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Based on author Michael Crichton's novel, this action-packed film is no "Indiana Jones", but seems to have the soul of the "Jones" films. The story revolves around an expedition to find a another expedition which was lost in the jungle of the Congo. The action and special effects are very cool and exciting, but the acting is not so smooth. There are three major problems of this film. The first is the Gorillas of the film. I had heard that the new gorilla masks were able to fool someone standing ten feet from the actor's in suits. To be honest with you, I couldn't see how they could fool anyone from a hundred feet, let alone ten.The second is the acting in the film is full of the typical stereotypes. Tim Curry, who is usually better in other films, probably comes out the worst. He plays a Romanian interested in finding an ancient city. Curry's accent is the worst and even if it's just a gag accent, it's very stereotypical and an insult to anybody of Romanian birth. The third problem in this is that awful swelling music during dramatic scenes. Enough already!!! The best performance in the cast is Ernie Hudson ("Ghostbusters" and "The Crow") as the expert hunter. He actually makes something of his performance, which would have been a complete disaster with anyone else. The action, Hudson's performance and possibly the "performance" by a "gorilla" named Amy.
This is probably not sticking to the original story, but the three above mentioned things keep this from being a bad film.
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One of the letter's I got recently said that teens are not interested in classics and foreign films. But, there have been other's who have written to me saying that they have seen plenty of classics and loved them, and most of them are people between the ages of 13 and 20. This film, Akira Kurosawa's Ran was one of the films they liked and one of the films I liked. It is basically a Japanese version of Shakespeare's "King Lear". Instead of daughters, there are three sons who vie for power over the divided kingdom, which they inherited from their aging warlord father (Tatsuya Nakadai, in an excellent performance as the Lear character).It's a little slow in the beginning, but it picks up with two of Kurosawa's famed gigantic battle scenes. Of Kurosawa's films, this is his most violent. There is also a woman in here who is the most evil of women I have ever seen. This is a fantastic film and I want the teens that enjoy classic film and literature, like myself, to write to me and prove this guy wrong. Maybe you've already seen this film. If not, you will certainly enjoy it.
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A film version of the classic animated series. That's all you really need to know. The plot isn't much, except that Fred Flintstone (John Goodman) becomes an executive at his company...which is really an evil scheme by Kyle MacLachlan and Halle Berry as the bad guys. The film has good special effects and it's an okay film for kids and people who grew up watching the show, but it's just a live action version of the old show. Nothing new, and the uncanny performances from the likes of Goodman, Rosie O'Donnell, Rick Moranis and Elizabeth Perkins only help a little. There is a funny performance by Elizabeth Taylor as Fred's mother-in-law, but other than that, it isn't worth paying money for, on either video or in the theater. I suggest if you really want to see this film, wait until it comes out on cable or network TV.
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This was an excellent film. Now, most people thought that when I gave "Forrest Gump" a four-star review, they thought I liked this better than "Pulp Fiction" and "Shawshank". I never said anything of the sort or even hinted towards it. In fact, I think that "Pulp" was robbed of six of the Oscars it should have gotten. This film is about a prisoner (Tim Robbins) wrongly accused of murder who spends 19 years in a hell-hole of a prison. He has one good friend named Red (Morgan Freeman in his best performance ever) who has been in jail longer than Robbins and knows that it doesn't help to keep hoping for a miracle to happen in prison.The settings, acting, direction and screenplay were excellent and were robbed of the Oscars they should have gotten. It's interesting that Stephen King wrote this, since he does mostly horror novels (except for "Stand By Me", another excellent non-fiction story). This is one of the films you should definitely rent.
Visit the prison (online) where this movie was filmed! Mansfield Reformatory
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