Deathlands

I watched and taped this movie because i thought it would be great to spend "time" with Ryan and the others. Unfortunately, the person who did the screenplay can't possibly have read the books and could therefore easily convince someone unfamiliar with them that they're not worthy of reading. First of all, Krysty doesn't get wild-eyed when she calls on the Gaia power and would never show fear before it as she did in the movie when Jabez was going to attack her. Jak is not crazy. In the books, being an albino gives him a crazy look to some people and he has long white hair, adding to the effect. JB is not chubby and doesn't look like a geek. I like Vincent Spano as Ryan. He did a great job, although I'd mention to the writers that I don't remember him ever calling Krysty "baby" or refusing to argue with her. They're a true team, but he's not under her control in any way. As to the other writer's comments about how people wouldn't let themselves be ruled by a crazy baron, I ask you to remember "Baron" Hitler and his sec force, also known as the SS; "Baron" Kruschev and his sec force called, the KGB and let's not forget "Baron" Castro although I don't know the name of his sec force. Fear and intimidation rule well. Everything in Deathlands is not red either. There are places that are quite nice. In short, if you didn't like the movie but think that it may have had some interesting moments, try the books. They've been around a long time and are very popular with a strong following. In the books, you'll also meet Dr. Mildred Wyeth, a 'freezie' and JB's lover, and 'Doc', aka Dr Theophilus Tanner, a time traveler, made crazy by too many experiments by the 'white coats'. When he returns from being kidnapped by his mother, Sharona, you can meet Dean, Ryan's 11 year old son. Hope Ryan kills the bitch when he gets the chance. But i do enjoy the movie just for the fun of being with the group. You have to suspend your disbelief long enough to get past the mistakes. And it should have been longer to do it justice.

Well, I've never read the book or anything, but it's probably a given that it's better than this clunker of a movie adaptation. The film suffers badly from a low budget and just silly villains. Let me get this straight: 100 years after a nuclear war, and these uneducated, primitive survivalists will let two nutcases "rule" them like a king and queen, when any one of them could shoot the "rulers" in the head if they so chooses to? Yeah, right.

Some groovy editing work can't save it. This is just a poor movie, and should never have been made. Really, really bad.

The acting is good, Traci Lords and Vincent Spano are in it, and the red head is a knockout!

It's a Sci Fi where the hero kills the bad guy.

It's action adventure.

Film Fans,

Okay, it's not like the book. Surprised? It never is like the book.

Enjoy it for what it is.

What do you expect Die Hard?

You try and a make a movie with two name actors for under a million, go ahead, see what you come up with.

Farside has a little more juice behind it than this piece by Stanton but she has less time to tell the story.

I really liked the way that the red haired mutant kept calling Spano (the Ryan character) lover. So warm in today's PC world. Refreshing.

But the restrictions of television were evident in the romantic scenes.

I was not expecting much from Deathlands, but got better than anticipated even if the end result was still very flawed. It does get some plaudits for the acting being better than average, Vincent Spano has never been a big favourite but still does a decent job in the lead, the female lead is also more than a pretty face at least, while Cliff Saunders does what he can with some of the weakest material. As well as some slick editing and authentic scenery. On the other hand the colour filtering is very distracting, so much so at first I wasn't sure whether it was the film or whether my television had broken. The dialogue is really tepid, I am sure they are in the books too(I haven't read them though) but this could have been an opportunity to improve on that and they missed it. The music is generic with nothing memorable sticking out, and the action is unexciting with the last one in particular having none of the relentless adrenaline-rushing thrills you'd expect. What's just as bad is that I just wasn't convinced by the story or any of the characters. The story despite a reasonably intriguing idea was dull and seemed structurally thin, with no sense of suspense or genuine surprise, while the characters are clichéd and just never seem to come to life, you don't learn much about them and in the end you don't care about them or their motivations. Overall, Deathlands is not a terrible movie, I've seen much worse, but it could have been far better as well. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Unfortunately, this film doesn't sink to the level of truly horrendous, which would have made it much more enjoyable. The characters aspire to be cardboard cutouts but don't rate quite that high. The occasional scenery chewing actually comes as a relief. The dialogue could have been generated by a word processor set to "bland". The kingdom, or "ville", being fought over resembles an abandoned shoe factory. The henchmen, or secman as they are known, couldn't put a beat down on a sack of kittens. One of the heroes, the Armorer, looks like an accountant going to a Halloween party dressed an Indiana Jones, and is about as dangerous.

One of the only barely original touches is to kill the sound whenever there is an explosion or action sequence. After discovering I hadn't accidentally muted my TV this was interesting for 5 seconds or so, then just became annoying. The ending credits were probably the best done part of the movie.

All in all, go to your local community theater instead of watching this. It'll be time much better spent. I just don't understand how movies like this get made.