Opiniones de usuarios

The movie follows the usual Columbo formula but yet it isn't as good and enjoyable to watch as most other Columbo movies. You could blame the script for this, which doesn't feature a good plot or premise, nice original settings or likable characters. The movie also has some real horrible and lame dialog at times, which of course makes it all the worse.

It's not a totally horrible movie though and for a detective crime thriller made for TV it simply is good enough and features all of the right required ingredients. Of course also the presence of the Columbo character makes a good watch.

Peter Falk is in his good old form as Lt. Columbo but the rest of the cast however isn't halve as good. Andrew Stevens is an horrible B-actor who now days earns his living from making straight-to-video, also as a producer, director, writer and production designer. It says something about how his career declined, after he in 1979 still received a Golden Globe nomination for best new male star.

It's not a movie that moves along really pleasantly. It has a sort of dragging pace but this is also mostly due to the movie its script I would say and not necessary the movie it's directing style or editing. Some movies just have a dragging script. The movie also does some attempts at humor but it doesn't always work out as well as it did for other Columbo movies.

The movie does feature some nice twists however, which makes the movie different from most other Columbo movie entries. It helps to still make this movie a good watch, despite of all of its other weaknesses.

6/10

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This is the lowest I have rated a Columbo so far (haven't got to "Dagger Of The Mind" yet though!), but after twenty reviews each rating 7 or more out of 10, I have to be honest and say "Murder In Malibu" doesn't really have a lot going for it.

It's perfectly pleasant to have on in the background, but I find it very hard to sit back and concentrate on this episode without drifting off. Even though it's playing as I type, I'm struggling to describe what's going on. There's an awful lot of shouting though, that's for sure.

Very much a "filler" episode with everyone on autopilot. I can't imagine anyone ever thinking "Murder In Malibu" is their favourite Columbo.

In Brenda Vaccaro's first scene her face is narrow and she looks slim, basically like she did in Midnight Cowboy. In the rest of her scenes her face is noticeably fuller and her body is heavy set. There must have been a break in the filming of this episode. She looks totally different for all her scenes after the first scene. I like seeing her because she is such a good actress, much better than Andrew Stevens who overacting this whole episode, but Brenda look changed very noticeably after her first scene. Always great to see Janet Margolin in any of her roles. She didn't get enough parts IMHO. Also, where is Columbo's beat up Volvo sedan? They should have had shot of it next to the red Jaguar two seat sports car that Stevens character drove around in.

I hate seeing all the low scores and reviews of this episode. Also contradictory with some saying it's formula and others hating the twist well I love it for both those reasons. Classic Columbo being brilliant as usual and I love the twists in this episode that are also present in so many of these later Columbos keeps it fresh as well as keeping to a winning formula.

No way should any episode of Columbo be marked lower than The last of the Commodore and even that one I give 5. It's ludicrous people marking this episode with 1 and 2 and the actors are great especially Brenda Vaccaro whose always brilliant.

This was a strange Columbo story about a successful romance novelist Janet Margolin who announces on an afternoon talk show host that she's about to marry Andrew Stevens professional tennis player. Part time player and full time gigolo.

But after the show Margolin finds Stevens has been, heaven forfend, unfaithful. She cuts him off and he kills her and in a rather elaborate ruse to first raise and then throw off suspicion on himself. Not something you would think of on the spur of the moment which is the main weakness of the story.

But additionally Stevens is a love 'em and leave 'em type. Margolin is not the first I'm sure to have given him his walking papers. His kind would have gone out and found someone else. Definitely not have killed someone.

Best in the cast is Margolin's overbearing protective sister Brenda Vaccaro who despises Stevens and at the same time lusts after him incredibly. Can't really blame her, she dominates when she's on.

Interesting characters, but the plot makes no real sense.

I like and find this episode to be well on the same level with any other that I have seen. I take it as a fairly typical Columbo episode with me wrong footed, over the murderer and how and why he did it. The lecherous Wayne Jennings and love lorne and frankly desperate women, who seem incapable of resisting his dubious charms.

I particularly enjoy the comedic moments of Columbo and other detectives, related to the murder victims underwear. This is of course related to Columbo's attention to minute detail, that other lesser detectives would casually miss. Not any particular penchant for ladies lingerie.

I am a Columbo addict and can't resist watching it whenever it's on the box. The problem seems to be for viewers here this side of the pond, is that TV networks seem to have a penchant for screening episodes over again. I always think of how many episodes were actually made, and the constant repitions of what appears to be a handful of episodes.

These are programmes made for TV so the production and acting, will be on a par for that course. Apart from the odd star turn on their uppers, the majority of people who appear will be jobbing actors.

Although British TV companies do seem to show a plethora of yank shows. We probably only see a fraction of those actually made. So most of the actors certainly pass me by, and in this episode I only recognise one actor apart from Falk. Brenda Vaccaro as Jess McCurdy is the only actress, in any way familiar to me.

This is the lowest score I've ever given to a Columbo episode. Andrew Stevens may be about as bad an actor as exists. If he hadn't been arrested for murder, they should have arrested him for that. The plot is stupid to start with. The guy is handsome, but the drool level all over must have required a cleaning company after women met him. Anyway, he thinks he is being exposed, so he kills his potential fiancee. He has no heart, probably a sociopath. The woman's sister, played by the overrated Brenda Vicarro, is also awful actress. The times it is played for laughs just don't work well. The final scene as they are combing through women's underwear is just stupid.

Famous authoress Teresa Goren finally wakes up to the truth that her young lover Wayne Jennings is not so much in love with her as he is in love with her money. She tells him the wedding is off and that he'll never get a penny of her assets; this doesn't exactly please Jennings so, before Goren can tell anyone of her decision, he kills her and covers his trail, making it look like a robbery gone wrong in her house. Columbo joins the investigation and notes that the robber was able to cleanly break into the safe but still smashed glass to get through a very basic wooden door. Naturally he suspects Jennings but, with the evidence seemingly clearing him, he turns to him for help.

It may say more about me than anything else but there must be something wrong with a film where the main thing that gets my heart going is the sight of a cherry picker being used without any harnesses being worn and sadly that is the most memorable moment in this film. The plot is pretty much to formula so in theory it should have been OK, which as a fan I suppose it is but the problem is with the delivery of the story. The case is reasonably interesting but it doesn't develop that well and it does involve Columbo knowing an uncomfortable amount about woman's underwear. However the plots have never been the strongest in Columbo and it is usually the formula that carries the film – a formula that we all know but one that involves strong performances from the leads, something that is lacking here.

It isn't Falk's fault because he does his usual stuff pretty well and will please fans with a character that has given him the career that he has. No, the problem is with pretty much everybody else. Stevens is hardly of the standard of suspect that we have come to expect and he doesn't work with Falk at all well. He is bland and dull in a formula that calls for presence, chemistry or at least energy; true to script gave him a soft character but he still has to carry some of the blame. Likewise Vaccaro, Levine, Walters and others all barely do the minimum required of them and nobody really helped Falk do a job that, on this occasion, he couldn't do by himself.

Overall this is an OK Columbo because in essence the formula is in place but really it is done without any great skill or effort. The story is poorly developed and didn't engage me and, with such roundly uninspiring performances, this problem was laid bare and was not one that the film could recover from. Fans might just get something from it but there are many, many better Columbo films out there.

In Murder in Malibu, Andrew Stevens plays tennis player/maybe actor involved with a successful romance novelist, Theresa Goren (Janet Margolin). She's nuts about him despite her sister Jess (Brenda Vaccaro) insisting he's a gold-digger, which he is.

Wayne plays all ends against the middle. While he's having sex with a producer's wife, Theresa calls and, seeing the light, dumps him.

Wayne returns to Theresa's. We don't know what happens, but the next thing we know, Theresa's dead, and Columbo is investigating.

Ridiculous episode mainly due to lousy acting and the fact that Wayne makes a play for Jess, who hates him, and she goes for him in a big way.

The case is solved due to a pair of panties. My sisters and I howled as this was something emphasized to us by our mother. I won't expound on this - if you can sit through this, see for yourselves.

In the 1990s, the scriptwriters of Columbo started to subtly break with the common episode structures. Humorous and witty episodes like It's All in the Game or Undercover were the result. This 1990 episode was probably one of the first, where the audience was a little bit deceived because they believed to know how Columbo episodes work. Self-irony (`I've never solved a case that quickly!'), a great Brenda Vaccaro and plot twists - not only in connection with the murder! Very good work!

Andrew Stevens gives the performance of his career as Janet Margolin's two-timing fiance'. Brenda Vacarro is marvelous as Margolin's sister. This one plays with the formula a bit because we do not see the actual murder of Margolin, just the events before or after so we must wonder with Columbo whether he actually committed the murder or just thought about it, then got framed. And, a few plot twists work very well. This is an "A" entry in the series.

First of all, the reason I'm giving this film 2 stars instead of 1 is because at least Peter Falk gave his usual fantastic performance as Lieutenant Columbo. He alone can get 10 stars for trying to save this otherwise utterly worthless attempt at making a movie.

I was initially all fired up at reading one poster's comment that Andrew Stevens in this movie gave "the performance of his career." To me, it was the abysmal performance by Stevens that absolutely ruined this movie, and so I was all prepared to hurl all sorts of insults at the person who made the aforementioned comment. Then I thought to myself, what else has Stevens done? So I checked and, you know, that person was absolutely right. In the 17 years since this Columbo movie was made, apparently every one of the 33 projects that Stevens has been in since then has been utter crap, so it is doubtful that anybody has even seen the rest of his career.

If you like Columbo, see every other of the 69 titles before watching this one. Do yourself a favor and save the worst for last.

Although the episode makes Margolin's out to be the way more beautiful one If Vaccaro had just been thinner she indeed would have been just as beautiful. Appalling the way Vacarro is wrongly made out to be so undesirable. Although I am and have been fond of both women for years Vaccaro indeed makes the episode both with way more screen time and her personality was considered a match for Peter Falk's so this is a dream of an ep.

Of course it was awful! "Last Salute to the Commodore" was awful, too. Ah come on. As the series wound down, most of the shows weren't up to what we all knew and loved of the original series.

But "Murder in Malibu"? The DVD arrived from Amazon and three weeks later we had already watched it at least six times... including two nights in a row. Where else can you get to see a detective movie that you can't stop laughing through? It was like watching The Three Stooges.

The first time we watch this and Andrew showed Brenda the trunk full of flowers; we were on the floor laughing so hard we were crying.

When he showed her the ring with that boyish smile... My wife had to called EMS; I needed oxygen! I couldn't breath.

Look at the highlights you missed while you were shaking your head in disappointment!

* Andrew Stevens, showing less talent than Zorak on "Space Ghost, Coast to Coast". * Andrew Stevens hitting on everyone but Columbo, I think. * The coroner that loves his job. * Falk's aversion to the morgue. * A trunk full of flowers. * A flock of crows showering the cast with little white presents. * The mannequin with an attitude.

I agree though; the highlight of the movie was either when "Wayne" fainted, when the accountant, while talking to Columbo said "Oh, shut up Helen" or the icing on the cake: Stevens hitting on Vacaro.

At the end, Brenda was right though. The dress did make her look like a French Poodle.

Jackson Gillis wrote some of the best scripts for the 70's Columbo series and he's on hand here to modify the old Columbo formula in this 1990 production.

The admission by producers with these "new" Columbo adventures is that the detective's well-known and well-received characterisation is no longer singled-handedly able to support an ordinary, Murry mystery script. This TV movie is a case in point - we are never quite sure who the murderer is until the end, something that completely goes against Columbo tradition...

It's too long for what it finally reveals and some of the acting is soap-opera style at best, but the character of Columbo remains charming to this day (something that Peter Falk deserves a lot of credit for). Watchable, but there are better "new" Columbo adventures around and it it still hard to bear largely second-rate stars acting as the murderers when some of the top actors/actresses graced the Columbo series in the 70's.

"Murder in Malubu" is among the worst episodes of "Columbo"...and it's a shame because I like the shows. But the writing was just terrible and the story made little sense.

Theresa Goren is a very successful romance writer. However, despite her many accomplishments, she is a sucker for Wayne (Andrew Stevens)...a compulsive womanizer who really knows how to use and seduce women. When Goren is found murdered, Lt. Columbo is on the case and soon it becomes apparent that the woman was shot twice--and the second time they know that Wayne did it. But she was already dead....so who killed her the first time?

The plot to this one is way too complicated and the murderer's plan just seemed ridiculous. Add to that some characters who really make no sense at all (Brenda Vaccaro's character) and you have an episode that really leaves the viewer cold and disappointed. In addition to being nonsensical, the episode also lacked the usual charm and fun (an odd word for murder mysteries, I know) you'd expect.