Riverworld, le fleuve de l'éternité

Another Syfy channel abomination. Why do they keep making films when they have no feel - or respect - for the genre? I wonder why they didn't put a giant boa in the film & call it Boa vs Riverboat. Maybe they wanted to but thought that it would cheapen the product. Phillip Jose Farmer's Riverworld books (starting with To your scattered bodies go, which this thing palimpsests) are not flawless; but they had stories which made made sense & exotic character details which entertained. They - he - didn't deserve this travesty. It isn't a film: it's a cheat sheet of the least interesting bits mangled through a malfunctioning food processor. & to think that Robert Hewitt Wolfe once wrote some of the best ST:TNG & DS9 episodes. He must'ave had some great EPs at Paramount keeping him in line

A B-Movie in 2 parts. Both parts are bad. I only watched this a few weeks ago but I cannot seem to remember much. It did not leave any impression on me. There is a basic premise that seems good but the development is pretty terrible. Some of the acting was over the top hammy. Watching the film I could imagine the book being better.

There is not much to say. It's is reasonably well filmed, has some cgi, has annoying characters and a plot that moves sluggishly from A to B to predictable ending. The script does offer some excitement but it isn't carried off. It should have been better than it was. As it is it is just boring and as I say in 2 movie long parts.

I wonder would a fan edit be better. You could cut a lot of crap and make it 1.30 or 1.40 mins long and just try to keep it going and maybe kill of some of the hammier accents and actors. Ya I think a fan edit would be better. Couldn't be worse.

If you are just visiting from another planet, then you need to know that the the one thing the Canuck film machine loves more than any other project is ... sci fi. Some of the best and the worst sci fi in recent history has come from the Great White North (remember Eureka?). This effort is well-intended but ultimately only for fans of the original author or viewers with eclectic tastes.

For those that stick out this odd 2-parter you will see some of the best and the worst acting you have ever seen in your life.

On the plus side we get to see if pretty-boy Tahmoh Penikett can carry an entire film on his back? The answer is ... yes. Peter Wingfield makes a great villain. Whether this is acting or just being a Brit ... hard to say.

And the beautiful Jeananne Goossen (Olivia Munn's long-lost twin, separated at birth?) is worth the price of admission.

On the downside, and there is lots of downside, much of the remaining cast is just terrible. And the direction is ... bizarre. At the 1:15 mark for example a woman is being burned at the stake (terrible acting ... she deserves it) and the scene takes forever. Clearly to make the drama work the laws of physics were temporarily suspended.

If you suspend critical judgement you may enjoy this. Maybe.

God bless the Canadian tax system.

River World is an interesting movie to say the least. I never read the books, so I'm judging this movie on it's own merits.

The story line of this film is fairly unique, though reminiscent of Matrix in a way.

The plot line is confusing at times, but moves along at a decent pace. I hate all the random "plot conveniences" that happen, it just seems like it cheapens it.

Time it's self can pass oddly, the movie not telling us if days, weeks, months, or years pass in between scenes.

The acting is so - so, performances ranging from good, to deadpan. The characters them selves seem to have some continuity flaws, as certain actions do not fit with the established character.

This film also seems like it trying to compete with "Battle Royale" for the most pointless flashbacks.

Special effects are cheap. Staging and set design are minimalistic, bordering on barren.

The one thing that stuck out the most was the movie's lack of logic. There is 'suspension of disbelief' , and than there is throwing logic out the window.

As the movie progresses, this gets worse and worse. I perfectly well understand they are on an alien planet, and have folks from most time periods present, but that is far from explaining the black holes of thinking.

Our main characters run into the conquistadors, who, 2 years ago, finished building the prominently featured river boat, for Mark Twain. The encampment of the conquistadors seems like it's a in the middle ages, nothing much advanced, not even guns.

The river boat, on the other hand, has all kinds of modern items, including a small bore cannon.

What does Pizarro have? A ballista he incorrectly calls a catapult. Wouldn't he and his men have more modern stuff if they engineered and built the river boat ?

I'm sorry, but that river boat is one large continuity error. There is no way it could have been built the way it was shown, in the amount of time specified ( 3 years ). I was not intentionally looking for logic errors, this stuff just jumped out at me almost instantly.

With out more modern manufacturing facilities, the boat, and what comes later, could have not been made at all.

Some of the stuff the boat had that really bugged me is: 1 modern light bulb, the cannon, rolled steel, stamped steel, welded steel, pressurized pipe ( welded and screwed ) with modern valves, hydraulic hoses, modern nuts and bolts, ** a bench grinder **, plastics, modern dead bolt locks, and a pair of dial calipers.

Two other errors that jumped out at me on the boat were a modern thermostat, and the wrenches on the peg board, had the manufacturer's names stamped on them.

As the movie progresses, we are introduced to more out of place stuff, such as cartridge bullets, mass produced glass, chrome plating, braided steel wire, and RPGs.

If you can over look the sometimes insane character interactions / reactions, repetitive and useless flash backs of the same subject, and massive logic errors, this movie is fairly enjoyable to watch, though the movie store overcharged me for it.

The books I have no read, but according to the Wiki page for them, this series has almost nothing in common with them. I have seen the 2003 Riverworld film and I vaguely remember that the idea annoyed me, but the movie was reasonable. The 2010 miniseries... it just sucks! People play badly, the scenes are ridiculous in both acting and directing, the script makes no sense and whenever there is a little bit of suspension of disbelief, there comes a sequence of scenes that skip whole portions of the story, like someone was too tired to do the whole film. And the lines... here is an example: "a sequence of choices leads to a consequence". Ugh!

The only good part of the film is Jeananne Goossen. She is just too cute, even if her character makes no sense at all. Bottom line: a sad and horrible thing to watch. Avoid it.