The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_557" align="alignright" width="307"] Official Score = 3 1/2 Devils[/caption]

For years now I have been a fan of both Horror and Science Fiction movies, and you know what? Generally speaking it seems like to me that with Horror movies, I usually come out of the movie feeling very satisfied, and sometimes I have even come out of the movie wanting to buy it!

With Science Fiction I feel very similar… That is to say I am also a huge fan of the Science Fiction genre, and frankly oft times I also come out of those movies either very happy with my selection… I would even go so far to say that I usually end up wanting to build the Science Fiction side of my library!

But you know what truly defines a great movie? When that movie actually electrifies you!

Now I am not talking that you get a jolt of actual Electricity... But it is not far from it… I mean you get that intense jolt of adrenaline that one gets when seeing a truly awesome movie, so much so that when you get out of the movie you can’t stop thinking about how great that movie was and it stays with you for a bit afterward… If you have had that then, you know what I am talking about!

And you know what? The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) was just one of those movies!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Michael Paré with Bobby Di Cicco in, 'The Philadelpha Experiment'![/caption]

Starring: Michael Paré (Solar Force), Nancy Allen (Carrie), Eric Christmas (Air Bud), Bobby Di Cicco (Night Shift), Kene Holliday (The District) and Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day).

The Philadelphia Experiment, tells the story about how in 1943 an experiment on board a A Navy Destroyer that went horribly wrong and ended up transporting two sailors by the name of David Herdeg (Paré), and Jim Parker (Di Cicco) that were on board the ship from 1943 to 1984…

Once they get to this foreign world though, they are not much better off… You see, besides the fact that both of them are both way out of date, and have no idea what seems to be going on, one of them is experiencing weird pain… But despite all of that, the world is coming to an end due to the fact that no one seems to be able to seal up the hole, and the hole seems to be sucking everything in to it!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450"] Herdeg with the one friend he and his friend, 'Jim Paker' have been able to make since being thrown in to the future![/caption]

And once Jim finally disappears, David and his new friend, ‘Alison’ (Allen) will stop at nothing to find out what happened to him and his ship, and ultimately to maybe regain some sort of semblance of his life… It is the ride of his life!

In the end, this movie was freakin amazing… Now for those of you who don’t know, this movie is supposedly loosely based on the true story of an experiment that went wrong during World War 2… (And did a great job with the story line I suspect because of that…)

The truth is though is that they don’t make Science Fiction movies like that anymore… I mean this movie had some amazing talent that just did a fantastic job! Admittedly the special effects are a little campy… But what can you expect? I mean this movie is almost 30 years old, and in all truth I have to admit that the special effects (despite their campy appeal were part of what made this movie so awesome!)

The last thing that I wanted to mention here is the fact that this movie had an amazing script, with an awesome story line… the reason I say this, is that I saw a documentary on the, ‘Real’ Philadelphia Experiment, and in truth, at least according to the documentary, the way the movie depicted the events on the ship in 1943, were pretty close to what really happened, and the plight of the two Sailors lost in time (something that as far as I know didn’t actually happen) was amazingly well written!

In the end, this movie, I thought was just awesome… And if you check it out you might think the same!

http://youtu.be/iURHeZ3Qv8E

Star Wars: Episode 4 - A New Hope (1977) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_415" align="alignright" width="300"] Official Score = 4 Devils[/caption]

What can I say about the original Star Wars movie that hasn't already been said? I mean if you were born in the last decade or so, you would have heard about this movie… right?

This movie which launched such an epic franchise of movies/comics/cartoons/books as well as other forms of media that have been so exceptional and so prolific that even  George Lucas (The creator of the series) having announced after the end of Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith (2005) that, that was going to be all of the new, ‘Star Wars’ movies that were going to be released…With the purchase of Lucas Films and the series by Disney recently, it does appear that there is going to be a continuation of the series for a fresh young audience to enjoy!

With that in mind, I am very well aware of the fact that just now I have been talking about the new movie, so for the rare lot who haven’t seen this movie, this movie stars: Mark Hamill (Corvette Summer), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Carrie Fisher (Hollywood Vice Squad), Peter Cushing (Dracula A.D. 1972), Alec Guinness (Bridge On The River Kwai), Anthony Daniels (Conjure), Kenny Baker (The Cage), Peter Mayhew (Dark Towers), David Prowse (A Clockwork Orange), James Earl Jones (The Hunt For Red October).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) as he faces off against Darth Vader (David Prowess) on board the Death Star in one of the first truly epic light saber battles of the entire series![/caption]

Now even though, series wise, this movie probably should have been the third sequel in the series… (Being as they did call it, ‘Episode 4’ and all, it isn't and it is so good that it actually doesn't have to be!)

You see this movie starts off the story with the evil, ‘Galactic Empire’ ruling the galaxy, and with most of the people with in this great, ‘Empire’ believing that being in the Empire was the greatest thing in the universe!

Well like all, ‘Great’ Empires, it isn't, with people being scared and intimidated in to submission and the like! Well in the case of this Empire, a dark lord, and his assistant, ‘Darth Vader’ (played by: David Prowse) and voiced by James Earl Jones) rule over many worlds.

During this time, a resistance movement has begun to form (which of course the Empire is not happy about and hunts as many people as they can down)…. One such person they hunt down is a Princess from the planet of Alderaan, by the name of Princess Leia Organa (Fisher)….

Now as Darth Vader closes in on her and attacks the Space craft that she is on, the Princess decides to send a message with her android and robot assistants, (the soon to be famed R2D2 (played by Kenny Baker), and C3PO (Played by: Anthony Daniels)) down to the planet below in an escape pod, so that they can get in touch with General Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guiness)!

Now General Kenobi is a Jedi (A powerful master protector that follows a philosophy of peace and that he can also kick ass with both his mind and a light saber when he has to!)

Once they get their though, R2D2 and C3PO are kidnapped and sold off to a farmer by the name of Owen (played by: Phil Brown), and the day after, Owen’s nephew by the name of, ‘Luke Skywalker’ (Hamill), gets them cleaned up. R2D2 goes on his mission to find Obi-Wan Kenobi (with Luke and C3PO in hot pursuit)… Once they find this old hermit though and Luke begins to get a little insight in to who his father really is, Luke goes home… Only to find out that both his Aunt and Uncle are dead!

After this, he heads off with Obi-Wan Kenobi, C3PO, R2D2, a human smuggler by the name of Han Solo (Ford) and Chewbacca (Mayhew) on an adventure that they will never forget and neither will the rest of the Galaxy (and believe me when I say that neither will you the watcher of this film either!)

Now here are just a few of the reasons that this movie is truly an epic masterpiece of cinema…
Before this movie, you would see a lot of truly campy special effects… Sometimes those campy effects were good and sometimes they were not… But in the case of this movie, a lot of the special effects that are truly modern day marvels get there humble beginnings from this movie and the series that spawned because of it!

Without George Lucas’s vision of this movie, and the work that he put in to making this movie what it ended up being, I am convinced that this movie would not be near as good as it was!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A green, 'Luke Skywalker' (Mark Hamill) as he looks off in to the future...[/caption]

As far as acting goes… Besides the fact that everyone in this film did a fantastic job in it individually, I also thought they gelled so well that they did a really believable job in portraying the people they were and how they related to each other!

And the last thing that I thought that I should mention here is just how epic this story is in the written sense… I won’t say much beyond that expect that they really don’t make to many Science Fiction movies that have spanned as much as this anymore and I think that the difference in writing styles definitely shows in all that!

In the end, this movie is a true masterpiece, and if you haven’t seen it yet, then I would recommend it, I think you might find that you really like it!

http://youtu.be/9gvqpFbRKtQ

Red Planet Mars (1952) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_330" align="alignright" width="220"] Official Score = 2 1/2 Devils[/caption]

I gotta be honest and admit that most Science Fiction/Horror Movies don’t generally tend to have very great messages on the global level! (Sci-Fi movies tend to more often the horror movies do.)

And speaking of Science Fiction movies and the messages that they give, the Science Fiction movies that have do with contact with Aliens tend so far in my opinion to give the more fascinating of messages…

What I mean by this is the examples of Independence Day (1996) ultimately had to do with the concept that our first contact with another race would be hostile, but through that hostility on a global level, that mankind would ultimately find there reason to finally end the hatred that the world has experienced!

Another example of this is the Star Trek series… In this Star Trek Universe Zefram Cochrane will around the end of the 2060s discover faster-than-light (warp) travel, and after testing his new engine, comes in to contact with the Vulcan race, and after the first contact between humanity and the Vulcans, all of Earth’s problems disappear within the next 50 years!

Now that is just one example of a first contact between an Alien race and humanity that had went really well! The next one, and the subject of this review that I saw recently and had found to be rather interesting is, Red Planet Mars (1952) :

Written by: John L. Balderston (Dracula), Anthony Vieller (The Stranger) and Directed by: Harry Horner (Vicki). Starring: Peter Graves (Mission Impossible), Andrea King (The Lemon Drop Kid), Herbert Berghof (Cleopatra), Walter Sande (To Have And Have Not) and Marvin Miller (Dead Reckoning).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480"] The Aliens as they are terraforming Mars![/caption]

Red Planet Mars… Now this movie truly is a different one… You see Mankind for decades have been wondering what it might be like if we were able to make first contact with an advanced Alien race, and some believe that when mankind can finally make a permanent foot hold in the cosmos that, that will finally be able to unify us as a species in a way that has never been scene!

Well Red Planet Mars posits at least one of these scenarios, you see just at the beginning of the atomic age, when most of the world is divided between the communist countries of the Warsaw Pact, and the western allies, an American Scientist by the name of Harry Cronyn (Graves) and his wife, ‘Linda’ (King) are about to make contact with the Aliens that inhabit the planet Mars!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360"] Chris Cronyn (Graves), with his wife, 'Linda' and the evil Dr. Calder (Berghof) at Cronyn's lab[/caption]

Once they are able to do so, the world rejoices at first, but as more and more messages come, these messages begin to affect more and more of the free world, until the Western world is on the verge of collapse!

Now during this time, the Russians are also intercepting all of the messages going back and forth… And are beginning to look toward capitalizing on their falling enemies… That is until the Aliens begin sending messages that mankind should follow a message of love and peace for everyone on the planet Earth.

This brings mankind to the brink of seriously beginning to be able to create a Utopian civilization on Earth… But like all great tragedies, Franz Kalder (Berghof), a former Nazi, that has been working for the Soviets has a secret about the Alien signals, and if he lets his secret go, can change the fate of the world forever! So Dr. Cronyn and his wife will have to make a sacrifice that will change the course of their lives forever if they are going to stop Kalder from destroying the world forever!

In the end, the best thing about this movie is the message of togetherness and world unity, either way it is definitely a fun one!

http://youtu.be/Litlsbp6imY