C.S.Wood

Where I did find this a lot better than his last picture Snake Eyes, it still had a few flaws. Off the bat, DePalama is one of out best directors. He's very masterful in capturing the spectrum and awe of the red planet, and he's got a talent for building suspense. But the problem with this movie was not on his end, but the writers'.

Since Tim Robbin's name came last in the credits, I knew he was gonna die, but DePalma's direction fooled me. It looked like his character would make it, and in a split second my stomach dropped when I realized he was really out of a life-line. That was one of the best and most tragic scenes I've watched in a while, but like I said, the problem didn't come in at that end. When something bad happened, the characters cried about it too much. And in that scene, if Connie Nielsen's whining been cut down by about 20 seconds, and her breathing heard from a distance, that scene would've had a greater effect on me.

As for the rest of the movie, it wasn't bad. Since it's 2020, we notice the local space station doesn't break down every hour, cars are more power-efficient, and US space shuttles look like they got the schematics from Kubrick's 2001. This movie was visually stunning, full of kick-ass effects, and some pretty interesting characters for the most part. And the ending, though I would've liked more, was well done. At least we saw the aliens (unlike "Contact", which this reminded me of) and it kinda makes you think "hey, what if life really 'did' start on Mars?"

But until we find out, there's always Mission 2 Mars.

Destination Films pumped all their advertising into last year's "Bats" and didn't dish out more than 10 bucks for "Eye of the Beholder." Even so, I was one of the first people who saw the trailer upon its release and I was watching for it to come to theaters. I saw it opening day, first show. At the 30 minute mark, I thought to myself 'damn, this is a good movie.' At the 60 mark I said 'still going strong.' And at the end I said 'what the hell?'

The actors were great. The Joanna character was believable and you felt for her. Same goes for 'Eye.' And the writing, for the most part, was right on target; you want these two to finally meet and get together. It even has the "Psycho" effect on you where you hope the bad guy doesn't get caught. But even so, Elliot (the director) just couldn't go out with a bang. He could've added one last additional scene to the current ending, or change the ending completely and he would've had a great movie.

Still, I think Elliot is a good director and I hope he gets some more good projects (but works harder on his endings though). The use of the snow globes was one of the things I most liked. And the use of the horoscope signs was a nice tough also. The film was a successful thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat and gave us a convincing female serial killer (since there hasn't been one of those in a long time). If only the ending were better...

Who says the sequel is never as good as the original? Where the first one concentrated more on the likeness of the characters over the comedy, like Austin Powers 2, this sequal was going straight for laughs.

But if anyone stole the show, it was the Joker character. Anything that guy said had me belly laughing. Plus, he says the funniest joke out of the whole movie. I highly recommend it.