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michael-51-881994
Reviews
Lightspeed (2006)
Decent idea, not great in execution
If you've read this far, you have a general idea of what you're in for if you watch this flick. I'll just add this to the mix:
(possible spoilers below, but nothing huge)
1) Connery approaches the role as if he's wearing an "I'd Rather Be Watching The Weather Channel" tee shirt. There's not a lot of passion here, and those of us in the audience understand why.
2)He gets his powers from lying in bed under a bulb or something. It's like being able to fly after going to the tanning salon a few times.
3)The special effects team needed to borrow a few ideas from Lee Majors' "Six Million Dollar Man," where slow motion with strobe effects equaled super speed. Connery's jerky, sped-up motion makes it seem as if "Yackety Sax" from the old Benny Hill show should be playing in the background.
4)The idea of getting your super suit from a sporting goods store has been the cause of a lot of snark here, but it immediately put me in mind of the Guardian, a 1940's hero created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon who did much the same thing. It's an idea that could have worked if it had been scripted better, acted better, and if the suit on the actor had looked better. The audience will buy into a lot if it actually works.
5)A speedster covering his face because his little jaunts give him an awesome case of windburn? That's a cool little idea that makes sense, one that I'd never thought of before.
6)As everyone says, Python's makeup stole the show. Violent dude, though. If he likes Lucky Charms and you're a Cap'n Crunch fan, you could wind up with a bullet in your head. Just sayin'. He's that kind of guy.
Princess of Mars (2009)
For the budget, not that bad!
This movie made me nostalgic for a couple of things at once. The first is the series of Edgar Rice Burroughs movie adaptations that came out in the late 1970's, such as "At the Earth's Core" and "The Land That Time Forgot." Both movies starred Doug McClure, which was okay, but which was sort of like casting Joe Don Baker as Tarzan. This movie goes with a much better lead, the lean, muscular, gritty Sabato, Jr. The other blast of nostalgia was for the 1930's Flash Gordon serials. I could close my eyes and just about hear Buster Crabbe when Sabato, Jr. was trying to speak believable dialogue in ridiculous circumstances. Another thing that made the film reminiscent of Flash Gordon was the filming location - Bronson Canyon.
I really have to congratulate the filmmakers for not going the teen heartthrob route with John Carter. They could easily cast a "cool" 22 year old with a wild mane of hair and a snotty attitude. I'm so glad that they didn't.
The green Martians, quite naturally, suffered from the budget. I mean, there was no way that even a reasonably budgeted flick could pull off two hours' worth of decently animated four armed giant desert savages. As a result, the green Martians are more like the Tuskan Raiders in Star Wars, and that's okay.
The weakest link, other than the goofy plot device that sends Carter to Mars in the first place, was the Princess of Mars herself, portrayed by Traci Lords. Someone with the looks and bearing of a Penelope Cruz or a young Caroline Munro (McClure's leading lady in the 70's) would have been better fit for the role. Lords was more like a queen mother than a princess, but she pushed the film along with stern determination.
It's unfortunate that Edgar Rice Burroughs' name isn't attached to the piece, but I have to remember that this is an unauthorized adaptation of a 1911 magazine story (book publication 1917) that has been in the public domain for quite awhile.
The film also struck me as a slightly pro-Israeli political allegory, but maybe that's just my own overactive imagination. Just watch it for yourself.