Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones (2002) Movie Review

If you’ve seen any one of the “Star Wars” movies, then you’ve seen “Star Wars: Episode 2 — Attack of the Clones.” Every movie in the series is plotted exactly the same, with approximately 2 big action sequences followed by a final battle that closes things out....

September 5th, 2002 | Read More

V: The Original Mini-Series (1983) TV Review

I should probably preface this review of Kenneth Johnson’s “V” by saying that “V” made me love science fiction. In fact, while I had seen science fiction movies and TV before, I never really had much interest in it. That is, until “V.” The mini series first aired...

August 31st, 2002 | Read More

V: The Final Battle (1984) Mini-Series TV Review

Besides being a sequel to the immensely popular (back in 1983, that is) mini series “V”, and being blessed with an extra hour and a half of running time over the original (sans commercials), “V: The Final Battle” went to air without its mastermind, Kenneth Johnson, much to its...

August 31st, 2002 | Read More

Frequency (2000) Movie Review

“Frequency” is what you would call a high-concept film: it has the ability to sell itself in a single descriptive sentence. In this case: “A son somehow makes contact with his father 30 years in the past, averts the father’s death, but lets loose a serial killer.” That is...

August 15th, 2002 | Read More

Signs (2002) Movie Review

M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie, “Signs,” is about an invasion of Earth by aliens. Or at least that’s what the movie’s ads would have you believe. It’s actually about a fallen holy man (Mel Gibson), his failed baseball player brother (Joaquin Phoenix), and his children...

July 22nd, 2002 | Read More

Independence Day (1996) Movie Review

Filmmaking duo Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich have built their inseparable careers by making big-budget Hollywood summer event films. For those who don’t know, “summer event films” are Hollywood big budget movies that arrives drowning in the latest special effects, hits the theaters...

July 2nd, 2002 | Read More

Time Machine (2002) Movie Review

My enthusiasm for time travel movies is unending. Even after watching Simon Wells’ adaptation of novelist H.G. Wells’ famous novel, “The Time Machine,” I am still enthusiastic about the genre and look forward to the next one to come down the pipe. Which is a good thing, since...

July 1st, 2002 | Read More

Impostor (2002) Movie Review

Consider the evolution of “futuristic” sci-fi movies. Just a scant decade ago filmmakers would be thankful if they could just render a futuristic cityscape that looks something like their vision. Models and matte painting were often used; those were primitive tools compared to the CGI-inspired...

June 28th, 2002 | Read More

Rollerball (2002) Movie Review

Rollerball stars Chris Klein as Jonathan Cross, an extreme sportsman who achieves superstar status in Rollerball, a futuristic game where people skate and motorbike around a small arena throwing steel balls at a target to score points. (Huh?) Cross and his fellow Rollerballers, Aurora (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos)...

June 27th, 2002 | Read More

Jason X (2002) Movie Review

Jason X is actually the 10th installment in the Friday the 13th series, which garnered mass appeal in the “˜80s with its heavy themes of teenage sex, bloodletting, teenage sex, more bloodletting, and even more teenage sex. Like other horror series trying to find their way in the new millennium,...

June 20th, 2002 | Read More

Waterworld (1996) Movie Review

1995’s Waterworld is the ultimate “troubled project.” When James Cameron’s Titanic was in production, the name Waterworld kept coming up over and over. The insinuation was that the big studios that had greenlit Cameron’s opus was in trouble on the grand scale of Waterworld....

May 1st, 2002 | Read More

The Thing (1982) Movie Review

There are essentially two types of Last Stand in a Haunted House movie, ones made for teens and ones made for adults. Much of the conventions of a Last Stand in a Haunted House movie apply to both types (re: different characters in the same boat surrounded by something trying to kill them) with some...

April 14th, 2002 | Read More

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) Movie Review

I will first grant you that I find the main premise behind Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to be just a little silly, with its focus on the Earth as a “living being” with a spirit and other such New Age nonsense. Then again, what did you expect going into a movie called Final Fantasy? A...

March 14th, 2002 | Read More

Soldier (1997) Movie Review

Soldier is not a deep movie. It’s a sometimes too-violent film, but it’s never boring. At least, I never found it to be boring. The plot is a simple one: old supersoldier Todd and his group of supersoldiers, trained since birth to be killing machines, are replaced by another group of supersoldiers...

February 11th, 2002 | Read More

Pitch Black (2000) Movie Review

“Pitch Black” is a Last Stand in a Haunted House movie with a couple of variations on the formula: the haunted house is a sun-scorched planet with 3 suns and the ghosts are alien creatures that shuns light. Writer/director David Twohy, who chooses a bleached-out look for the film, gives the...

January 21st, 2002 | Read More

Evolution (2001) Movie Review

Evolution is an odd movie. It’s a movie with science fiction elements and bathroom-level humor. The characters are cardboard cutouts and not a single one of them should be doing what they’re doing in the movie. For instance, Orlando Jones’ character, a geologist and professor, acts,...

January 13th, 2002 | Read More

Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace (1999) Movie Review

Selling a Star Wars movie to the moviegoing public is like selling blood to vampires. You know they want it, they know they want it, and not any amount of bad press or bad reviews about the movie (or blood) is going to put them off from getting it. This is the dilemma (if you can call it that) for Star...

December 27th, 2001 | Read More

Ghosts of Mars (2001) Movie Review

Ghosts of Mars is officially called John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars. This is because John Carpenter is a horror fan favorite, and the horror fans are a group of people who are known for their fanatical dedication to the genre regardless of quality (or lack thereof). Ghosts of Mars has an intriguing...

December 26th, 2001 | Read More

The One (2001) Movie Review

In The One, we are told there are 125 universes parallel to our own (another take on the tried and true sci-fi The Parallel Universe movie), and in each universe there is a copy of us who shares our energy, or life force. When one of our doppelganger dies in another universe, his life energy is transferred...

December 26th, 2001 | Read More

The Matrix (1999) Movie Review

So why am I writing a full review of a movie everyone has already seen and likes enough that the producers are already at work on Parts 2 and 3? For one, I am personally at odds over the movie. Like millions of fans out there, I adore the movie for its mixture of Eastern martial arts and Western technology...

December 14th, 2001 | Read More