MastahMatt

There is so much to say about this film. None of it is good. Sometimes I wonder if film festivals, and Artisan Entertainment in particular exist so weirdos and nutcases, i.e. people who truly should NOT be allowed to make movies, can make movies. Don't take my statement wrong. Film festivals often ensure that worthy directors, writers, actors, etc., hit the spotlight and have a chance to become great. I KNOW this. But geez, with stuff like this coming out of them... violence for the sake of violence, murder, extremely thinly veiled references to sex and sex objects (I mean the disinfectant scene with the worm makes you suspect, but then she talks about the worm being phallic just in case we were mysteriously struck blind), and the language are almost unforgivable. We're supposed to believe that they're criminals and that criminals swear naturally, but to imagine these people as felons we'd have to be on drugs. The lead protagonist, while attempting to play someone who's tough and not afraid to die, is so pathetically thin and pale that you simply can't believe he's done time. His 'Second In Command', so to speak, cries at one point in the movie because the other felons 'make fun of him'. Another of the four criminals, played by Dave Pressler, actually gives a good shot at doing his part, and you really feel for him at a couple of points during the movie. The last, the woman playing Lauren, has so few lines of dialogue that you can't really tell if she's a good actor or not. Maybe that's a good thing.

The last gripe I have is about the 'special effects'. Most of them are extremely over done. Bullet holes smoke like a Yosemite Sam cartoon, ricochets throw off bright blue sparks like downed power lines, during a chase scene that should never have happened in the first place everyone seems to be on roller skates (I can just HEAR the smug voice of the writer/producer saying to himself 'oooh, it's art') and idiotic little squealing tire and whoosh effects accompany actor movements from time to time that just leave you shaking your head and trying hard to stop the fingers of one of your hands from pressing the eject button. I maybe should have given in, it had more sense than I did. By the way, are the drag queens an attempt to satirize the lifestyle or were their parts simply a favor done for someone in the movie biz to get the video distributed? They are unnecessary and rather... sickening.

An EXTREMELY pointless and slow-witted movie with one or two funny and/or interesting scenes (read 10 seconds) which is why I gave it a 2/10 and not 1/10. Oooh, look, it's art!

-The Dude

I rented this and laughed all of the way through. The part with Roger in the elevator was the best. I'm over 20 now and I haven't laughed at a kid's cartoon like this since I was 16. Rent it, especially with the kids. You won't regret it.

The King's Quest Series embodied the Adventure genre of games that people of all ages loved to play while they were popular. Unfortunately, the rise of games like Doom and the association of such themes in that game with unruly teenagers, as well as the increased capabilities of computers for speed and flashiness helped to kill Adventure gaming slowly but surely.

King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder, followed the story of King Graham to free his family from the clutches of an evil wizard. The graphics are endearing and the team that developed the game used the 256 color palette to the very best of their abilities, resulting in a game that is whimsical as well as beautiful in it's own way. There are puzzles galore, some difficult, some not, but they are set up in such a way that anyone over the age of 7 will eventually figure them out. The game has a lot of dialogue, but unfortunately it wasn't until King's Quest VI that spoken words made their appearance in the series. The text is well written though, and is as fun to read as a novel.

I recommend this game to anyone.