Acceptable Risk

I will never understand why movie adapters feel the need to change certain parts of books for the movie. Here is an example of a book I like very much becoming a very bad movie. I realize it's on TV and there are time constraints, but there is no need to change things like the last names of the characters or the time period of the historical element of the book. Not only that, but the entire concept of the book was distorted. Robin Cook's book was a commentary on the lengths people will go to for personality-enhancing, "happy-pill" psychotropic drugs, like Prozac or Ultra in the book, driven by the possible financial gain as well. In the movie, the drug was changed to a possible cure for Alzheimer's Disease or other mentally degenerative illnesses. And Edward is driven by a past disappointment in obtaining a patent on a drug Not only that, the main character of the book is Kim and her quest for removing the stigma of shame surrounding her accused-witch ancestor and also for personal acceptance. She becomes a flat character with almost no real action except for running away. Edward is the focal character in the movie.

Poorly acted, poorly scripted, stupid and boring. My wife and I howled with derision many times because it was so bad. Were it in a theater, plenty of popcorn would be thrown at the screen. If you are interested, watch the movie with friends and make fun of it (especially the scene where a phone is fought over no less than three times in about six minutes "I'm going to call the police." "Oh, no you're not." "Yes, I am." "Give me that phone." "No." --struggling -- " I...said....give....me...that....phone!") Awful.

I liked everything about this film except the unfortunate ending. I've always been a big fan of Kelly Rutherford and she did her usual great job in this one. I used to watch her in The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr. it seems like ages ago, and have watched for her movies ever since. She's really good in Threat Matrix too, although in that she plays a rather stern, tough girl character in my opinion. Needless to say, I think she's a cutie and really added a lot to this movie.