Le secret du vol 353

Well, I enjoyed it. Somewhat a bit too long, but Billy Zane gives a well acted performance. The bad guy played by McGinley is very corny and goofy, quite unbelievable in his actions, yet somehow it fits the storyline. I caught this movie on a rainy afternoon and found its four hours most entertaining and suspenseful. Some of the plot is very far fetched. Examples are: The little girl brings a bird back to life and in the fashion of a Jesus Christ makes serious bloody wounds and cuts heal, but this is a great child actress. I like Billy Zane and always thought he was a fine actor. I recommend this movie. Not the best, but compelling, riveting and suspenseful. One other comment I have is that I could not stomach the cruelty of the blinding and shooting of the horse by the McGinley character. To me this was absolutely not necessary and totally repellent.

Dean Koontz writes a superb story and part of his strength is that he develops his characters so well. Movies based on his books have not been as successful because film-makers often aim for horror and action at the expense of characterisation. I'm happy to say that "Sole Survivor" does not fall into this short-coming. The movie retains not only the drama, suspense and mystery of the book, but also the characterisations, especially in the first half of the movie. The acting is superb, particularly from Billy Zane and Rachel Victoria Roberts, who make their characters totally believable. The movies does lose some impact in the 2nd half as the character of Yates descends into a caricature of evil. The movie would have retained more credibility if he was portrayed as fanatic rather than lunatic. Nevertheless, the movie maintains its suspense to the end and, in my view, represents the best translation to screen of any Dean Koontz book I have seen to date. This is a movie well worth seeing.

I have always enjoyed Dean Koontz's miniseries and this is no exception. I saw this with an open mind, and it captured my imagination brilliantly. Everyone was well cast and the filming was very precise. The writing was also excellent and was without flaw. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys fantasy. Although the miniseries has already aired, you can catch it on video whenever it comes out. This is an exceptional miniseries.

This is an amazing story of a man who lost everything that was really important to him as an airplane crashed killing his wife and child. He copes with the depression, but soon learns that life does not end after death, and who better to teach him but the last person to ever see his family alive, a six year old escaped test-subject, named 21-21 who survived.....but how....the answer is something this man has to cope with ever more. I think this is one of the most touching things I've seen in a long time, and believe me, there are so many twists to it, what I've said doesn't even start to explain it, in fact, I don't even think you could.

A made for TV miniseries - thank god it aired in one piece in my country- based on a typical Dean Koontz story. A typical Dean Koontz story consists most of the times of the following trademark ingredients:

1.an evil villain that has access to all the nifty computer and info stuff, mostly a loner and a sociopath. 2. a secret organization that can only partly control the fore-mentioned bad guy but delivers him ( mostly its a him) resources. 3. a loner that is halfway out of the system is also very witty on the same grounds the bad guy is 4. someone in distress. 5. a little dash of the supernatural or some ET activity.

Stir this up and serve chilled. In other words in my opinion most of the Koontz books are exactly the same with a few exceptions. A done by the numbers story that after reading more books becomes predictable and boring.

Most of the Koontz movies I saw - not that many- suffer of course all the more from the above and so does this movie. Billy Zane is not a very gifted actor and he stumbles through the plot with mild commitment and I never felt the grief portrayed enough that a man who has lost his wife and child must feel. The muddled plot that is predictable for everyone who has read at least one fiction book in his life goes and goes and the viewer might take the opportunity to nod off so once in a while...

But

There is Mr McGinley, I liked him in on deadly ground and an ever further over the top character is brought to the screen here. He has all the great lines and he breathes more life in the material he has been given than one could expect. Lucky for the viewer he has a nice portion of screen time and it might be hard not to cheer for the bad guy in this case. He portraits a better bad guy than Mr Koontz can create in his books. He is by far the best actor in this series and from the looks of it the only one who is enjoying himself.

The 7 I gave is for his performance.