Monolith - A Energia Destruidora

As fledgling film maker myself, I think a lot of people don't understand just how damn hard it to make a movie. But yeah, it could have been better. I think the overall story was ok and yeah I'm sure more money would have helped. Some of the 'green screen' scenes are well...I can do better in my lounge room with my equipment and a laptop these days but remember this is from 1993 and things were a lot different then. I think without the actors they somehow got into this it would have been ever worse, they obviously thought it was worth working on but I wonder how much they got paid?....anyway 4 stars, for trying while it probably only really deserves maybe 2....

Detectives Tucker (Bill Paxton) and Flynn (Lindsay Frost) individually stumble upon an out-of-this-world case when they both spot a deranged woman chasing down a young boy with her car and then shooting him dead. Things get messy when the Department of Historical Research boss Villano (John Hurt) shows up and takes the woman away (according to the screenplay, he has a higher security rating than the President) from police chief Mac (Lou Gossett, Jr.). Naturally, two curious and rule breaking detectives won't be having any of this and begin to investigate. But the bigger question is will these two cantankerous cops get along?

Folks seem to peg this as an X-FILES ripoff, but that is hard to swallow because it was filming before that show debuted. It is more LETHAL WEAPON with aliens. Director John Eyres and screenwriter Stephen Lister had some marginal direct-to-video success with PROJECT: SHADOWCHASER so Shapiro-Glickenhaus maybe wanted a piece of that. It is nice seeing Paxton getting a film to carry on his own at this time (he previous did with THE VAGRANT), but the budget just isn't there for this one. Introvision handled the FX and some of them are really rough. It is a shame because I could totally get behind a "LETHAL WEAPON with aliens" film (well, I guess I have THE HIDDEN, which this closely resembles). John Hurt appears to have only done a day or two on this as his scenes in the last half have him isolated in shots (even including his major role in the finale).

Monolith (R) - MCA Universal Home Video: Low-budget hack John Eyres (PROJECT SHADOWCHASER), a director whose penchant for making bubbleheaded B-action scripts seem like high-concept A-list product without the subtext stymies him time after time, lends his flashy, contrived visual style (mostly achieved through lighting and heavy FX work) to this hokey, logic-free sci-fi actioner about two stereotypically mismatched cops (Bill Paxton and Lindsay Frost, bad quip traders to the end) who encounter creepy research guys, assorted walking dead, monster gun battles, and a hefty serving of explosions as they track a body-hopping alien entity to the source of its power. While PROJECT SHADOWCHASER ripped huge chunks from TERMINATOR and DIE HARD, MONOLITH's inspirations seem to come from a plethora of Big Action Flicks, as its alien beastie - bereft of motive or, apparently, physical form - proves little more than a MacGuffin to allow Eyres to show off his remarkable-for-this-budget action and FX sequences, particularly a boffo climax. In between these, however, we get grating, failed attempts at comedy and hero banter so stale a chainsaw couldn't cut it. However, if you go in expecting a full wheel of cheese with the FX wine (in this case a nice Mogen David), then you'll be less disappointed. I give it a 4

Very likely John Eyres' most ambitious movie to date. A sci-fi/action/horror/thriller hybrid populated with good folks like Bill Paxton, John Hurt, Louis Gosset Jr., gorgeous B-vamp Musetta Vander and Lindsay Frost (who somewhat comes across as the wisecracking tough blonde acting equivalent of Yancy Butler). A secret government agency has been fooling around with an alien entity. Of course, the thing gets loose and starts to run amok in the city. Well, "running" isn't exactly the right word, since it's more like some form of alien energy that possesses the bodies of humans (that eventually do all the running). It's up to Paxton, Frost & Gosset to figure out what is loose in their city and try to stop it. The plot kind of looses itself along the way, not really knowing where to aim things and eventually not bothering to explain itself anymore. The film ends ridiculously, but before that we do get to see some nifty alien set designs. The SFX are pretty decent at times. For fans of Jack Sholder's "The Hidden" (1987), this might be another amusing watch (though Sholder's film is much tighter & better).

The reference to Starsky & Hutch by another viewer is brilliant. This movie has no story, but, instead, seems to have been pieced together with bits and pieces pulled from Hollywood's vast supply of garbage cans. Bill Paxton does his usual out-of-control-but-I'm-really-hurtin'-inside schtick. Lindsay Frost's hair stays miraculously manageable, despite her being blown into a pool, shot at on a high-rise terrace, and (why do they subject us to this schlock?) diving into sewage. Both actors serve as the other's straight-man to hackneyed one-liners that are as predictable as the victims. Just who or what this alien with eyeballs that shoot fireballs is... or wants... is never explained, nor do we have any idea what the goon scientists have been doing with/at it all these years. I paid 20 cents for the video of this film on the streets of Seoul. I think I was ripped off.