rgrimmig
Joined Apr 2020
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Reviews19
rgrimmig's rating
I've been binging Charmed for the first time these past weeks and have been thoroughly underwhelmed to the point where I almost dropped the endeavour entirely. But this episode really stands out, and that is solely because Billy Zane is so great in it. The guy has to be the single best "cameo" (if you can call it that) in the entire show. He manages to not just portrait an demon who willingly chose to throw away his immortallity in favour of being able to experience a brief spell of humanity. He really pulls it off, convincingly.
Which is more than can be said even for many of the main cast on this show.
Which is more than can be said even for many of the main cast on this show.
This episode stars two of the most eminent scholars of nuclear history, Alex Wellerstein and Richard Rhodes himself, but their brief appearances are the only good thing about it. The rest is a collection of very few actual facts and a lot of dumb clichés in the usual History Channel vein plus some embarrassing German (and American!) accents. No mention is made of the fact that almost all of the top scientists of the Manhattan Project were immigrants, or that they were in it mainly to fight the Nazis with their antisemitism and their Holocaust on the Jews of Europe.
Another 40 minutes of my life gone that I will never ever get back. Utterly skipable.
Another 40 minutes of my life gone that I will never ever get back. Utterly skipable.
Wide stretches of the film are purely concerned with celebrating fancy (for the time) science equipment and methods, which amounts to gear porn and modernity masturbation of an age long past. None of this stuff is modern any longer and therefore it is utterly boring.
The writing is also weak. All characters are old people completely devoid of characteristics. The filmmakers meticiulously avoid even trying to make the viewers care about any of these people for a millisecond. To the contrary: extended stretches with a crying baby make you absolutely hate it. Therefore there is no suspense, except for hoping that the baby finally dies so the screaming might finally stop.
In short: a yawn fest if ever I saw one. Attitudes, techniques and writing straight out of the cold war. It may have been made in 1971 but clearly not by the avant-garde. It is a late 50s/early 60s movie, and not one of the good ones.
The one single positive: there is no forced love story either.
Basically it is the exact opposite of true classics like Phase IV (1989) although admittedly that was made 18 years later.
The writing is also weak. All characters are old people completely devoid of characteristics. The filmmakers meticiulously avoid even trying to make the viewers care about any of these people for a millisecond. To the contrary: extended stretches with a crying baby make you absolutely hate it. Therefore there is no suspense, except for hoping that the baby finally dies so the screaming might finally stop.
In short: a yawn fest if ever I saw one. Attitudes, techniques and writing straight out of the cold war. It may have been made in 1971 but clearly not by the avant-garde. It is a late 50s/early 60s movie, and not one of the good ones.
The one single positive: there is no forced love story either.
Basically it is the exact opposite of true classics like Phase IV (1989) although admittedly that was made 18 years later.