dunamission

This movie is so poorly written that its just a non event until the special effects start kicking in. The characters are dull, the story is miserable, and the acting is amateurish. Its not until the world starts going to poop courtesy of some awesome graphics, that the movie takes off from imminent ruin just like in the plot. Then the slow miserable story continues to unfold with some fantastic in between special effects to impress us with. The action sequences are probably the most far fetched ever in movie history, but this wouldn't be so bad if the story was fun, but it isn't. At the end of the film when we see the kind of people who were saved, I was left thinking that I would have rather have been left to perish. Who'd want to be a part of that community who survived? There's so much boring irrelevant movie in this movie that I'm sure the editors could have hacked an hour off of it. If this had been a B movie with low budget SFX, I think it would be one of the worst movies ever made. I'm not kidding. However it is salvaged by a roller coaster ride of some of the most impressive effects I've seen in a movie.

I believe the greatest mistake was made by the Salkinds, by attempting to make two huge movies at the same time. It would have been like making star wars and empire strikes back at the same time. Nevertheless, Donner did a hell of Job to try and pull it off, and superman the Movie is a classic that I grew up with as a kid. However, a lot of Donner's S II footage looks a little tired to me. Lois lane jumping out the window was silly, and some of the action fight scenes in metropolis were dreadful. It looks to me as if the Salkinds actually had no choice but to bring in someone fresh to replace a drained Donner struggling to find creative Ideas to complete the project. If Donner was allowed to concentrate on one movie at a time, I think S II would have been better than lester's version. On the commentary, Donner came across as still being very bitter, and he didn't give Lester any credit at all for what were some great scenes that improved the movie no end compared to Donner's. I think Donner was exhausted and frustrated, and you could tell that his movie was suffering. That being said, it is still a Donner / Lester movie, and much of Donner's work makes S II what it is. Both Directors combined made a great film, and if Brando's scenes were included in the theatrical version, it would be a completed movie where both directors must share the credit. The Salkinds had the money but no movie making sense. We have Lester's Version, and Donner's patched up version, and now we need the ultimate version with the best of both movies, but I'm afraid, apart from the Brando scenes, and a few others, it will mostly be the original theatrical release. Lester deserves more credit for injecting some fresh direction into a movie that we can now see was struggling.

For those who have no trouble detaching their minds from reality, this is a really charming story. However, its almost impossible to take seriously. Alice Evans must have read the script and laughed. A beautiful ambitious woman with a chipper personality, lives with her parents, works with her parents, and the highlight of the week is to go to an old peoples church with her parents. She has no life and yet she likes it like that. That's just ridiculous. She has a boyfriend who's a schmuck, and is rarely ever around. Then all of a sudden this military guy on leave comes into town with soap opera looks. He's a good man, polite, hardworking, kind thoughtful, and charming. It's like he was born with stars and stripes tattooed on his ass. John Newton didn't really have to do much acting, he looked miserable through the whole movie, as if he was thinking, how on earth are people supposed to believe this stuff? Everyone hero worships him because he is basically every prospective mother in law's fantasy son in law. Alice Evans must have thought he was too good to be true, as I guess every woman on the planet would think so. You can almost tell that Newton wanted to scream out a cuss word and go and get drunk, just do something to make us see he is a normal guy. The music is really strange in places too, it reminded me of laurel and hardy a little bit. Even when the mood changes, the music tinkles away in the background without changing. With all that being said, this film's not too bad.