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| A- A- A- | |
| Review by Xibo | Date seen: January 13, 1996 |
| Viewing Location: Ridgefield Park, NJ | Grade: A- |
| Summary: Die Hard meets Brazil | |
| Terry Gilliam gives us the cross between "Die Hard" and "Brazil". Bruce Willis stars as this prisoner from the future, where everyone lives underground to avoid the virus that killed the planet. He is brought back in time to find information and clues leading to the origination of the virus, the virus in its pure form before it mutated wildly and made a mess of the world. Once the future doctors have this, they can create a cure. They can't change the past but are trying to fix their future. Anyway, it's extremely Brazil-like, but Willis also gives us the action-packed performance of a Die Hard film. Great pacing and sets, but the whole movie is a bit of a downer overall. Still, it's a stunning theatrical presentation. | |
| A+ A+ A+ | |
| Review by Finrod | Date seen: December 30, 1995 |
| Viewing Location: Chicago | Grade: A+ |
| Summary: Visually stunning, I walked out of the theater going "buh" | |
| When I saw this in the theater December 1995, I walked out of the theater just shell-shocked. Granted, nowadays everyone's been shaken up by 9/11 but this movie managed to shake me up back then. Unlike most 'end of the world' movies, this one is realistic almost to the point of surrealism, especially jumping back and forth between the abandoned buildings of the 21st century and the active alive world of the 20th. Since it was released in 1995 and talks about the end of the world in 1996, it can't have the same impact seeing it now on video/dvd as it did when it was released, unfortunately.
If you're looking for flowers and happiness, go watch any of a thousand other movies out there; but if you want a real sci-fi tragedy (a genre almost unheard-of), then this movie is for you. | |
| D D D | |
| Review by Parallel | Date seen: March 9, 2000 |
| Viewing Location: DVD | Grade: D |
| Summary: What a pointless, depressing, cynical movie. | |
| What good is this movie? Please someone tell me. It's got Bruce Willis fighting, which we've seen before. It's got weird dystopian future tech which we've seen before. Time travel. Pandemic virus. Incompetent scientist. The characters are essentially sleepwalking through the story towards the worst possible preordained ending. None of the characters act in any way rational, logical, or heroic. I suppose if you like ironic, depressing movies this is for you, but I prefer something a little more uplifting for my entertainment dollar. | |
"I should put quotes here."