Reviews

What a brilliant comedy duo they were; these two were to Hollywood what Morcambe and Wise were to British TV. Always one of my film favourites, Wilder was at his comedy best when twinned with Pryor, and vice versa; they just seem to bounce off each other and this film is the perfect medium for them to do that. It is one of their best, one of THE best. My favourite moment..?

Wilder to Pryor: I would tell you how I feel about you, but at the moment I'm overwhelmed by the stink of the 7,000 tonnes of garbage you just drove us into!!! Pryor to Wilder: Is that what it is??? I thought you let one go, that's why I didn't say anything! Wilder to Pryor: That was KIND of you...

For me it wasn't about the truly dreadful killer pig, but the sheer menace exuded by the horrific brothers. I watched it nearly 30 years ago when I was 20-21 and I still haven't forgotten it.

I thought the film was slow to start and rather dull too. I would have thought the film total rubbish, but some of the acting redeemed it a bit for me and made it one of the most chilling films I have seen - yes, really. I was young and impressionable then though and I would like to see it again to see if it still chills me. I daresay it's more of a chick flick really, cos it's the sort of film a guy might use to scare his girl into his arms I would think.

I will never forget the moment the nice old bearded hobo wakes up in the desert to find his distressed dog sniffing about his injured legs... that bit was the worst for me. Oh that, and did I mention the sheer horribleness of those brothers? One was dim and one was psycho and had insane eyes. Ugh!

Just quite what the production team were trying to achieve over and above what has already been done with the Hulk rather escaped me. "Look what we can do with the computer graphics!" seems to be the theme here, and all I got left thinking was "Okay, what a shame Lou Feringo didn't want the part..." Quite a nice story, but of course that was already laid down. I thought the monster was laughable; ET was very much better- and how long ago was that done? It's okay for the kids though, and the acting's okay. It's just a shame about the animations, although I must admit to enjoying the bit where the Hulk gets the better of a pack of nasty dogs. That's about all though. I preferred the original David Banner too, but I suppose it's not the done thing to look much over 30 these days, is it? The rest of the film is okay, just not the Hulk bits, and surely the Hulk is the main point of the film, isn't it? Not a patch on the old 80s TV series, no way.

With the typical scepticism of someone who has seen and admired the original, I wasn't expecting that much of this film, but the reviews I read suggested it may be worth a look. I found the original a haunting and tricky movie in many ways, and was fully prepared for a dumbed down version. What I got was a slickly filmed and credibly spooky horror, which was sufficiently different to the original as to hold my attention until the climax.

As already stated in a review here, the scenery and cinematography is stunning, and although I didn't think the plot was quite as clever as the original, the professional style of the acting and filming more than made up for it. God bless Hollywood!

Not quite as haunting as the original, but is this because I'd seen it before? Well, that can never be known, but whether or not you saw the Edward Woodward version (and as this film makes clear - it is after all Woodward's film when all's said and done) this film is an intriguing way to spend an enjoyable couple of hours without disappointment. I'm not sure I liked the final twist as don't think it added anything to the film, and the viewers' imagination could probably add that in anyway, but it didn't spoil the film.

I guess I'm not amongst the average viewers who found this a mediocre film. For sure it is slow-paced in places, but there are some fantastic scenes and great filmography. Oldman is the undoubted star and this is one of the few films in which I quite liked his character. He's a good actor. Bacon is mediocre in this, but the plot although nothing special does allow a great scene in which the baddie (Bacon) fights with Oldman's lastest flame and that is one very very good scene. She fights like a real woman would fight when cornered - feisty, no rules, all instinct, a real cornered rat. That is one cool scene! I reckoned the film was worth watching, just for that alone, but Oldman is good, very good. Questionable hair, but great acting.

Unlike some others, I was not impressed at all with the dolphin song at the beginning, as I felt this kind of pseudo-Broadway enthusiasm was out of place in something so out of the ordinary as Hitch Hikers' Guide.

I never liked the British TV series; in part this was because of the restrictions that visuals place upon the imagination, and in part this was because Zaphod's polystyrene second head never worked for me. I was gratified therefore to see that the head issue was dealt with in a more tasteful (if even less believable) manner, and the arm was really quite wittily introduced but never really exaggerated (which was a good thing). Nice touch too, I think, that the whale's introduction to life was dubbed with the original from the radio series. At least, I'd lay money that it was.

I didn't like Ford Prefect much, although he was okay. I much preferred the Trillian in this to the Trillian played by Sandra Dickenson in the TV series, as the book clearly states she is a brunette. Much, much, better, once I'd got over the accent (sorry, but I got very used to Susan Sherridan's Trillian before I ever saw a screen version, and I will never get used to the idea of Trillian being an American).

I liked the Zaphod in the film much better too. He was so much more convincing than the TV version, although I wouldn't call him the worst dressed sentient being because I know people who dress MUCH worse than that! Still, he was good. Even the changes in storyline were okay, fairly seamless, and of course Freeman is good, although possibly lacks the complete anal uptightness that for me characterises a really realistic Aurther Dent. But I suppose he needed to tone that down, to make one of the other changes in plot believable...

I didn't like the Vogons much, but then again who does? And did the spiteful female have to have a British accent yet again? Let's just say, you can tell this film is hugely influenced by the US... Even so, it has managed to retain a lot of the humour and is definitely worth seeing, even for the purist. I enjoyed it (and I'm purist enough to know that the the original writer of the worst poetry ever written was, in fact, a man; I think he had a sex change for legal reasons. Besides, there's a lot of that goes on in the BBC anyway...)

A friend of mine brought the DVD round to have with tortilla chips and a home made salsa - and to ask me what I thought it was about. At first viewing I loved it for the sound track, but thought it was weird and didn't really understand it at all. A year later, at second viewing I thought that maybe I did. Perhaps not all of it, but the important thing for me behind it all.

Donny's lesson is the effect that one life can have on all those around them, or at least could have done. What you see is a good deal of happiness and enlightenment and a justice which is anarchic yet poetic is brought into the lives of others by this obviously somewhat ill young man.

Yes, he's ill, that much is very clear. That night he goes to his room, having been teased by his sisters and nagged about his medication, feeling sad, his mum does try to help. Then the fuselage lands, and the crossroads has been reached. Only then do we get a glimpse of life with Donny and without him; the first, full of weirdness admittedly, but a great deal of humour and touching ordinary life stuff with love and parties and good stuff, and the second showing the people who never had the chance to have those good times either with or because of him.

I have become sure that the falling fuselage is a metaphor. I am surprised to hear this called a comedy, for to me it is far from it. Yes, it has humour, but its primary purpose is to make us think, to ponder a life, a death, not to make us laugh. The second time I saw it, I cried when I realised. As a depressive, or perhaps even a schizophrenic, Donny felt under unbearable pressure as represented by the fuselage. That half of his family were aboard the plane was the irony, and almost certainly part of the metaphor for the pressure he was under.

Donny, I think, killed himself; the film is telling us how much of a waste that is. I'm sure we know that much already, but that's what it said to me. And weird though he was, which of us didn't think Donny was a hero? Yet he felt himself worthless and couldn't bear his own life any more.

But it's still a fantastic soundtrack.

lazylaurablue

This film gets the 10/10 rating in my book as although I am not 100% sure I understand it fully, it is possibly that little bit of remaining intrigue that makes me love it. Maybe it's because I'm middle-aged and slow of brain that I have to watch it twice before I work out what's really going on, and a third time just to be sure, and yet a fourth time to make sure I haven't missed anything the third time. Is/was Teddy a bad guy or is/was he just trying to do his job the best way he knows how, and give Lenny a purpose too? And Natalie, is she bad or just angry? Maybe the plot really is that convoluted. In my opinion, rather.

Lennie, in his own quest for revenge with his inability to make new memories, hard as he may try, is the perfect vehicle for anyone like Natalie smart enough to use for their own purposes. Everyone is using this guy, from Natalie to the hotel clerk; if he knows he doesn't care, well not for long anyway, most importantly he has to kill John G.

"Remember Sammy Jankis". It appears that Teddy is the first person to take advantage of Lennie by using him to bump off an undesirable, but it's hard to tell from the film whether Teddy has persuaded him that his wife was murdered by junkies or if Lennie has persuaded himself of it because of an inability to accept the awful truth. Or maybe he doesn't remember the truth, maybe Sammy Jankis' story is that close to the truth.

I love it. I'm not sure if there's a philosophical point to the movie, but it's a very, very clever idea, beautifully acted by all. If you want some food for thought and a plot so convoluted it takes more than one viewing to unravel it to it's full extent, this is an excellent film.

I don't know if it's me that's changed, but I've never made it more than 20 minutes through "Pulp Fiction". "Reservoir Dogs" nauseated me because I hate gratuitously violent films, and "Natural Born Killers" crept upon me when I had fallen asleep after a drinking session at a friend's house, and left me with no desire to do anything other than continue sleeping.

Maybe I just watched them all at the wrong times...

"Kill Bill Volume 1" however, now that's different. Like a lot of people, I didn't know much about it until I heard a review for Volume 2. I got hold of a copy of "1" and watched it last night. It's the best entertainment I've had this year! I was riveted to the screen. Uma Thurman is truly excellent, and in a film full of charactures she comes across as a real person. Stunning. Or maybe that's a worrying comment on my own perception! At any rate, the point was well and truly got across.

This is no average film in any way. Yes, the violence is horrific; I found myself thinking "what on earth am I watching this monstrous film for!?", but unable to stop watching it. It is done in such a stylised, often tongue-in-cheek, and sometimes outright funny way that it's simply about conveying a message, the anger. And that is achieved in no uncertain terms. This is a simple, raw revenge tale, made interesting by my sympathy with Thurman's character. It IS horrific, but it's about righteous anger and fury, and that makes it seem almost okay. Thurman efficiently got me on side very early on, and from then on it's goodies and baddies, really good, gripping stuff. I don't know what that says about me and I don't care to analyse myself too much there! Who cares if they bleed all over the place, they're the baddies and they deserve it, that's how it should work isn't it? And I, for one, can't wait to see Vol. 2 to find out just what happens next.

Loved it, loved it, loved it!!!!!!!