SF and Fantasy Movie Reviews Starting With L
Labyrinth (1986) 
Genres: F Adv Kid Mus
Watched: 25 min
It's got Jim Henson and Lucasfilm and Terry Jones and it's still no good. This girl gets tormented throughout the entire movie by the crying of her baby brother and the stupid musical numbers coming from the goblin castle in the middle of the labyrinth. No reason why I should be too.
What a bishoneny king those goblins have. He looks like the blonde from Absolutely Fabulous.
Ladyhawke (1985)
Genres: F Rom
Very slow, and neither of the men is attractive.
The Lair of the White Worm (1988 UK)
Genres: Hor F
Campy, stylish monster fun. Sexy too -- clearly they were inspired by the subject's naughty imagery.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Genres: Act F
I hardly remember anything about this except that it's silly but at times kinda entertaining. Since I know it doesn't suck as bad as II and I gave II one star, I'll give this one two.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider II: The Cradle of Life (2003)
Genres: Act SF
So apparently it's a well-known fact that sharks swim rapidly toward the surface if they get punched in the face. I never knew that. From looking around on the Internet all I get is that punching a shark may make it swim away, but no specific direction is indicated. So I have to conclude that sharks don't necessarily turn into underwater elevators after being punched. Well . . . maybe Ms. Croft knew that the bad guys were around and they had robot sharks which had a programming glitch that if you punch them they swim for the surface? I mean she's really really smug. Who am I to think she might not know all about that sort of thing? (The woman is so annoying. Her expressions are all variants of very smug. Just makes me want to put a boot in her face. Maybe that's why her lips are so puffy.)
Any scene, makes brain go ouch. Like, what was that when Lara's guide was guiding her along and she pulls out her gun and is going to shoot him? She decided there wasn't enough action happening? Well . . . maybe the bad Chinese guys she was being guided to were up on a cliff and she needed to get up there, and she was picking a fight with the guy, so she could punch him and he would turn into an elevator and take her there. I can think of only three good things in the movie: the wedding scene at the beginning is OK, the guardians are nice, and the guy is cute. I'm trying to think what else, but all I'm getting is "ouch that hurt my brain."
This movie has all these guys in it and just this one girl; and with all these guys, there is only the one cute one. They suck. I think if there wasn't this guy in it I probably would have given it an NR despite the nice guardians, but I like him so it gets one. Although his character is brain-dead dumb. He's like, "Yeah, I know your idea was always to keep this dangerous alien-plague-box from falling into the wrong hands, we're winding up this whole movie, the point of which was this very thing, and you don't trust me and keep saying you'll shoot me, but, well, I'm going to take it now and sell it, so, uh, what, are you gonna shoot me?" (like that except less articulate).
The Last Unicorn (1982)
Genres: Ani F
A perfect adaptation of the beloved
This movie just took my breath away. J however says he doesn't like it that much because everybody, and especially the unicorn protagonist, is whiny and effete. That usually bothers me too. It's an indicator of how magical the movie is that I didn't mind.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) NR
Genres: F Act Adv
A theory has been advanced about its extraordinary suckiness. What makes these extraordinary gentlemen able to join the league is that all these characters are out of copyright. That's not part of the theory; that's a fact. Well, it seems that there is some fighting in the law courts currently regarding copyright. The movie industry is not interested in having further extraordinary gentlemen go out of copyright so that any old schmo can make a movie involving them. Because movie studios own lots of valuable copyrights. And so here they've made a movie demonstrating what happens when you use extraordinary gentlemen who pass into the public domain: you get utter garbage. So there's no point in putting these gentlemen in the public domain.
It is loosely based on an allegedly nice comic by Alan Moore. Another movie based on his nice comic, From Hell, also sucks.
I did like the lady vampire. She's cool. She has lots of superpowers and can go out in the sun and everything; there's no downside. I want that.
On the other hand that may be a bad idea. They say you should know yourself. Well, technically they say this because they misunderstood the point of the message on the ancient Greek temple, but never mind, they do say "know thyself" today meaning just that and it is a good point too. Well, I know I wouldn't be any good at being a superhero. For instance, I couldn't be relied on to kill supervillains. For some reason supervillains are often really cute (I don't know why but it's a fact). (He tried to kill me? Oh, well. What can you expect, he's so naughty (hee hee).) I'd chain them up and put them in my basement instead. So my basement would be all full of chained-up supervillains. What a mess. How would I divide my time? I know how all my projects go. I think I'll just paint these shelves, what's the big deal? But it always turns out to be a big deal. And I barely keep up with my cats' litter box. Gah, it wouldn't be pretty.
Leviathan (1989) NR!!!
Genres: Hor SF
Watched: 30 min
They took a bunch of semi-name-brand actors and put them on an underwater sub, where they by turns turn into attacky fish zombies, engineered by the Russians back in 1962 (as told in The Amphibian Man). Amphibian Man was gayly sexy and fairly non-attacky, but presumably he's evolved since then.
Remakes of stuff on ice is usually a bad idea, but that's because what they choose to remake sucks. Beauty and the Beast on Ice! They just won't let that crap die. Also stuff on ice is extra boring because watching ice-skating is boring, they skate a bunch backwards, leading with their butts as it were, mooning the audience as the breeze whips up their trivial skirts, do a trick, repeat. Although I guess in Disney on ice stuff they wouldn't have such short skirts. Remaking stuff as ballets can be OK, since they usually don't choose quite as crass a set of crap for that. Musicals, well, you just never know. They don't go for water ballet much nowadays, though. Those used to be popular in the 40's. This movie here, it's an underwater remake of Alien, necessitated by the popularity of The Abyss, but it's unsurprisingly hardly an improvement.
Lilo and Stitch (2002)
Genres: Ani SF Com Adv Kid
In case you didn't get it, "ohana" means family. It's rather heavy-handed with that message. But, given that it's a kids' movie . . . actually this message would logically apply more to adults, given the high divorce rate. Kids don't initiate divorce; they want the family to stay together. Despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry to turn them into little alien demons. The U.S. entertainment industry is like that. On the one hand they churn out sickly-sweet crap, on the other they pander to the child's baser instincts. The switch comes once the child gets old enough to choose his movies for himself.
Luckily this one is on the sickly sweet side of the Hollywood childhood model! And it's not even sickly sweet, mostly just sweet. I really like the way they juxtapose the innate sweetness of Hawaiian values and lifestyle with this dangerous alien and, well, wouldn't you be won over? Whatever your grouchy disposition? It's freaking Hawaii! Whatever problems you have to work through, whatever your background, even extra-terrestrial, it's the place to do it. Your problems all go away if you can live there.
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe (1988 UK)
Genres: F Adv Kid
It's got good points and bad points. Like all British TV it had a limited budget and spends an awful lot of time following the characters as they trudge across the countryside. The acting is mostly quite good, although some is a bit over the top. The White Witch is by far the worst culprit. Her bug-eyed howling lowered my enjoyment and opinion of the movie considerably. It would have been much better if the White Witch was like Supreme Commander Servalan from Blake's 7. But the beavers are cute, and the children are good. The special effects -- like I said, limited budget. And get a load of all the bad teeth! On Lucy primarily, and on the White Witch too. That's the British for you.
I'll give it 3 stars because the script follows the
The Little Mermaid (1989) NR
Genres: Ani F Kids
I was leery of seeing this, but remembered how much I loved Bambi and Dumbo when I was little, so was still bowled over by the badness. The plot is a cumbersome disaster. Not only does it completely disregard the feel of the original, it piles on all kinds of damn BS at the end. Ugh. The only non-sucky thing is the under-the-sea musical number, and that's no great shakes either. The music, other than this number, is annoying and boring. And also I liked the idea of an octopus-witch.
So, apparently the guys who made the Little Mermaid music also made the music for Little Shop of Horrors. Well, it just goes to show you how venal show people are.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992 Japan)
Genres: F Ani Kid
Watched: 30 min
After dozens of "wow"s and "whoopee"s and not a single interesting thought or emotion from the protagonist, I was beginning to fantasize about strangling him, and so figured I'd better turn the thing off. The protagonist's sickeningly saccharine squirrel sidekick I had started fantasizing about throwing into a wall as soon as he appeared but there's nothing wrong with that, it's exactly what you should do with an annoying squirrel. I know a man who financed part of his college education that way. It seems that at this college it became fashionable for the girls to be seen about with trained squirrels perched on their shoulders (this was a long time ago . . . well, come to think of it, now it's the same thing but with miniature dogs, but not on the shoulder -- I mean, dogs may be smarter than squirrels but their balance isn't as good, so they're kept peeking out of large purses). The way in which this demand was supplied was: you catch some squirrels in the wood in squirrel traps, then keep them in your room and pet them, throwing them against the wall when they bite you, and after a week or two they're either trained or dead (50/50 odds).
What's really frustrating is that there's clearly quite a bit of talent happening here, but it's drowned in a gooey syrup of generic cutesiness. And bone-headedness and boredom never fail to accompany generic cuteness. The underlying story, what I saw of it, seems fine, and the imagery is quite enjoyable. But the dialogue and the acting are totally insipid.
The other thing to do with an annoying squirrel is shoot it with a BB gun. They make excellent stew. And you wouldn't believe how easy they are to clean! Way easier than removing the skin and trimming the fat off a supermarket chicken. Cut the head off and slit open the hide from the neck to the crotch; it peels right off the meat, stopping at the feet and tail, which you cut off and discard. Slit open the body; the internal organs slip right out. Retain the heart and liver. The poor little creature is put together so simply. Also, apparently, although I haven't seen this personally, you can crack open the head and use the brains to flavor dumplings, but we've always thrown the head away.
Guest comment: The reason you need to discard the brain is to avoid spongiform encephalitis, mad cow disease. A bunch of inbred gap-toothed crackers from my home state of Kentucky (but I repeat myself) have gotten themselves kilt by eating the Appalachian delicacy of squirrel brains. (End of guest comment)
I appreciate the heads-up. Yes, fly-over county is home to a variety of tantalizing exotic delicacies. I even heard of some back-woodsmen eating foxes! I am really sorry that your compatriots are being forced to give up their beloved squirrel brains.
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Genres: SF Com Hor Mus
I especially like musicals with dancing and that plant gets down. He has some smooth moves, for being a plant in a pot. He's the hottest, baddest person in the show.
Everyone else is very good too. Steve Martin is swell as a bad-to-the-bone dentist. (Liking Martin's performance surprised me because I used to associate him with not-nearly-funny-enough goofball comedies, but of course that doesn't mean he has no talents or taste. A career's a career.) The hilarity doesn't stop, or the style or the cute musical numbers.
Hmm . . . this movie's classification would be SF Comedy Horror Musical. Is there a correlation between number of qualifiers and quality? Of course. It's like having multiple plots in one episode of The Simpsons -- that's a big part of what makes that a good show. The more qualifiers, the harder it is to pull it off, so the greater the skill must be to have a coherent product, and the greater the entertainment per minute. Plus, anything that's also a musical is better. I love musicals. Plus, anything that's also a comedy is better. In fact if you have a scene into which you can't put some comedy then you're better off cutting it out.
Live Free Or Die Hard (2007) NR
Genres: Stu
Watched: 30 min
Guest review: Oy. A's comment: Hollywood must be putting all the dumb stuff in one movie so that the other movies can all be great.
I can't even review this. I'll have to construct a movie that, while similar to LF||DH (I'm using the computerese - well, C-ese - for "or" because the movie had hackers, and they talk like that - in this movie, anyway) has no divergent stupidity, that I can review in a manner that even makes any sense. This is called cinematic renormalization, and comes from QED.
So: let's posit a movie Live Free or Diebold, about a villainous Francophile corporate executive, played by Timothy Olyphant's bug-eyed stare, that hires a cadre of hackers to break into the country's voting machines in the 2008 presidential elections, creating a landslide victory for heretofore unregistered candidate Ségolène Royal. Ultra-competent French document assassins are dispatched to eliminate all extant copies of the Constitution so that nobody realizes she's actually ineligible (I think because she's a Socialist). It turns out that the XXVII Amendment was actually a bomb, waiting only for a radio signal to detonate; only Daily Show host Jon Stewart's personal copy of the document (played by rising star John Hodgman) survives, because of course the French weren't going to do anything to endanger The Daily Show, their biggest propaganda weapon. Unfairly defeated candidate John McCain (played by Bruce Willis) is dispatched by the Library of Congress to Stewart's studio in NYC to collect the document and return it to the Supreme Court. The high point of the first 30 minutes of the film, which is as far as we got before A started writhing uncontrollably and had to be escorted from the theater, was Hodgman's song-and-dance number with Willis (and Danny Aiello in a cameo as English Common Law) in the style of "I'm an Amendment-to-be."
Locusts: The 8th Plague (2005) NR!!!
Genres: SF Act Hor
Watched: 20 min
Giant human-skin-gnawing Nietzschean locusts aren't bothered by pesticides; in fact pesticides only make them stronger. For a while it's funny to watch them bite people but the people still manage to talk and act some so it quickly becomes counter-productive.
I believe I already said in an earlier review that SciFi Channel is like a plague with the movies they make . . . so these locusts can't be the 8th.
Also, for a while several skunks moved in along the cliff walk where we often go walking at night. There's some seriously well-off people who live along this cliff. We postulate they're all evil lawyers. I do have proof. We walked there on last 4th of July, and heard a back-yard party in full swing. A drunk guy was yelling out "Order! I demand order!" and everybody laughed. Lawyers mocking judges. Then they set off some fireworks, which are illegal in our city. We also postulated that these skunks were sent as a plague upon them. They were pretty annoying; they'd come out on the road and shake their tail at you, or jump out of the bushes and scratch menacingly, warning you to go away. Actually they weren't that bad; they never actually sprayed us and once I saw two skunks rooting around and a fascinated cat crouching a yard away from them, and they totally ignored it. But one day the skunks stopped coming out. Maybe they finally sprayed the cat and it went home and sat down on a $15,000 sofa so its owners paid $5000 to get rid of the skunks. Yup, if you have enough money you can get out of anything, including a plague sent to punish you for your wicked ways.
Logan's Run (1976)
Genres: SF
Not bad. Has Michael York who's cute but they certainly don't tap into his full potential for cuteness here as they did in Cabaret (1972) and especially in Something For Everyone (1970) (ooh baby yeah yeah take me steal from me kill me seduce my sons and daughters). Here he merely participates in the sex round-robin or whatever they call it; that's optional, whereas everyone has to participate in the possibly sinister Lottery. York, who's a sexy assassin sporting the skin-tight uniform of the evil authorities, becomes disenchanted by the system after he fails to get into the pants of this subversive babe via the sex round-robin. He decides he might try checking out her suspicions about the possibly sinister Lottery, thus giving them a chance to hang out.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001 New Zealand)
Genres: F Adv
Fun and pretty but suffers from big ol' plot holes, many of which the book does not suffer from. Its slowness is legitimately gotten from the book. Both have a lot of sitting around having breakfast and admiring the scenery.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002 New Zealand)
Genres: F Adv
Sometimes the characters speak coherently and act intelligently and then it's fun. But mostly it's a bunch of standing around and whining. Everyone whines. I was like, Dude shut up shut up shut up you've whined and whined for half an hour of my time already.
Maybe everyone whines so much because in this version, the war effort is coordinated by Gandalf the Gay, and he glories in all these decorative hot young warriors whining. A non-gay leader would tell them to cut it out but he thinks it's adorable. When you combine gayness and war you get a lot of whining -- look at all those ancient Greeks; that's what the Iliad is, or at least half of it, is these big beautiful boys whining. Because X took Y's girlfriend away (although Y retained his special friend Z). Because no-one appreciates X. Because Y had a difficult childhood and now he has to die. Wah wah wah. I read through it once and see no point in seeing it in a version where the whining is much more boring and they have all this clothing on. This is why you shouldn't let gays in the military -- they find whining picturesque. Or perhaps it depends how you approach it -- the Greeks had a special gay fighting unit, and it was the fiercest because no-one wanted to look bad in front of his boyfriend. I guess the problem with the US army tapping into this is that the soldiers have to have something to rally around and something to hate and back then it was PC to hate other races but it isn't now, so we have to hate the gays. Well, whatever works -- our army rocks.
The CGI is nice, sure. Gollum is well-made. The walking trees are nice too . . . although that storyline and especially its culmination is squeezed in there like a poor cousin, never mind the relative battle effectivenesses. Obviously the moviemakers adore whining and identify the storyline with the best yield of decorative whining and stick to it as long as possible and tear themselves away from it only long enough to explain why everyone is saved and then it's back to the whiners. They're so gaartistic.
The Lost Boys (1987)
Genres: Act Hor
Jr.-high school kids battle high-school-age vampires. Silly but solidly inoffensive and rather entertaining, if you don't mind the heavily juvenile atmosphere. Also there's the amusing heavy 80's atmosphere.
Lost In Space (1998) NR
Genres: Adv SF
Whose idea was it to cast William Hurt in a space adventure? He seems one of the least likely candidates. Oh man is this annoying and stupid. But maybe I should have given it one star. I dunno. It's not as awful if it's on TV and you're doing something else and only tune back in when there's special effects.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)
Genres: SF Com
Watched: 15 min
The idea is to spoof those goofy 50's - 60's SF horror movies by making one just like them, the dialogue copiously reproducing the characteristic stupidities for never-ending familiar-reference comedic effect, and the plot presumably doing something similar but I don't know because the dialogue gets old very fast.
Please note that all material on this page is Copyright © 2005 by D. Aline Lurie.
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