Babylon 5: A Call to Arms

I had great expectations for this movie. And I wasn't disappointed, not at all... except for the atrocious soundtrack. Maybe if I wasn't a big fan of Babylon 5, it wouldn't bother me, but when I was used to the great music through the five series, and then I heard *this*, I mean, what's this for? A good soundtrack can promote a movie greatly, or diminish its feel. Anyway, this was the only bad thing about it. Sheridan was ace, same for the new ships! Good storyline, solid action, nice introduction to the Crusade series. I liked how the script tied all this to the Drakh, and that their nasty involvement is explored further. The new characters were great!

All B5 fans must watch it!

Nicely plotted, and working a good transition from B5 to the ill-fated Crusade spin-off not just in narrative but in mood - there's a general shift from politics towards mysticism (also adumbrated in Thirdspace, where the dream sequences were rather more powerful, even if they ultimately had nowhere much to go). This change of mood is underlined by Evan Chen's controversial scoring; personally I like his work for Crusade, but found his dry run here deeply mediocre.

It's a measure of how Bruce Boxleitner's stature as Sheridan has grown over four seasons of B5 that he effortlessly and charismatically takes centre-stage here. Jerry Doyle's Garibaldi is equally assured but doesn't in the end have that much to do. Of the newcomers, Carrie Dobro is probably the only one who can match up to the old timers, though Tony Todd is his usual professional self. Opinion is divided about Galen. Specifically it's divided between me and other sensible people who think Peter Woodward should have been drowned at birth, and people who aren't as sensible as me. To be fair, he's not as dreadful here as in the early episodes of Crusade. Be thankful for small mercies.

This is a pretty good movie. Not the best but very good. The music on the other hand is abysmal. On top of that, they opt for no sound during dramatic moments *except* for the music.

This is also the same type of music used in the B5 spin-off "Crusade". Now I'm not going to lay the blame for Crusade's failure solely on the music but it was definitely a contributing factor in my opinion. It just gives it a chintzy kinda feel. They could and should have done better for both this movie and the show.

Of all the movies "A call to Arms" is my favourite, "In the beginning" makes a wonderful prequel but generally only the very big fans of the show will really appreciate all the parts of the film. "A call to Arms" manages not only to please big fans of the show by featuring a very big event in the B5 universe, but also make a stunning stand-alone movie that anyone could enjoy.

I thought Dobro and Woodward were absolutely excellent as Dureen and Galen, characters I am certainly looking forward to seeing more of in JMS's crusade.

The music is...well, pretty bad on first listening. But eventually you'll get used to it and it does give the film a unique and different feeling to the rest of the B5 series. This is definetly the movie to watch if you want to watch one of the films to get into the series.

I thought A Call To Arms was a great Babylon 5 movie. The plot was great and the acting good. I can not look past the horrible music though that offsets the rest of the movie in every way.