Quite possibly the worst science fiction film of the last ten years, and I have to say that as quite an extraordinary achievement. And what's even more extraordinary is that the Great Flanneled One himself, yes Mr. George Lucas shares an emmense ammount of the responsibility for this heaping pile of shit. (He apparently was the man who recommended Roger Christian for the directing job!)

Now, lets start at the beginning because I read and enjoyed the book. And we'll start by summing up what's good about this movie. (Don't worry, it's a short list) I liked the look of the film. It had some interesting shots, and great production values. The ships were really cool looking, and the makeup was distinct and fresh. (It didn't follow the look of the Psychlos in the book, but I'll give them some artistic liscense here)

What could have been a great movie decidedly wasn't. And why, you ask?

WHO LET THIS GUY DIRECT????????

Without a doubt the worst directing and acting I have ever seen in any movie before or since. John Travolta, Barry Pepper and Forest Whittaker are all men that can act, and yet for two hours and change, they don't. I mean I was staggered at just how bad it was. Almost painful. And who wrote the fucking dialogue. It is so canned and corny and just plain wrong... I hope the man responsible for this either never works again, or he has to be pinned in a chair and forced to watch this movie over and over again.

To see all this attention paid to the look of the film, and see performances that rate right past bad and well into the realm of retarded. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to slap people around who said they enjoyed it. Or they say "It wasn't that bad", and you avoid them after that.

With a budget of 73 million dollars, they could have hired a real director instead of a friend of a friend of George Lucas... (not that they're dropping names or anything) Didn't anybody watch the dailies of this and figure out that it sucked somewhere in the middle of production? Didn't they screen it and say, "Damn, we should reshoot that" Apparently when you've sunk 73 million into something, I guess your only hope is to try and get some of your money back on it. Fortunately this little turd didn't generate a profit....

Maybe one day, someone will come along, and write a decent adaptation and make a decent movie, until then, this is definitely one to promote the literacy movement...

And one final pet peeve. Every scene transition is done like elevator doors opening. That's right! Split down dead center. Were the other scene transition machines broke when they did this movie. I know it's insignificant, but having every scene end by splitting down the middle just gets annoying.

If I had a choice between watching it again, and shooting myself, I'd have to really think about it. If you see it still on the shelves, give a wide berth. The suckiness could be contagious.