took the fatal shot from that position) and the final bit in the film is that as he walks away his image slowly fades and the 'end credits' begin to roll."
was 'cut & paste' from my memory of Red Dwarf and inserted into my recollection of some other film.
I will re-watch that Red Dwarf to consolidate it correctly in my memory.
Thank you for reminding me. You are a good chap.
That just leaves the film with the chap who does the time travel with a hand-held device, goes back and forward through different time periods to evade being caught (no, I don't think were talking about time-cop here) with a short period in the wild west, and a problem getting into a top secret establishment IIRC which he resolves by going back in time to before it was built so he can get through the perimeter fencing, I think in order to access some documentation or technology.
I seem to have some memory of him being chased by a woman with a similar hand-held device who is able to track his movements through time, but not his location.
What Tyler
Spoon, Jar, Jar, Spoon...
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Goodness - is that Keeley Hawes in that last clip ? If so, I’m in!
)
Stormkhan
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As a side-note, I'm interested in AFV.
A tankie officer, and historian, was questioned about grav-tanks or hover.
As he pointed out ... "any method of lift is still lifting the mass."
Tanks are measured like cars - PSI. To lift X mass you need to exert X mass on the surface, right?
A hovercraft creates a downdraft to exert pressure enough to 'carry' the mass of the vehicle.
The grav-raft has to exert downward force to carry its load.
So ...
Hovercrafts were great for use over land or sea, but they still had to supply pressure on the (water) surface. They were also incredibly noisy because of the amount of pressure they had to generate.
Sci-fi anti-grav vehicles can be less noisy ... but 'ye cannot beat the laws of physics'; whatever is carried will still be heavy and to move it, you have to counter gravity. Being a hovercar is not doing this - your hovercar must generate enough lift against gravity. It IS.
A tankie officer, and historian, was questioned about grav-tanks or hover.
As he pointed out ... "any method of lift is still lifting the mass."
Tanks are measured like cars - PSI. To lift X mass you need to exert X mass on the surface, right?
A hovercraft creates a downdraft to exert pressure enough to 'carry' the mass of the vehicle.
The grav-raft has to exert downward force to carry its load.
So ...
Hovercrafts were great for use over land or sea, but they still had to supply pressure on the (water) surface. They were also incredibly noisy because of the amount of pressure they had to generate.
Sci-fi anti-grav vehicles can be less noisy ... but 'ye cannot beat the laws of physics'; whatever is carried will still be heavy and to move it, you have to counter gravity. Being a hovercar is not doing this - your hovercar must generate enough lift against gravity. It IS.
Watched it on BBC iPlayer last night.
Excellent.
I forgot how much mental gymnastics our guys had to go through, as the episode progressed, to avoid bumping into themselves from earlier time-jumps into the same location.
Which I also found last night!
"Timestalkers" (in full on youtube) which starts with our man, a 'wild west' history fan (who has a pal who is in some sort of high up, military role which never gets explained) is playing 'cowboys' with his young son. Shortly the son and our mans wife leave in a car which is hit by another vehicle and bursts into flames.
Some time later (years?) he is practicing a 'quick draw' in his yard and gets visited by his pal, and they then go to an auction of 'wild west' stuff.
They jointly buy a pair of old chests/trunks and after examining the contents our man finds a photograph which, upon closer inspection, appears to show a chap holding a type of gun which won't be invented until the 1980s.
His attempts to find out how this has occurred brings about a visit from a woman from the future who is also trying to find out about the gun in the picture, or rather the man holding the gun, and they go on a travel through time, back to the 19th century 'wild west' to track the bloke, who is revealed to be one of the scientists from the future responsible for creating the time travel device (a small hand-held crystal thing with the date displayed on it), and a bad man, intent on changing history.
It all gets a bit confused but ultimately they end up catching the baddie, and our man is returned to just before the accident that killed his wife and son, giving him the chance to prevent the accident.
Acting was good, 8/10.
Direction also was good, 8/10
SFX was generally poor, but notable for the 'burning ring on the ground' that was also used in 'terminator' to show the place of the time jump. Also much use of 'bright lights' for the jump itself. 6/10.
The music used throughout was terrible, even for the 1980s - 3/10.
Generally an enjoyable film though, even with multiple plot holes and unexplained avoidance of paradoxes.
Also, how does the scientist baddie guy from the year 2586 immediately know how to drive a pick-up truck from 600 years earlier?
Mythopoeika
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I remember that! It has Klaus Kinski in it as the baddie.
maximus otter
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They refer to it consistently as "...a .357 Magnum...from 1980...", but it's actually a Colt Python, first manufactured in 1955.
A superb revolver. I know, as I owned one until the government took mine away and melted it.
maximus otter
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
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Melted it? They could have just deactivated it, so you could hang it on the wall as a decoration.
maximus otter
Recovering policeman
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"We're seizing and destroying your beloved pet dog, but we'll give its stuffed corpse back so that you can mount it on wheels and still take it for walks."
maximus otter
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
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Not quite the same thing, but I get the picture.
ramonmercado
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That's because you kept shooting crusties and hippies. Now I hate them as well but you really were going OTT.
I feel like I have scratched a serious itch with watching these films and TV over the past week or so.
It's rather irritating having memories of films that you want to re-watch and not being able to locate them.
Particularly pleased to have found 'Timestalkers' though.
It's rather irritating having memories of films that you want to re-watch and not being able to locate them.
Particularly pleased to have found 'Timestalkers' though.
And last night I decided to watch 'Source Code' again
That barrels along quite nicely.
Our man relives the same 8 minutes over and over again, as his consciousness is somehow transported into the body of another chap. This other chap is a passenger on a train which is bombed.
Our man turns out to have been a US air force pilot who ended up injured and kept alive by the science people running the 'source code' project, which gives them the ability to do the transferral thingy (it isn't really explained).
Our man is tasked with finding out information that will help them identify the bomber and prevent more bombs being set off, but the clock is ticking.
Each time the 8 minutes is up our man finds himself (apparently) back in a small, cell like, sealed room with switches, screens, lights, controls etc and is being spoken to through a TV screen and microphone by a pretty, uniformed, army-type woman, who instructs him what to look for next time he goes through.
We realise that this 'cell' is actually just a manifestation of how our mans brain is interpreting the stimuli being fed to him through wires in the heed etc.
The twist at the very end is good but doesn't really work with how we are told the whole set up works, and feels a bit 'off' to me.
But a film I can thoroughly recommend if you have an hour and a half spare.
Acting is excellent by all, throughout, so a 9/10.
Direction is also excellent, so also a strong 9/10.
SFX are done well, with a light touch, just as necessary, but some of the explosion effects look awfully 'cheap' CGI, so 7/10.
All the audio, and cinematography is sharp and clear, with only the occasional mumbled/muffled sentence.
That barrels along quite nicely.
Our man relives the same 8 minutes over and over again, as his consciousness is somehow transported into the body of another chap. This other chap is a passenger on a train which is bombed.
Our man turns out to have been a US air force pilot who ended up injured and kept alive by the science people running the 'source code' project, which gives them the ability to do the transferral thingy (it isn't really explained).
Our man is tasked with finding out information that will help them identify the bomber and prevent more bombs being set off, but the clock is ticking.
Each time the 8 minutes is up our man finds himself (apparently) back in a small, cell like, sealed room with switches, screens, lights, controls etc and is being spoken to through a TV screen and microphone by a pretty, uniformed, army-type woman, who instructs him what to look for next time he goes through.
We realise that this 'cell' is actually just a manifestation of how our mans brain is interpreting the stimuli being fed to him through wires in the heed etc.
The twist at the very end is good but doesn't really work with how we are told the whole set up works, and feels a bit 'off' to me.
But a film I can thoroughly recommend if you have an hour and a half spare.
Acting is excellent by all, throughout, so a 9/10.
Direction is also excellent, so also a strong 9/10.
SFX are done well, with a light touch, just as necessary, but some of the explosion effects look awfully 'cheap' CGI, so 7/10.
All the audio, and cinematography is sharp and clear, with only the occasional mumbled/muffled sentence.
cycleboy2
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2005
- Messages
- 2,905
It's good that you're so relaxed about it and don't bear a grudge after all this time...!
maximus otter
Recovering policeman
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2001
- Messages
- 14,018
Oh, believe me, l f****** do.
I pray every night for a knock on my door before an election, and to hear some prospective candidate say, “l hope l can rely on your support…” He will learn so many new words that he won’t know whether his arsehole is countersunk or punchbored, before l slam the door. Hopefully into his face.
maximus otter
cycleboy2
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2005
- Messages
- 2,905
Funnily enough, though the reasons are probably different, I'm also looking forward to interacting with some prospective candidates with a few choice words...!
charliebrown
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2020
- Messages
- 4,247
- Location
- Earth
Actors Oded Fehr and John Hannah claim they are anxious to reboot the Mummy franchise.
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,762
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
I'd like to see that. Unfortunately, the cast are now a bit old, so it would be at least nice to see some of them in cameo roles.
Brendan Fraser is probably not going to be the lead star, it would have to be someone new.
Stormkhan
Disturbingly familiar
- Joined
- May 28, 2003
- Messages
- 8,656
Why not ... and hear me out here ...
Rick, after all those shenanigans in China, decided he himself was 'too old for that shit'. His son is in his prime, and an intelligent man. He's also a damn good Indy ... er ... adventurous archaeologist now.
They've done Egypt, they've done China ... who else has mummies?
Not in competition with The Chrystal Skull, oh no. But South America ...
Rick, after all those shenanigans in China, decided he himself was 'too old for that shit'. His son is in his prime, and an intelligent man. He's also a damn good Indy ... er ... adventurous archaeologist now.
They've done Egypt, they've done China ... who else has mummies?
Not in competition with The Chrystal Skull, oh no. But South America ...
blessmycottonsocks
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2014
- Messages
- 9,456
- Location
- Wessex and Mercia
I've watched the first episode of the sequel on Paramount+
Lightweight fluff and corny as hell, but there's a certain entertainment value in body-swaps and timeslips and the nostalgia factor of all those period props.
Scott Bakula, the star of the original Quantum Leap, appears in static hologram form early on.
I wonder if he's going to make a comeback in person later in the series.
Mr. Banooka
Abominable Snowman
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2009
- Messages
- 763
I'm not going to post any spoilers here. My wife and I really enjoyed it and are looking forward to Season 2.
ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Messages
- 58,323
- Location
- Eblana
Bird Box Barcelona: An interesting sequel set in Post-Apocalypse Barcelona, 9 months after the event. Groups of survivors struggle to eke out an existence, some groups of blind people become predators, being better adapted to the new reality. But the real predators are the Seers, those who have observed the alien creatures but have not been driven to suicide, their brains are altered, they now work on behalf of the aliens. They infiltrate survivors strongholds, expose the people to the light, make them victims of creatures. The timeline moves back and forth between the start of the invasion and the months afterwards to the film's present. More horrifying than the original because of the number and nature of suicides and killings. some jump scares but the constant fear of light and where and when the creatures might appear injects a nice modicum of existential terror. Still with with all of the gore this is not a film for the squeamish. One group of Seers is led by a priest who has convinced himself that the aliens are angels and he is therefore doing the Lord's Work by forcing people to open their eyes to the creatures. some scenes in the film reminded me of the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it's not betrayal when you can't help what you're doing. We still don't see the aliens but their presence is better portrayed with rising leaves and detritus. bright lights and misleading voices. A tale of a quest for safety as groups make their way across a devastated city, seeking a refuge which might not exist. Watch The Skies! (But wear a blindfold.). Directed and written by Álex and David Pastor. On Netflix. 7.5/10.