SF and Fantasy Movie Reviews Starting With W
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993 UK) 
Genres: SF Com Ani Short
What is up with that duck? Dogs are conservative of course, and don't like strange new stuff in their space, but when Gromit has a bad feeling about something, you have to remember he helped build a rocket that went to the Moon.
Watership Down (1978 UK)
Genres: Ani F Adv
Based on Richard Adams'
Weird Science (1985) NR
Genres: SF Com
Watched: 5 min
Aimed at teens or pre-teens. The several minutes I saw on TV were dumb and boring.
Wendigo (2001)
Genres: Hor F
The acting is OK. The dialogue isn't bad. But the whole thing is slow and unnecessary. As for the monster, I feel it remained mysterious and misunderstood. By the audience. Because I don't know whether it killed the guy or tried to help him or what. Possibly because I don't remember or was too lulled by the laid-back pace and all the trees to pay attention. The point is that there's this dangerous Indian thing, the wendigo, that wanders around in the trees, and possibly kills people or maybe it's nice.
Guest reviewer comment: The monster was nice, that was the whole point. That and that monsters aren't really equipped for helping people with problems in modern society, but they are still good at bloody vengeance. I give it **. But actually it's still unwatchably boring, so *. I give my guest review *** though, read that instead.
Westworld (1973)
Genres: SF
Yul Brynner looks mighty fetching in a tight black outfit and all no-nonsense and he's a robot and you can pay his owners to make him to annnything you want! But even robots have their limits. Too many times being killed makes good sexy robots go insane. And I would imagine too many flabby rich clients make them go insane too. So . . . how come prostitutes don't go on killing sprees? I guess they're too stupid and lazy. Yet another reason why prostitution is good: it keeps stupid lazy people occupied so they don't go killing everyone else.
The sequel is Futureworld.
What Dreams May Come (1998) NR
Genres: F Dra Rom
Watched: 5 min
This is based on the unlikely theory that when Robin Williams dies he'll go to Heaven. Which is quite a tacky place.
What's Up, Hideous Sun Demon (1983)
Genres: SF Com Hor
Funny re-edit and re-dub of The Hideous Sun Demon (1959). Plus? No Woody Allen!
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Genres: Com Adv Mys F Act Det Mus
Noir was never like this. I figure after making something this good, no matter what else these people do, they have a ticket to Heaven if they want it. They can make crappy movies or participate in crazy Hollywood causes or drop out -- whatever they want. You have to expect the crappiness and the causes, whether they make terrific movies or not; it's inevitable. I'm not sure why, on the crappiness. Authors don't usually write something wonderful and then something wretched. Probably because an author is one person, but there's hundreds involved in a movie. You'd think that some number of these hundreds would be capable of recognizing crappiness, but it works the other way.
The things that rabbit can do! No wonder his vampy wife protests never-ending love. I bet it's a barrel of laughs to be married to a cartoon character. This realization dawned on me long ago when I saw a cartoon with Plastic Man.
Wicked City (1989 Japan)
Genres: Ani F
Tagline: He's a cop. She's a demon. Together, they're cops.
The art is very pleasing and stylish. It's not expensive, lots-of-movement anime, but achieves good effect with the amount of effort expended. Decent voice actors, too. A fair bit of naughtiness as well -- it's soft-core tentacle porn. But despite all that and the fair amount of action, it's boring.
The Wicker Man (1973 UK)
Genres: Hor Mys
So boring. Maybe this is fun for stoned Wiccans or frustrated arsonists. No wait, arsonists have low IQs and that corresponds to short attention spans so they wouldn't get to the slightly less boring bit at the end. On the plus side the stoned and the stupid won't mind the bizarre logic pervading these backward parts, logic that will get all these rustics put away for life any harvest cycle now. Also on the plus side, the Scottish hamlet is charming. This movie spends a great deal of time wandering up and down its little streets. Other than that it wanders around in the fields or something, I don't remember, but it certainly doesn't get much done. Also on the plus side, there's plentiful nakedness. My sister's been to small Scottish hamlets and says don't go to Scotland; they're all like drunken rowdy frat boys over there, so that checks out.
Wilder Napalm (1993)
Genres: Com F Rom
Heartwarming tale about broken family relationships, starting fires by magic, and healing. (Kind of like Terms of Endearment but much more actiony and nobody gets cancer.)
Debra Winger, under home arrest for her pyromanic tendencies, is married to one of two pyrokinetic brothers, the one who'd decided to lead a normal life and suppress his talent. When the other brother comes to town, trouble follows because he's attracted to Debra and disgusted with his married brother's clean, non-pyrokinetic life.
Willow (1988)
Genres: F Adv
A not bad but fairly mindless medieval magical fantasy. Drags because the dialogue is mostly boring.
A Wind Named Amnesia (1993 Japan)
Genres: SF Ani
It's not an action movie, although it has action scenes. It's an actual SF movie, which you don't see often. This is what SF is supposed to be. It starts with an idea, and then a story develops from it when the writer thinks about the implications. It's not just a bunch of running around and blowing stuff up, with some perfunctory SF nonsense strapped on. The idea is a perfectly reasonable idea, too.
I like the ending. A lot of humanity's foreign policy is like that.
Wing Commander (1999)
Genres: SF Act
Hardly remember it, other than it being pretty silly and sorta boring but at times somewhat entertaining, maybe. Or maybe my boyfriend claimed it was entertaining.
The Wiz (1978)
Genres: F Mus
The atmosphere is nicely spooky. It's all set in the magical land of the black ghetto. The real ghetto is like that except instead of being chased by toothed trash cans you get shot. J said this movie scared him when he was little. Maybe to little boys who grow up in the ghetto it depicts a magical land of safety. I don't know what I'm talking about, and I sure am glad of it!
The quality of the musical numbers varies quite a bit. Basically Diana Ross's suck, Michael Jackson's rock, and everyone else's are somewhere in between. Most of the lyrics and choreography is unimpressive but some is good. But Michael Jackson is consistently terrific. This was before he was really big. He displays an early talent and a predilection for weird noses. The lion is neat too.
What was Diana Ross thinking letting Lena Horne sing that same inane song right after Ross did? When Horne does it it is like 100 times better. When Ross sings it is boring and insipid but when Horne sings it's lovely and inspiring despite the inane lyrics.
Wolf (1994)
Genres: Hor Dra
Sensitive and thoughtful treatment of lycanthropy. Quite well made except I'm confused about the ending. To me it seemed that everything just ended abruptly with not enough closure. But maybe I'm missing something.
Wolves of Wall Street (2002) NR
Genres: Hor
Watched: 30 min
The first 30 minutes contain no monsters, just very stupid dialogue. There is a sort of homoerotic synchronized pantomime. It contains a woman but she isn't fooling anyone.
WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3 (2002 Japan)
Genres: Det SF Ani
It starts out boring but then there's a nice enough monster, so I was going to give it two stars. But then, an hour into the movie, I guessed where it was all going and it was so annoyingly ludicrous that I hated it right away, bleah -- and of course I was right; it couldn't have turned out other way.
Police detectives investigate an increasing number of gory murders; underhanded corporations involved in biological research seem to be involved. The detectives proceed reasonably enough and solve the case. The police aren't very creative other than that though. They have giant police mecha ("patlabors") with giant handguns that are just like handguns but ten feet long. And giant riot gear with giant night sticks. Despite all this excitement it is boring humorless sappy drivel.
Actually the boobs are pretty funny. It explains why the monster put on that patlabor suit top. While it was swimming it was OK, but once it crawled out onto the shore and started running around there, it decided "Holy crap, these boobs sure are uncomfortable, I need something in the way of a bra."
Please note that all material on this page is Copyright © 2005 by D. Aline Lurie.
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