User Reviews

Every so often i have the opportunity to see a movie which isn't highly rated. Monolith (1993) was rated 4.3 at IMDb. This score is a lot higher than it really deserves. As a sci-fi fan, i don't care to much if a plot or props and such are unconvincing. Even the acting isn't a real issue for me. This film had a good plot (even if it is a bit stale) and the acting wasn't bad. So why the low score? Well, there are several things in this movie which destroy the immersion i'd like to get from a sci-fi movie. I'll give three examples. In the beginning of the movie, a 'deranged' woman tries to kill a young boy. She chases the boy in a car while the boy is running away. According to the sounds of the engine of the car, she's driving high speed and the car is moving really fast. Yet the boy, on foot, not really very fast, manages to keep ahead of the chasing car, nonetheless (1). He ducks into an alley and the car chases behind him. You can see the boy running in the ally with the car in the background. (The car isn't moving at all). The camera switches into the car and it's moving very fast (2). At the end of the movie the main characters jump from the departing flying saucer which flies at the top of the skyscrapers. Their drop only lasts about a second (3). The movie has lots of things like the three examples i've mentioned which made the movie an utter disappointment to me. Perhaps i've been spoiled during the years but if your wise, skip this movie and save yourself time for more pleasurable things to watch.

If that's what you want, go watch 2001. This is a bit of Hill Street Blues, a bit of Moonlighting, a bit of The Thing, and a bit of Lethal Weapon.

This movie tries every trick in the book;

• Two cops who argue and bicker is a tried and true formula, but they never seem to work up to the romantic twist.
• A grizzled police captain who's too old for this, but turns out to have a heart of gold.
• An evil, shady government department who prevent real cops from doing real work.
• And an alien who seems hellbent of achieving it's nefarious goals.

So two cops who can't stand each other, team up to take down an alien who has escaped a government lab. The alien uses humans as a host and kills anyone it comes into contact with (also shoots fireballs out of it's eyes). Unless you're the protagonist, then being possessed is just like a bad cold, you'll get over it.

The government tries to clean up it's own mess by torturing it's own scientists. That goes as well as expected. When the cops bust into their highly secured base of operations by sweet-talking the security guard, instead of arresting them and burying them in a hole where no-one will ever find them, they let them go. Then somehow track them down to a penthouse apartment the cops have never been to before, and attack them with a minigun from a helicopter. Subtle.

Storming the government building is easy now, as the recaptured alien has pretty much killed everyone and it turns out the whole building is built on top of a crashed alien spaceship, which it seems to successfully escape in, despite being the ship being on fire! Didn't see that coming.

Starring:

Stan Yale - the bum of bums is back (last seen with Paxton in Terminator)

Eddie Allen - Bio-member team #2, his first acting gig was the lead voice in the accidentally hilarious cartoon 'Star Blazers' (1979) (English adaptation of the anime 'Space Battleship Yamato'). Set in the year 2199, Earth is a radiated hellzone, we're at war against an alien race, and we've only got 1 ship left in the spacefleet. Contains hilarity such as; radar works in deep space, spaceships are designed exactly like seaships including a round bilge hull, distance between Pluto and Mars is negligible, Americans still can't bring themselves to use kilometers so they use megameters instead and Mars is covered in ice. Still 20x better than Dragonball Z.

Steve Blackwood - Bio-member team #1, best known for his role of Bart Beiderbecke (Days Of Our Lives, 700+ episodes)

Alex Gaona - little boy at the beginning of the movie, gets possessed by the alien, then shot (age 8). Started as a stuntman at age 6, in 'Hook'. What?! Comes from a line of circus performers, started training at age 2.

Musetta Vander - Russian scientist who seemingly got taught her accent by watching American B-movies from the 80s. Actually a music video dancer, played Sindel in 'Mortal Kombat: Annihilation'.

Louis Gossett Jr. - grizzled police captain, voice of the vortigaunt in HL2 Ep.1, my favorite roles of his are in 'Enermy Mine' and 'Diggstown' (aka Midnight Sting). He will also be in the upcoming Watchmen series.

John Hurt - secret government bad guy, best known for everything except this lucklustre, underdeveloped character. Bakshi's LoTR, 1984, Alien, Harry Potter, Midnight Express, and most importantly, narration on the album 'Seduction of Claude Debussy' by the greatest band in the world, Art Of Noise.

I have a confession to make: I like 'B' movies. Some can be very inventive while others are downright terrible. This movie falls somewhere in between the two poles. The plot of Monolith concerns a formless, shapeless alien presence which can transfer between bodies and gives its human hosts the ability of pyrokinesis. It also kills them after a fairly short time, but then again, it's an alien, it's been here before time began, so it really doesn't care much. And it's held by John Hurt who heads up the Department of Historical Research, which is a fancy name for a government black ops organization that tracks aliens.

Enter two cops, played by Bill Paxton and Lindsay Frost. They're at odds with each other from day one, yet form a grudging respect and affection for one another by the end of the flick. They stumble onto the government's plan and after chases, watching their commander (played well by Louis Gossett, Jr.) get killed, and poorly staged fights, they manage to thwart John Hurts' plans and all is well...sort of.

The good thing is director John Eyres manages to build some suspense with this flick in spite of working with a low budget. Paxton and Frost work well together even though the dialog between them--otherwise known as playful banter--is often stultifyingly bad. John Hurt overacts marvelously. His speech at the end ("I've earned this moment, I deserve this moment") should win an Oscar...or a Razzie. There's an amusing scene with a guard at the Department of Historical Research, an excellent good-cop/bad cop scene (very well edited, IMHO), and the music is surprisingly effective.

The downsides to this film begin with the title. With a name like 'Monolith' I was expecting some kind of immense stone structure. We get a spaceship instead. (It's pretty cool, but still...) The dialog also could have been a lot better. A lot. Really, I'm surprised that the leads managed to work up any sympathy for themselves with some of the lines they had to spout and that's due to good acting more than anything else. The explanation for Paxton's wife's death is never fully explored although it can be guessed from the flashbacks, but is underdeveloped. I really think if Eyres had been given a decent budget and the script had been worked on more, it could have been elevated into 'A' status. Sadly, it wasn't, but it's still a very likable film in spite of its deficiencies.

Monobore.

I bought this expecting a sci fi in the vein of 2001 – was I wrong!

All we had was a stupid story about a female vs male cop with all the clichés lifted out of every cop show ever.

The occasional dip into sci fi consisted of beings who were possessed by some spirit and had the ability to fry people with their eyes (yawn.)

Also just for good measure they included some nasty men-in-black who apparently knew everything and it was a big secret. The only bit of decent acting was John Hurt but his total dialogue was under 5 mins.

Didn't see any monolith.