Waiting for a nice MacGyver movie, or a nice movie anyway, both ways this one will not satisfy you!
First of all, this is not MacGyver; this is poor man's James Bond. For instance, I watch MacGyver for some reasons, on their top is his improvised-from-everyday-items gadgets. Though, this movie doesn't have any of them until the last 5 minutes!
Richard Dean Anderson, as the movie's executive producer, canceled his character's narration, which was familiar in the TV show, because - as he said - it used to insult the viewer's intelligence. Not only this, the character's theme music was canceled as well, which increased the feel of alienation towards our good old hero. So, in the end, what were left from him were just his name, and his looks. And sure that wasn't enough.
Moreover, you won't find logic in many parts. Just think, if the Russian girl is associated with the evil guys, then why they exploded her house?!
In the climactic sequence, the movie got utterly crazy: there is a nuclear reactor underground! To do what exactly?! MacGyver survived just because he reminded the Russian girl that her associate is a capitalist, so she killed the guy instantly.. What kind of nonsense is that?! Then, after MacGyver escaped from her, in such a childish way, he saved the whole world by a tennis racket! Aside from how terribly poor that gadget was, can anybody tell me what is a tennis racket doing in an underground nuclear reactor?!
And while it isn't MacGyver, it couldn't be Bond either, because there weren't Bond's dazzling backgrounds, impressive action, and big budget to make up for that script!
In one scene, when the lead was being informed that he couldn't leave the city after his friend's murder, a previous shot of him was reversed, in slow-motion?? Clearly, this movie didn't need more idiocy!
As for the virtues, the pace is fast, Beatie Edney was clever, Anderson is a reliable man in any case, director Charles Correll, who directed 19 episodes from MacGyver TV show, tried to infuse seriousness, but that script was a killer, giving us a hero that we don't know, in a muddled conflict!
My theory goes like this: this is a rejected 2 parts episode from the TV show, which - one way or another - made its way as a TV movie for the title character, after 2 years of the show's end. They wanted him to be Indiana Jones in his first movie MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis (1994), then James Bond in his second and last movie MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, which was aired 6 months after the first. And while it - somehow - worked in the first one, it didn't in the second. Well, why don't you let MacGyver be MacGyver?! He earned his big success by that!
As you see, MacGyver is in the title, but not in the movie. So how about being not that good movie in the first place. It's really disappointing to have this as the swan song of our childhood's hero. He, and us, deserved better.
First of all, this is not MacGyver; this is poor man's James Bond. For instance, I watch MacGyver for some reasons, on their top is his improvised-from-everyday-items gadgets. Though, this movie doesn't have any of them until the last 5 minutes!
Richard Dean Anderson, as the movie's executive producer, canceled his character's narration, which was familiar in the TV show, because - as he said - it used to insult the viewer's intelligence. Not only this, the character's theme music was canceled as well, which increased the feel of alienation towards our good old hero. So, in the end, what were left from him were just his name, and his looks. And sure that wasn't enough.
Moreover, you won't find logic in many parts. Just think, if the Russian girl is associated with the evil guys, then why they exploded her house?!
In the climactic sequence, the movie got utterly crazy: there is a nuclear reactor underground! To do what exactly?! MacGyver survived just because he reminded the Russian girl that her associate is a capitalist, so she killed the guy instantly.. What kind of nonsense is that?! Then, after MacGyver escaped from her, in such a childish way, he saved the whole world by a tennis racket! Aside from how terribly poor that gadget was, can anybody tell me what is a tennis racket doing in an underground nuclear reactor?!
And while it isn't MacGyver, it couldn't be Bond either, because there weren't Bond's dazzling backgrounds, impressive action, and big budget to make up for that script!
In one scene, when the lead was being informed that he couldn't leave the city after his friend's murder, a previous shot of him was reversed, in slow-motion?? Clearly, this movie didn't need more idiocy!
As for the virtues, the pace is fast, Beatie Edney was clever, Anderson is a reliable man in any case, director Charles Correll, who directed 19 episodes from MacGyver TV show, tried to infuse seriousness, but that script was a killer, giving us a hero that we don't know, in a muddled conflict!
My theory goes like this: this is a rejected 2 parts episode from the TV show, which - one way or another - made its way as a TV movie for the title character, after 2 years of the show's end. They wanted him to be Indiana Jones in his first movie MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis (1994), then James Bond in his second and last movie MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, which was aired 6 months after the first. And while it - somehow - worked in the first one, it didn't in the second. Well, why don't you let MacGyver be MacGyver?! He earned his big success by that!
As you see, MacGyver is in the title, but not in the movie. So how about being not that good movie in the first place. It's really disappointing to have this as the swan song of our childhood's hero. He, and us, deserved better.