Reviews

An enjoyably directed short, based on a captivating tale, with engaging characters, nice special effects and cinematography.

Its hard to rate a movie like this. The environments, photography, creature body suits and effects, Tangerine Dream soundtrack, and Jurgen Prochnow were fantastic. Unfortunately it was badly maimed when it was cut in half to be of normal theater running time, so characters and relationships change so suddenly and inexplicably as to be completely absurd, and most viewers didn't know this. And, frankly, some of the actors, while being good sports and well-intentioned, were pretty bad hams. So if you take the really good, the really bad, and the isolated knowledge that the movie was forcibly butchered by studio requirements you end up with a movie that some people love, some people hate.... a cult classic. Sadly I don't think it was ever even released in the U.S. on DVD??? For many years I wish I had a way to contact Michael Mann and ask him if he has the other half of the movie or if the studio kept it buried somewhere, I would dearly love to see the rest of it, even if its just raw footage. "Where am I from? I am..... from you!".

This movie had pretty much everything it should. The photography and scenery were very beautifully done. The cast was fun and varied, Cole Hauser especially was very intense and captivating and carried the movie well. There was plenty of suspense, horror, adventure, action, monsters, 3D graphics, the whole range. But a lot of people whine "Its just like Alien". While there are some similar elements between to two, I didn't think of Alien while watching it, and I've seen this movie a few times. Its hard to make a monster movie that DOESN'T have elements in common with others. After seeing some truly miserable movies that people give high marks too, I don't follow the low marks this movie got unless most of the self-important reviewers were from the "Shakespeare in the Park" set. This movie did what it set out to do, and in a fun picturesque way.

Disappointing. Not a thriller, any suspense scenes have no payoff. It may be a subtle ghost story but too subtle for its own good. The movie is slow to develop, the ghostly elements are supposed to seep in as you're lost in the atmosphere, but it shifts focus unexpectedly and awkwardly. The scenery was nice, including Emilia Clarke, but the movie seemed like another opportunity for her to get naked to get more viewers. I wish she would stop resorting to this. She's cute and captivating, the only reason we watched the whole thing, but it wasn't worth it. Her character, supposedly an experienced child therapist, mildly arrogant, is actually pretty inept with children which had me losing sympathy for her. The leading actor, who was not terribly impressive as Celeborn in LOTR, not terribly impressive here either, had a perpetual forced scowl and a sullen brooding demeanor that got old, until they later attempt to do some sudden character development on him as the characters are changing, but its too little too late. There was too much of a distraught kid that keeps running away over and over ad nauseum, I guess his endless running away was a technique for taking the viewer through the scenic environment but it got irritating. There are two other characters on site that are mainly for ambiance and don't pan out into much. The mother's character wasn't very well developed either, but depending on how you look at the plot maybe it didn't need to be. So if you like spending time watching Emilia Clarke and other nice scenery and don't need a whole lot more, you might like this movie. It could be summed up as "nice isolated scenery, a kid keeps running away, and Emilia Clarke gets naked again". I wish the voice from the stone had whispered to us to skip it, or at least not expect too much. PS: I should probably give the movie a little more than 2 stars, but I got tired of seeing 10-star reviews saying "Ooooh its gothic!! and subtle!!! and subtly gothic!!". Firstly, there's a difference between "subtle" and "boring", and while it may have been gothicesque I never really felt much depth to it, a quiet corner of Hogwarts would've been better immersion.