lewisrailway

I am [just] old enough to remember Dr Who in the 1960s-the creepy titles and music,the first Doctor hiding behind the sofa from the Daleks-and at the time it seemed very great indeed.But so many years later and i bought a Dr Who DVD to see if the magic was still there.Unfortunately it hasn"t aged at all well and the terrible SFX and acting look positively victorian.Then again even when Patrick Troughton first appeared i was already tiring of it and John Pertwee was the last straw in my opinion.Fortunately help was at hand in the shape of "The Invaders" which premiered in about 1969 in the UK.It is being shown on Channel 5 here and it makes both Dr Who and Star Trek look laughable by comparison.

This was supposed to be a great movie.It follows the exploits of a bunch of absolutely typical American teenagers [the girls are beautiful,the boys handsome] who narrowly escape death on a plane when one of them has a vision of the impending disaster.But Death won"t be cheated,and it sets out to claim them back.What we have here is "Alien" without a monster;it picks them off one by one in a variety of satisfying ways,but ultimately we feel cheated by not seeing its dripping fangs.The movie is heavy on visual cliches too--i lost count of the "running away from large explosions in slow













motion" scenes!If you are foolish enough to watch this movie,be warned; you will be two hours nearer your own death by the time its finished.

This is a great action movie made at about the same time as The Fugitive and they share at least two things in common:-smart dialogue,and the fact that the [rather long in the tooth] star is totally upstaged by the supporting star i.e John Malkovich/Tommy Lee Jones.As in all of his movies Clint plays a sort of tortured anti-hero who has great one line jokes and even better rabbit punches,whereas Malkovich plays Mitch Leary as an embittered ex CIA assassin turned psycho.Rene Russo is obviously no feminist or she would surely have turned down her role as the token love interest for Clint,who [Russo]just happens to be a dead ringer for Jackie Kennedy.The downside to the movie is Clints" sidekick [played by Dylan Mc Dermott] who bounds about like a hyperactive ten year old kid [Frank,Frank,can i do it please Frank?!!] and the fact that Clint pursues Leary on foot twice and never took the chance to shoot him in the leg.I know its only a movie but things like that bother me!Overall though its a great thrillride and well worth viewing.