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Scary Movie somehow ended up with an R rating, which in a sense is groundbreaking; perhaps our ratings board is loosening up after all. No, the biggest surprise here is not the story as much as the amount of full-frontal male nudity. Really, in addition to all the dick jokes (and the ass jokes and fart jokes), there's a couple of shots of the male member, one of which is erect and used as a weapon. The law of averages says some of them have to hit, and enough of them do to keep the movie entertaining. --Andy Spletzer . That's okay, though, because this is a parody, and it helps to know the story in order to be able to get the jokes. If you've seen Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, then you know the entire plot of Scary Movie. Special credit must go to Lochlyn Munro as Greg... see description |
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And how could it be otherwise? Why should material so perfectly realized in one medium necessarily translate well into another? The series is crisply and thoughtfully executed in just about every detail, but the heart of its appeal lies in the elegant handling of complicated and evolving ongoing story lines, which is not something movies are especially good at. The big-screen drive for closure cramps the creative style, though it may also help nonfans get a grip on the proceedings. They uncover a new wrinkle in the Syndicate/Cancer Man conspiracy--basically an attempt to help one bunch of (benign?) aliens fight off another bunch who want to colonize Earth. The definitive American television series of the '90s comes to the big screen with an anticlimactic whimper. We do get some invigor... see description |
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Spock, that beloved characters "never really die. With its deadly Klingon confrontation, the Leonard Nimoy-directed Search for Spock was a thrilling (albeit contrived) excuse for Spock's inevitable resurrection, and its somber tone was readily countered by the Earth-based humor of Nimoy's The Voyage Home, combining a planetary crisis with a lively--and phenomenally popular--time-travel plot line. Devoted Star Trek fans will surely cite the "even number" rule in evaluating the Original Crew Movie Collection, but all six of these films qualify as rousing entertainment. Undeniably, the even-numbered films in Paramount's lucrative Trek franchise tended to be the best, as demonstrated by the superiority of The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country. --Jeff Shannon . ... see description |
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The cult television show (in which a hapless space explorer and his robot pals are forced to watch and deliver a hilarious running commentary on bad movies) makes a successful transition to the big screen as Mike and the 'bots lay waste to the '50s sci-fi yarn This Island Earth (a painfully stiff would-be epic that's actually a cut above the usual MST3K fare). While ardent fans may be a little miffed that more advantage isn't taken of the expanded theatrical venue (aside from a tad more scatological humor than usual, the content here would fit in comfortably as a regular episode of the series), the nonstop, hyper-literate salvo of comedy riffs that run the gamut from references to Tommy Chong's backyard to Yes album covers more than make up for any conceptual complacency. --Andrew Wright... see description |
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How's this for a Twilight Zone kind of irony? The movie version of Rod Serling's landmark sci-fi TV series turns out to be less memorable than the episodes upon which it was based. Despite the presence of four of-that-moment directors, the film--based on three TV episodes and one original idea--is remembered more for its prologue (starring Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks) and for its offscreen tragedy (the death of star Vic Morrow and two children when a helicopter crashed while filming a key scene). --Marshall Fine . The best segment of the film centers on John Lithgow as a deliriously overexcited airline passenger, whose very active fear of flying is embodied in the gremlin he (and only he) sees on the plane's wing, wreaking havoc with the film's engine. Otherwise, the film's high-glo... see description |
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