Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103130217
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ "Circuitry Man" is the best of the new batch. It's a stylish mix of "Blade Runner," "Mad Max" and "Max Headroom." In a bleak future where people have been driven underground by pollution, a tough loner (Dana Wheeler Nicholson) and an emotional robot (Jim Meltzer) are on the run from a group of gonzo bad guys. Plughead (Vernon Wells) likes to experience other people's pain, and Yo-yo (Barbara Alyn Woods) is a tough-talking gangster.
The video's main problems are a leaden pace and apparent ignorance of basic storytelling techniques. But the acting is above average, the characters are interesting and, beneath the gritty surface, there's a strange likable quality to the film.
\ "Moon 44" has many of the same strengths and weaknesses. It too owes a lot to "Blade Runner," with its hulking sets, strange lighting and overall fatalism. The subject is a corporate war over mineral rights on a mining planet. Michael Pare, Lisa Eichhorn and Malcolm MacDowell handle the familiar material with more talent than it deserves. The special effects, involving futuristic helicopters, are the real star anyway. Pay as little attention as possible to the tissue-thin plot.
\ "Lock 'n' Load" is a Colorado production that rises above its shoestring budget. The story is a far-fetched tale of veterans and mind control that recalls "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Jacob's Ladder." It's slow in the unwinding - people spend far too much time on such simple business as getting in and out of cars - and sometimes predictable.
But writer/director David Prior deserves a lot of credit for creating realistic, flawed, multidimensional characters. One good character is worth a hundred effects, and this movie has several. The young cast is unknown and inconsistent, but in the important scenes, they're believable.
The best thing about "Project: Alien" is a really neat biplane. The setting is Norway, and the plot is a crock full of UFO cliches, including but not limited to cattle mutilations, mysterious lights in the sky and kidnappings. A capable cast - Michael Nouri, Maxwell Caulfield, Darlanne Fluegel, Charles Durning - give the flat script their best shot, but there's little they can do with this clumsy material. The film begins well, but by the end it's almost a comedy.
Remember all those underwater monster movies that came out summer before last - "The Abyss," "Deepstar Six," and one or two others? They were all so similar that I thought somebody had photocopied a script and changed the names in the various versions.\ "Endless Descent" was in that litter, though it was not given a wide theatrical release, and it's actually not bad.
An experimental sub, Siren II, is sent to investigate the disappearance of the original Siren and, to nobody's surprise, they find something evil lurking on the ocean floor. R. Lee Ermey is the by-the-book commanding officer; Jack Scalia is the ship's designer; Deborah Adair is his estranged wife. Several others are on hand, too, but few of them make it to the last reel. The pace is brisk and the critter is fun.
Back in 1960, director George Pal made a spirited, if oversimplified film of H.G. Wells'\ "The Time Machine." By today's standards, the introduction seems deliberate, but this is such a handsome production, with intricate Victorian sets and props, that even the slow moments are fascinating. Once the story gets cranked up, with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux fighting the creepy Morlocks, it moves right along.
The effects, astonishing at the time, still stand up to today's razzle-dazzle wonders. So, all in all, "The Time Machine" is well worth a second or third look, and younger viewers who might have missed it are in for a treat.
> New releases this week
WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART : Starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Fahey; D: Clint Eastwood. Warner, 120 min. PG. If John Huston were alive, he could have made a movie like "White Hunter, Black Heart." It's about a dark obsession in the soul that drives a man toward irrational acts. Huston made such movies with similar themes as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Moby Dick."
But this movie is about Huston, thinly fictionalized as director John Wilson and portrayed by actor/director Clint Eastwood. It's an absorbing movie for several reasons: the real-life characters, Eastwood's continuing evolution into an admirable director, and an intelligent script partly written by Peter Viertel who wrote the novel on which this is based. Viertel traveled with Huston to Africa in the 1950s to work on "The African Queen." This story is his version of how Huston almost wrecked that classic picture because of his determination to bag an elephant.
Eastwood gives a credible and intelligent performance, though the reserve and inward-intensity that he has cultivated works against him; Huston was a highly dramatic personality.
But Eastwood eases us into imagining Huston, suggesting Huston's orotund voice and sentence rhythms. And he makes Wilson a complex character, pugnacious, fair-minded in some ways and illogical in others, a romantic and a cynic. The movie unfolds like one of those Hollywood memoirs, and the dialogue is refreshingly grown-up. - CHRIS GLADDEN
> ARACHNOPHOBIA 1/2: Starring Julian Sands, Jeff Daniels. D: Frank Marshall. Buena Vista, 110 min. PG-13. This begins like a Steven Spielberg adventure, with great aerial shots of the South American rain forest and a sense of breathless excitement as a band of scientists closes in on a new species of spider. And that's no surprise. Director Marshall is a long-time Spielberg producer, and Spielberg himself was executive producer of this picture.
If "Jaws" made us afraid to go near the water, this comedy-thriller about marauding spiders wants to make us afraid to go near the basement. Unfortunately, after its grandiose beginnings, it only serves as a reminder to put a can of Raid on the grocery list. This blend of comedy and horror is neither particularly scary nor particularly funny.
On the other hand, the movie is refreshingly restrained and civilized compared to most contemporary horror movies.At heart, it's a B-grade horror plot with slick, A-grade production values. It may provide some thrills for those who have a pronounced aversion to creepy, crawly critters. - CHRIS GLADDEN
What the ratings mean:
Wonderful; one of the best of its kind. See it right away.
Very good; definitely worth renting.
Average. You've seen better; you've seen worse.
Poor. Make sure the fast-forward button on your VCR is in good working order.
\ Dud An insult to intelligence and taste. This category is as much a warning as a rating.
THE ESSENTIALS:
\ CIRCUITRY MAN 1/2 RCA/Columbia, 85 min. Rated R for violence, strong language, sexual material.
\ MOON 44 LIVE, 102 min. Rated R for violence, strong language.
\ LOCK 'N' LOAD 1/2 A.I.P., about 90 min. Unrated, contains mild violence, strong language.
\ PROJECT: ALIEN Vidmark, 92 min. Rated R for strong language.
\ ENDLESS DESCENT 1/2 LIVE, 79 min. Rated R for language, graphic effects.
\ THE TIME MACHINE MGM/UA, 103 min. Unrated, contains some fairly graphic effects.
by CNB