Reviews

Zach is an early twenties, all round good guy from the poor side of town. Utterly devoted to caring for the remnants of his family; his poorly father, his flighty party-girl sister and his nephew, her son Cody.

He is not currently in a relationship with his intermittent ex- girlfriend, and spends what little free time he can get, ( between babysitting his nephew and a low paid short order cooking job ) surfing or painting his graffiti art around the neighbourhood.

While his rich kid best friend Gabe goes off on on a camping road trip with a load of buddies, Zach needs to stay home to care for his family.

Popping up to Gabe's house one day while Gabe is still away to wax his surf long-board that he keeps at Gabe's house, he bumps into Gabe's older brother Shaun, who has returned home, getting away from LA following a relationship break-up.

The guys hit it off immediately and decide to go surfing. As they get to know each other they become good friends.

As gradually an attraction develops between Zach and Shaun, Zach needs to face down a conflict of thoughts, emotions, desires, realisations and acceptance, as well as dealing with family ties, his future, and a host of other important considerations and obligations.

This is a well rounded, well balanced and quite realistic tale. In practice, reality can be even more complicated and painful, but there's a limit to what you can do in 90 minutes!

I feel that this was handled with kindness and sensitivity and was a sweet movie, that had a bigger emphasis on the drama than on the romance to be honest.

Being from prudish Hollywood, and being a movie with an LGBTQ emphasis, there's zero sex or nudity.

Was interesting to see a few places around the Bay area and the acting was very good, the script was decent, the dialogue plausible and well delivered and the sound, lighting and photography was very good.

It's a pleasant LGBT romance/drama, and whilst I don't feel that it has the depth and re-watchability of some similar Brazilian and Latin American movies, it left me feeling good, which is what I watch a movie to achieve.

Definitely one to watch if you want a lightweight but ultimately satisfying LGBT drama.

Something I've always liked about a lot of Argentine, Brazilian, Spanish and other Hispanic cine productions is their attitudes to homosexuality, specifically in relation to gay men.

A gay Mexican friend of mine assures me that Latino society is just as ignorant, bigoted, homophobic and prone to hate crimes as USA, UK and much of western Europe, and nearly all of Eastern Europe, and that any kindness and acceptance is something that happens only on-screen and not in real life. I can't speak from experience, - I've never been there, this is just what I've been told.

I find it perverse that heterosexual men are so traumatised by any visible affection between two of their own gender that they try to eradicate even the very idea, and make such men suffer and make them understand that it will only lead to sadness, pain and death. There's something really unhealthy about that constantly hostile, interfering and overwhelming negativity.

Such negativity has thankfully been predominantly absent from much of Gay-oriented cine originating from Latin-American countries and Spain for a very long time.

Sadly, however, it seems that even in places like Argentina, big money is starting to take more of an interest in grasping more of the pink peso, pink dollar or pink pound and bigger names are starting to muscle in... and, predictably are starting to push that same old message we've been getting for decades from the heterosexual studios of Hollywood and its clones... the message that homosexuality is wrong/of the Devil and going to lead to unhappiness, unrequited love, probably HIV+AIDS etc etc etc.

It's all a little tiresome, and anyone who's gay and been around a while has heard it all before.

Esteban Masturini, who was amazing as Jéronimo in the movie, Esteros, is here, this time as Javier, the cameraman, though he has a very different role to play, despite initial appearances, from his earlier role as Jéronimo. Expect it.

I've lately taken to researching any gay cine producion I'm considering buying in advance of watching it, to verify whether it will have a happy ending or not because so much content which is called a "romance" in hetero cinema always does, and almost ALL gay romance always does not.

With cine, it's about 90% straight romances have happy endings and 90% of gay romances have unhappy endings in my experience.

This disparity makes me angry and sad. I no longer pay money out of my pocket to be made sad and angry all over again.

Gay men are humans; and, like all humans, we like to be happy sometimes too... and not always a target.

So, finally, to talk about this show.... I watched on a free to air streaming service with adverts. I was going to pay money for it on disc, but for reasons mentioned above, I will not.

Synopsis: Daniel is a pretty average, generally all-round nice guy who has a middle seniority role in a small advertising agency, working with a small group of eccentrics, and having regular sex with a rather domineering woman that he works with.

He is fully aware that is also somewhat attracted to men but has never acted on this side of his sexuality.

A new, handsome and alluring cameramen, Javier, gets hired and there is something of an instant spark between them.

Thoughts on the show: The acting of the majority of the cast is a bit average to be honest although Milton Rosés as Daniel is really good and absolutely excellent, giving this central role great depth, making him entirely understandable and believable.

Esteban Masturini (Javier) is very seductive but not given the depth of character, or script lines, or screen time, to work with as when he was Jéro in Esteros. Piter, though not particularly likeable, is well played though the credits info here doesn't specify who the actor is, and the guy playing Mario played a very kind and understanding best mate.

I think part of the problem is that presumably budget constraints meant that this needed to be made in "bite-size snippets of a life" format - each of the eight episodes barely running to even twenty minutes, including credits.

They didn't have a lot of time to squeeze in what they did, so despite the somewhat middling script, scant script lines and limited plot I think they did ok.

The entire plot was simplistic and could be summarised, in depth, in just a few short sentences, and as such I won't touch on the plot any further because there's so little of it, almost any details could be spoilers.

The camerawork was very good and catching the glances between guys at significant moments was excellently done. The trip location was beautiful and it would have been highly desireable to have seen much more of it, and the time there to have been expanded.

There is no nudity, though Esteban Masturini does briefly flash some very sexy underwear.

It would appear that The Bonsai Kid love stories of 'Esteros' were a legitimate criticism of such a Jéro as made it to this show.

If you like Esteban Masturini in this, definitely worth watching Esteros which is a sweet film and is much better, more though provoking, and kinder, than this.

I've rated it 7 star but I feel it really deserves no more than 6.5. There is much more they could have done with this cast, some of whom are really good actors, and the script - specifically the actual plot, could have been better. I don't think it could be considered a spoiler to say simply that the ending is bittersweet, and wasn't neccesary. You will need to watch the show to find out how it plays out.

It did make me feel less charitable towards the Scriptwriter, Editor, Director and even towards Dekkoo who produced and released it... an apparently Gay-friendly streaming company I HAD been considering taking out a subscription with.

Overall, nothing special. I don't feel like my life or understandings were enriched or enhanced in any way by this show - it was kind of 'meh!". It portrayed a young man coming to terms with his non-hetero sexuality in quite a sweet fashion and it was nice to see Esteban Masturini again. Also I will definitely be checking out other stuff with Milton Rosés as he was really good.

Afterword:

There is so much unhappiness in the gay world, there are terrible things happing with the climate, looming massive extinctions, depletion of the oceans, wars in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, terrible diseases destroying lives, hunger, persecution, misery.

The world is not such a nice place to anyone any more.

It would NICE if an escape into the fictional world of cine, espcially gay cine, for those who wish to partake of it, could be a more generally happy experience.

Perhaps companies who produce such gay movie and TV content could kindly appreciate that a constant diet of cineastic misery is going to lead to people hitting the power button on their remotes and firing up music or a video game instead.

This is an unusual film as far as LGBTQ movies go because whilst there is a problem which needs to be overcome for love to blossom, the being gay aspect is not a problem, not in any way.

This plot twist would be every bit as complex in a heterosexual situation.

So the two young men have a friendly chat after playing for opposing teams in a game of "mudball" and decide to get to know each other better. Turns out they really like each other but fate, or Hollywood, has a put a fly in their ointment of love.

A tragedy from the past comes back like a bolt from the blue to be a major obstacle to any possible future the guys might want to plan together.

This is another short LGBTQ movie that is rather lightweight on content - there's not a lot happening throughout, and the plot really isn't very complex either so I won't say any more about it as I wouldn't want to risk writing a spoiler to what little plot there is.

It's an ok film and my 7/10 is probably more generous than it deserves. Really a 6.5 is more appropriate rating.

It could have done with more everything really, plot, things happening, dialogue, and the ending felt like "ok, it's a wrap. Time go go home, people."

It just left me feeling that the plot had the potential to yield a more involving movie in the hands of a more interested scriptwriter and more intense director.

It is what it is. Not a good film, but not a bad one either, just a bit bland, imo. Had a real "made for TV" feel to it - which maybe it was. I don't know.

Matias, a young professional biologist returns from Brazil to visit the Argentine town where he grew up, almost dragged there by his Brazilian girlfriend, to celebrate both her cousin's graduation, and the local carnival.

Matias is a brooding, moody and intense character who hates crowds, quite unlike his bubbly, party-loving girlfriend.

Chance, or fate, determines that he should meet with his childhood best friend, the cheerful and now openly gay, Jero, from the time before the boys' friendship was severed by Matias' father taking a job in Brazil.

As the plot isn't complex I won't head into spoiler territory. This movie uses a fair bit of flashbacks showing the young men when they were kids, and it does so really well, making the story feel more full and meaningful than you'd expect from a rather short film.

Suffice it to say that the guys chat about old times and pick up the friendship where it got broken off by external factors, ten years ago.

The ambience, the lighting, the beauty of nature, the sense of peace and spaces, and all the interractions, many of them subtle, broken glances between the two leads make this a really poetic movie.

It's a fairly short and mostly uncomplicated LGBT feel-good movie. One for when you want to watch something happy.

My only criticism is that the way the ending played out felt rushed and curtailed, and it wasn't quite clear whether the result was a matter of choice, and the manner of choosing.

I've watched this a few times now because there is a lot of subtlety in the interactions that are easy to miss first time around, and it's such a nice film.

Cousins / Primos is wonderful, light-hearted, fun, kind and mildy homoerotic. For all that its story is quite simple, slightly surreal and idealised, it's very sweet and the charisma, warmth and connection of the actors makes this very tender, and one of my all time favourite movies to watch, again, when I want something happy and feel-good.

When it comes to LGBTQ movies I seem to have developed a taste for Brazilian and Latin American movies and TV because I've observed that they consistently show a tenderness and compassion that in my opinion is substantially lacking in the generally rather dull and stuffy British film industry. Meanwhile, Hollywood seems to alternate between ludicrously stereotyped effeminate clowning antics, or yet one more coming out / coming of age type movie, or a high likelihood of another movie portrayal of homophobia/internalised homophobia, maybe with hate and murder too. I don't watch movies to feel bad.

So to Primos.... Cousins....

Lucas is a quiet, reserved and rather insular young man who lives with his deeply religious maiden aunt, Dona Lourdes, who holds weekly prayer groups for the local ladies in a small rural town, where Lucas plays organ music accompaniments to hymns.

Lucas's aunt announces that she needs to go away for a few days on a religious retreat but before heading off, she lets him know she is taking in one of Lucas's similarly-aged cousins to stay for a short while, starting tomorrow - until the lad's family issues can be resolved - because he's just been released from jail.

She's a loving and kind lady who always wishes to help and is sure that a mortified Lucas would, of course, want to do the kind and charitable thing too....?! :)

Lucas, is rather shy, well-mannered and timid (despite his tattoos and gauged ear-holes)... whereas Mario swaggers up to the house the next day, smoking a joint, and extremely self-confident - a total opposite of Lucas in many ways.

Additionally a predatory young girl from the prayer group has her eye on handsome young Lucas Hantz, and her own ideas for the future.

I won't go into spoiler territory and as the plot is not very complex, so I'll simply say that this a film to just watch and enjoy the friendship develop and the gentle fun being poked at conservative values.

It's a low budget movie with very good acting - even down to the psychotic, jealous antagonist and works well to show that in the end, love and kindness still exists.

The actor who plays Mario also wrote and co-directed the film. I have this on Blu-ray and in his commentary he mentions how sometimes, when he's fishing for plot ideas he'll get in his car and drive to somewhere nice to experience the beauty of nature, the sun, the gentle breeze; and this film, for him, was intended to represent just that... a gentle breeze, in a nice enjoyable environment that will make you feel good.

I would say he absolutely achieved exactly what he set out to do. 100%. This is MY feel good movie.

If you're after a happy, feel-good movie that's not complicated, with a light touch of humour running through it then this is a just such a sweet, heart-warming and fun way to pass an hour and twenty minutes.

Oh, for the record, the music soundtrack is awesome. Total respect to whoever took care of the music throughout which was consistently perfect!

As a further note, the included English subtitles on the Blu-ray disc are very inaccurate. Whilst my Portuguese is not exactly fluent, I understand more than enough to understand most of what is spoken, and there's nothing more annoying than for instance listening to 10 seconds of dialogue to see the subtitle say something like "no thanks!" when anyone can see and hear that that is clearly NOT a translation of what was just said on screen.

There exist sites on the www that are dedicated to free subtitles and I know for a fact that MUCH better subtitles are available for Cousins / Primos than the ones programmed onto the disc.

Better subtitles will be a huge benefit to any English speaker who wishes to properly understand and enjoy this movie.

In fact, I encourage you to check for better subtitles for ANY foreign language movie as, you never know, there might be better subtitles available! It certainly won't hurt to look!

I was deeply touched by this movie. It breaks a number of taboos to tell a tale of intense love spanning decades, from birth.

The movie starts with Francisco a boy of six waiting to see his new-born half-brother Thomas, the son of his mother with her new husband.

Francisco is very kind and tender towards his younger brother who he loves and protects.

As the boys grow up their closeness and sweet, platonic love remains intense as the two half brothers adore each other.

In most societies even today in still sexually repressive 2024, any kind of warmth between two males must, under all circumstances come with a strict "no homo" bro brag, anything else is still mostly regarded as obscene and intolerable by our arrogant, superior, homophobic, repressive, narrow-minded and histrionic social obligations, where established religions have always played, and continue to play the role of greatest murderers.

This movie makes it quite clear that other peoples' ignorant and arrogant judgments and opinions don't matter. They don't matter at all.

As the boys grow to teens still intensely close to each other, their relationship entirely a-sexual, family members and close family friends notice the boys' closeness and comment on it, wondering how it will play out as the teens grow up.

Incestuous relationships are generally considered unacceptable and the primary reason is usually considered to be because of the risk of genetic problems for offspring. Obviously, in a homosexual male relationship there simply aren't going to be any offspring, whether that relationship is incestuous or not, so this cannot be considered a valid reason for condemenation - but society loves to condemn anyway; condemning whatever the churches, the mosques, the synagogues, the temples and corporations teach it to condemn.

This movie shows that it is possible to think, and act, and live, outside the box into which society is constantly trying to place us.

This movie is first and foremost about love. A love so deep, so intense and all-encompassing there is no room in this love for games, nor for the cruelty of the outside world.

I am not sure that most of us will ever be able to experience the depth of love that Francisco and Thomas have for each other. Absolutely, it's idealized in some ways - there's an element of the surreal about this movie, but it achieves remarkably well imo, exactly what it was meant to do... break taboos, anger bigots and demonstrate that love between two men, even in such as situation as portrayed here with two half-brothers, is love; pure and utterly selfless love; and society can get lost if it thinks it has any right to criticise.

This is not a pornographic film. There is some nudity - Brazil isn't as homophobic and terrified of showing male genitalia as many other societies, but the nudity is pretty limited and appropriate to the scenes.

This movie really classifies as a tender and thought provoking romance, and it's deeply moving.

Personally I think it could have gone another five minutes if only to show the guys a few years on, but we will just have to guess. Quite simply one of most heart-warming films I've seen in decades.

This is an intriguing movie. It's not big on dialogue that needs to be followed and all the plots are more subtle than expressed.

It's intended to be thought-provoking and in this respect it succeeds.

I think it is desperately unfortunate that someone gave it the title in English "The Ways of Man. It was a massive disservice to the movie and its content.

If I might explain why I think this...

"Tots els camins de Déu" is the original title.

"All The Ways of GOD".

The sort of people who would choose to watch an arty Catalan movie that's almost silent, called The Ways Of Man are very different to the sort of people who would select to watch one called All The Ways Of God.

You could say that God is the unseen main actor, and this movie is all about God's mysterious ways. That would be closer to understanding the point of this movie.

The "ways of man", on the other hand, is something already known, and we are reminded of it in the biblical quote in the first few seconds of the movie... It was the ways of man, i.e. Judas' betrayal of Jesus, for 30 pieces of silver that led to the point of the movie. This is not, however, an overtly religious movie.

This movie is a reflection on guilt and how it can make us behave, and on any possibility we might long for, of forgiveness.

In theatrical terminology, you need to expect that this is a going to be a tragedy - depending on how you view tragedy.

If you like to watch artistic, thought-provoking movies where the meaning is subtle, the action is dead slow and mostly non-existent, with negligible dialogue, and with religious undertones (not overtones) then you may benefit from watching this movie.

I enjoyed the experience of allowing these concepts to be portrayed before me to provoke within me ideas and curiosity, but this is not a movie for mainstream viewers imo.

It is more of interest to those whose minds tend towards philosophy and who have at least some appreciation of Christian doctrine.

FWIW, given the 2 milliseconds or so of male nudity during a couple of seconds of underwater swimming, the warnings about nudity are ridiculously overblown.

Also the suggestion on IMDB and streaming services that this movie may be of interest to LGBTQ viewers is largely unwarranted and if there is a hint, it is not explored.

This movie is more a reflection; ideas, sadness, hope, guilt, loss than a traditional movie, and as such you should determine whether it sounds like something you wish to watch, or would prefer to steer a wide berth.

Basically, if you like, very slow, thought-provoking, art films then this might intrigue you, but if your taste runs only to mainstream cinema then walk away; avoid.

FWIW, I encourage you to seek out on the www, better English subtitles that the default ones. There aren't many lines of dialogue but even so, the supplied subtitles are dreadful.

The relatively low 6-ish average rating might lead you believe this is a poor movie that's not worth your time, and that would be both doing the movie a disservice, and potentially cause you to miss out on something you would enjoy.

There is something of a limit to possible plots with submarine movies to be honest. The elements of anxiety and tension and some of the more obvious risks of being in a submarine at combat are well defined to anyone who has worked as, or with, a submariner or is well versed on those aspects of naval warfare pertaining to submarines. There ARE going to be some aspects of things you've seen in other submarine movies , it's unavoidable.

Nevertheless I feel that this movie, with it's undercurrent of something weird and disturbing going on introduces something to a submarine movie I've not seen before.

If you like movies that put you in tense, creepy situations with no obvious way to escape then this might be your movie.

Overall the acting and script were fine. I watched this again for the second time so I perhaps was left feeling that the tension would have benefitted from being ramped up even more, but I do remember being suitably chilled the first time I watched it.

This is a tense chiller, not really a horror, imo so it's important to set ones' expectations accordingly.

Definitely worth a watch if you like this style of movie. I would rate 7.5/10.

I watched this last night with zero expectations. I hadn't read the books (I didn't even know this was based on any books), I'd not even read reviews , although I noted it had a 5.8 overall rating here which, having watched it, I think is ridiculously low. Has it offended a Russian bot farm ?

The premise is simple enough... teenage girl with supernatural parents reaches an age where weird stuff starts happening. She is thrust into a number of violent supernatural situations and meets some interesting characters,

The plot is acceptably complex, the acting is to a high standard - as you'd expect from some top class actors, although the scriptwriting leaves actors with some rather hammy lines, fairly often.

Visually, for 2013, this was very nicely done as far as special effects go.

As other have noted, just about everyone in the movie is very attractive, which always makes it easier to watch a film and ignore its faults, however in this case, I wouldn't say the movie is overloaded with flaws, other than perhaps the dialogue being a tad predictable and stiff at times.

I'm not exactly in the target demographic for what is a ultimately a supernatural teenage *romance*, although I do enjoy Supernatural type tv shows, including the named one.

If you like supernatural stuff I'd suggest give it a go without preconceptions and you may just enjoy it like I did.

All I can conclude from the rather low overall rating is that maybe it differs wildly from a book I've never read, and has rubbed a gang of teenagers up the wrong way and they review bombed it.

I'm reviewing Season One. Season Two might as well be dead to me.

I'm a long-life, lifelong sci-fi fan. This (S01) is one of the best Sci-Fi shows I've ever seen.

Once you get your head around the premise behind the show (the swapable bodies thing), it's what they DO with it that makes this show so awesome. The ambience, the tech, the concepts, the quality of the acting, the beautiful sets and visuals they're all first class.

Then you get to the plotting, scheming and mystery solving which add a dimension of cool and clever to the pretty visuals.

The portrayal of the many important characters, their personalities, aspirations and motivations, not just Kinnnaman as Kovacs, sets the calibre of the show so high it's almost a bar which other sci-fi shows should aspire to reach.

It's a true masterpiece of science fiction.

The second season takes a nosedive in the opposite directions.

It's abysmal.

It would seem that neither the Director, Producer, script writer nor any of the actors in the second season saw any reason to make the second season have any tangible connection to the first.

How can they NOT understand the concept that if you effectively transplant the mind of a man into another body he's going to be the exact same person... in another body ???! He doesn't undergo a body language and personality transformation into someone completely not him. Within seconds.

I don't know whether to blame terrible directing, terrible scriptwriting or terrible acting or a combination thereof, but the second season is just awful. Somebody made a horrendous mistake with the second season.

The first season was so superb it deserves somebody COMPETENT re-doing the second season so we can all forget that the Mackie abomination version even exists and maybe even move on to further seasons.

I remember this short-lived TV series around the late eighties, produced by the television compliant, TVARK. It discussed aspects of human physionomy and cerebral, moral and ethical developments from what I recall. The single most striking memory is the short synthesizer theme tune which was uplifting and yearning in its music style. The opening theme video is linked to here at imdb in the provided. It would be wonderful if more information about this TV series could be updated here, and the music creator credited.

You gather the plot: Two brothers, one studious decent and hardworking, the smarter one being a rebel etc etc. From the various movies throughout the decades this Cain & Abel-ish by-play has been done over and over again. (James Dean, Brad Pitt are two actors that spring to mind). This movie has none of the complexity or character development of East of Eden or A River Runs Through It or Legends of the Fall and it is infinitely more forgettable.

I see the various points the movie is trying to make and yes, it does make you stop and think about how pointless life can be and the merits of hard work and the merits and disadvantages of various drugs, but ultimately why bother ?

The movie is a teensy bit poignant, somewhat artsy, the character acting is good and the movie manages to convey a seedy, life through a Handycam feel. I was vaguely bored throughout with this character study, wondering if anything would happen and after a fashion maybe it did maybe it didn't (I wouldn't want to add a spoiler!), but really - who cares ?

There are far better movies around in hundreds of different genres, I feel like I wasted the evening. If I were to use a single word to review this movie, I would choose the word 'dull'.

You may like it, but I found it rather boring from start to finish.

A handful of strangers on a late night winter train journey through a blizzard (last train before Christmas kind of thing) observe a last moment arrival onto the train sit down stressed and popping pills. A salesman offers him a dram of vodka from the stash in his briefcase. The stranger dies from the fatal mixture releasing his clutch on a Christmas present which the other train travellers examine. It's a strange old carved wooden box.

Whatever the box contains is not as it seems and its contents has maybe a supernatural ability to affect the passengers who pry which triggers a bizarre and disturbing series of violent crimes. A rather hammy and overacted pseudo-horror.

Whilst the film was strange enough to hold my attention, and surreal enough to almost be interesting, I found the ending confusing and extremely unsatisfying. Apart from the poor ending I would give the rest of the film 6.5 stars.

This is a beautifully directed film and the story is basically sound enough, what there is of it. The cinematography is at a level you might well expect from a top director - extremely good. Lighting is excellent, the acting is excellent the scenery of the 1970 households is spot on. Everything is right and very well done.

But my goodness, what a boring pointless film! I felt like I was watching a diluted daily soap opera. In soap operas they sometimes try to cram in a few crazy happenings now and again to wake you up. This movie was so slow, nothing seeming to happen and such events as would occur in the routine lives of anyone occurring here seemed to be more boring and uninterestingly portrayed than in real life. In this movie I felt no connection whatsoever to the characters on screen, they were surreal and there was nothing to especially like or dislike about them.

Because of the director I continued to give the movie my full attention but I really feel that it is a movie for ladies only. I don't feel there is anything whatsoever in this movie to appeal to male moviegoers. It's like watching gossip happen.

Not for me this one. If you can enjoy 1970's period pieces then you might enjoy it but for me it was like watching the Brady Bunch but without the humour and where nothing happens.

I have to be in the mood for thrillers as I often find them a little predictable. Not so with 'Already Dead'. (Btw, the title seems to be a very poor choice, coming from a glib one-liner in the movie and has no relevance to the plot whatsoever nor even to what you might think the plot might be.)

When Archer's happy, affluent life as a ordinary man is destroyed in a moment of life's cruelty as a result of the murder of his young son, he and his wife are devastated by the tragedy. It is tearing him up inside and destroying his marriage. When without really thinking about the implications, he is given or led into a clandestine opportunity to get his own back, without recrimination upon himself, against the man who destroyed his life he embarks upon a course of actions that leads where he would never have expected. There are some surprises in store.

In the hands of a different Director, this movie could have been so much better IMO, but for all its many Directorial faults, the acting skills of the people playing the main characters and a plausible storyline carry the film and make it eminently watchable, indeed, extremely suspenseful at times. Ron Eldard (Archer) and Til Schweiger (the 'man') are outstandingly good in their roles, although Plummer is just being a ham.

There are times where the pace slows a little and I felt a little bored whilst waiting for something to happen where a better Director would have used suspenseful music or switched scene or added dialogue, also occasionally better lighting would have not been a bad idea - watching a black screen whilst two men are fighting but you can't see them is a bit frustrating. Nevertheless I was intensely interested to see what happened so I stuck with the movie despite the less skillful Direction.

I am being rather generous with my rating at 8 stars, but the film deserves some merit for a very interesting storyline, convincingly portrayed by skillful actors despite only passably competent Direction.

Worth watching to the end despite a few lulls in pace. Overall a good film, with a few twists and several incredibly tense scenes that should stop you switching it off. For all its faults, I enjoyed it.

Following reports being shown on the TV News of freak weather conditions and complete failures of all electrical equipment in parts of the Ukraine and spreading to other places in the world, unnoticed by Ray Ferrier's (Cruise) family who are too busy being awful, the weather conditions and bizarre electrical conditions start happening to them - followed by the appearance of terrifying tri-pod destroying machines and the world becomes a crazy place. Can Ray and his family survive ?

Oh dear. I didn't realize before the final credits that this was directed by Stephen Spielberg which was just as well - I would have had much higher expectations. It seems that he is losing his touch.

The movie starts well - introducing us to the rather stereotype characters with typical Spielberg finesse, rapidly building a dislike, on my part at least, for the two children that he develops with great mastery though the film. Spielberg shows us around, shows us Ray's (Tom Cruise) typical bachelor-pad with no food in the fridge, car engine in sections on the table and bits everywhere. Irrelevant really.

Spielberg then gets underway on the plot - he gradually introduces horror upon horror which really made me start thinking about just how vulnerable we really are....

....And then, around halfway through the film it's like his apprentice takes over directing the movie, or somebody says to him - "Ok Stephen, great movie so far but you've only got half an hour or so of movie-time left so you'll need to wind it up now".

The last section of the movie runs like he's scored a black line through his script, this page, that page, this page is OK, this page can go. And so forth. It's rushed, and the sense of horror I was feeling during the first section rapidly fizzled away as I became puzzled by the huge holes in the continuity ("how did they get there ?", "so what happened to... ?", "who's that guy ?", "so where are... ?" sort of thing). I found myself wishing that some of the loose ends would be joined together to help the story make sense. The Director is now moving recklessly onward, nailing this metaphorical coffin-lid shut with as few nails as possible in his determination to get home.

Huge sections of character development and plot so essential, relevant, and in keeping with the first half are omitted. It doesn't work. And then the ending is a complete disappointment. So very badly done.

As a result of all the holes in the storyline and people's characters, any sense of awe, so carefully developed from the start is replaced with a sadness that this movie plot has just stopped being plausible, the characters have stopped being realistic, and quite some time before the end of the film I was left feeling that 'this movie sucks'.

It could have been so good - but it should have been twice as long (at least) to maintain consistency and quality throughout and I was left extremely disappointed.

I think this is probably Stephen Spielberg's worst movie.

Nonetheless I do recommend watching this movie for the special effects which are very good, and for the first half which is terrific, but do expect that you will be disappointed by the second half then if/when you are, maybe it won't detract from the movie so much for you as it did for me.

5.5/10 = 4.5/5 for the first half plus 1/5 for the second half

I've always enjoyed this film. I saw it again today for the first time in about 10 years and enjoyed it just as much as I did then, and all the times before that. There are two crimes related to this movie: Bradley Gregg never did much with his acting career following this which is a crying shame - he's an excellent actor with it all: very charismatic, good looks and an instinct for excellent character portrayal and timing, then secondly, Mark Lester has never been given a first-rate blockbuster script and budget to match his very considerable ability.

This is starting to look a little dated now in 2006 from a purely sci-fi to sci-fact basis, but it still stands up as en extremely enjoyable movie - for men - it's a bit too aggressive I think for many female viewers.

Mark Lester keeps the pace up throughout - it's mainly action and weapons, not a lot of talking or any slushy bits, hints of biting rather dark humour and a fair bit of gore for its day.

There are a couple of bits that are a bit hammy - the quote "very impressive" presentation towards the start of the movie wasn't remotely impressive and a few of the lines are on the throw-away side. Stacy Keach has bad-guy written all over him from the start. There is something sinister about the new teachers right from their first appearance in the film and there is an sense of something foreboding throughout the movie - a sense that 'something bad is about to happen' which is often the case, and it usually happens quickly and viciously. There is a distinct tongue-in-cheek humour running through the movie which raises it above the average.

This dark and gloomy perspective on the future doesn't make this a 'nice' film and it's not for everyone. The budget doesn't run to an 'Independance Day' glut of special effects and you've got to actually like this style of movie. If you enjoyed the Nightmare on Elm Street series then you'll probably enjoy this. If you find that series of movies sickening or laughable then you'll probably feel similarly about this film.

I recommend it highly - it's very seldom I give a 10/10 rating - there are so few movies that justify that level to my mind. I give that rating despite the fact it's starting to show its age, some hammy acting here and there, a few pretty corny bits of dialogue and the fact that this type of film has been done before and since. It's Mark Lester and Bradley Gregg's view of how this type of movie should be done and for me it works as a rather violent take on being simply good fun with next no money.

OK, so this is a movie, not a PC game. There are many people who have never played Doom or Quake etc, or who've played it but didn't like it. This movie has to 'work' as a movie, the games the posters and the T-shirts are already out there.

As has been pointed out, this movie does bear an *awfully* strong resemblance to Resident Evil (the movie), not the computer game which was written years (1996) after Doom the computer game (1993), but with bigger monsters, and bigger guns. But then Doom's reason for existence as a game was as the best game for any computer with the best immersive graphics and was a mindless 'if it moves, kill it' blast-em-up, to the beat of a heavy, zany rock music soundtrack. Doom didn't really have a plot which would work as a movie, but as a blast-em-up game it didn't need to have. It does need to have a halfway plausible plot if it's going to become a movie, however.

They have modified the plot slightly from the game, but the basic spirit is there, albeit a little diluted.

I did find the movie a little slow and wordy at times, I was expecting a non-stop rush of evil monsters almost from the word go. I scarcely felt the overriding sense of being totally enclosed with little chance of escape, surrounded by deadly evil, that was a component of the game - probably because there was too much chatter. The movie was given more plot (and dialogue) than it strictly speaking needed, I think.

The actors gave very creditable performances on the whole, with no-one standing out as being particularly hammy - annoying maybe - as part of their 'character', but no-one shining as giving an outstanding performance either.

There was only a short period towards the end of the movie where there was a real sense of this being the movie of the game - it's fun while it lasts, although the music could have been a little louder in the mix!

If you fancy a not half bad part chatter part blast-em-up movie with some half decent special effects it's absolutely worth watching. I enjoyed it, but felt that it should have been a bit faster-paced.

It is very similar to the Resident Evil movie, overall I'd say probably not as good, but it's not exactly the same, and it's not as grim and foreboding somehow. It's a bit John Carpenter-ish, although I think he would have done a slightly better job of it, it doesn't stand out as needing to be a whole lot better - it's OK as it stands. Just that, OK or quite good, but not brilliant.