Milpool

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is a terrific monster movie spawned out of those halcyon days of the mid fifties. In a way, it reflects some of those post war ideals, prevalent at the time, thoughts and visions of travelling into the unknown, of uncovering new secrets and breaking down old mysteries, of penetrating far beyond that which was previously known. The creature of the title was a masterful piece of work; combined with lush photography and some of the most beautiful underwater camera-work ever taken, this was literally a dream given form. The creature certainly did have alot of passion pent up within his savage heart.

A reflection on the turmoil and upheavels of the state and the individual, Tarkovsky's "The Mirror" moves smoothly and effortlessly. It is, at once, both a look back at the rigors of childhood, and an altogether seamless blend of reality and sleep. Like a looking glass, reflecting both clear and distorted images of the world, the picture plays like a feverish, waking dream; it is a film, as if seen from the eyes of man, slowly fading away, slipping in and out of reality. What was, and could never be again.

Usually, JMS and his crew do a great job. There is no argument that Babylon 5 may have been the finest science fiction series ever to come to television. In this entry in the long series of good films, however, things become a little more slack, and the result is an uninvolving, mildly amusing detour. A Dumb subplot involving the fight with a virtual brothel does nothing to help this film; it is, in a sense, weighted down by the inability of the producers to add anything new into the Babylon 5 universe. Instead of generating a strong storyline, the creators have opted for a plot about a lost "river" of souls and the claimant who arrives unexpectedly to collect his stolen property. Martin Sheen as the alien "soul hunter" is one of the most ludicrous examples of miscasting since Tom Selleck as King Ferdinand in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.