|
The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary:
"ID4"? How About "IQ-4"?Composed by Dan O'Leary(dano@raven.cybercomm.net)This kind of movie is "mental junk food"-- a quick moment of enjoyment, no substance, and an empty feeling thirty minutes after its gone. This cinematic Big Mac was waved in front of American faces in theater previews months before the film was released, and as we all stared in awe and watched the White House splinter into millions of flying embers we never knew these would be the only impressive aspect of the film. I'm willing to forgive a movie for a lesser missed plot point, i.e.: "Toy Story's" Buzz Lightyear-Andy connection, but this film had holes big enough to drive the alien mother ship through. Coincidences like the amazing Mac-compatible computers used by the aliens; the very earthly computer I write this with isn't even Mac-compatible! Or, how about an alien fighter ship and pilot managing to survive a dogfight, scrapes with canyon walls, and a crater-causing crash, only to have Wil Smith come along, RIP OPEN the ship's door and (after a glib Hollywood witicism, of course) single-punch knock out the armored pilot. Or the fact that all these diverse earthling characters from across the nation just happened to show up at Area 51. Or, that the aliens would allow us 40 years of time to study their crash victims at Roswell before invading. Or, that a ship nearly the size of moon would have no gravitational impact on the surrounding orbital masses. Or, the fact that a city-block explosion that tossed cars in the air could be held back by a single door. Or, that creatures with mulitple manipulative appendages would use a human-like two-grip control for their fighters. Or, that two humans could easily fly said spacecraft into the mother ship unmolested, fire a warhead (the stuck clamps releasing at the last second), outrun undamaged fighters and escape. There are many more, but I expect Mystery Science Theater 3000 to "do" this movie relatively soon, so I'll save the others for Tom Servo and Crow. These holes probably shouldn't be surprising, considering this was the same writing team that gave us "Stargate," with its primitive desert-dwelling society living in a city containing enough log buildings to require a forest the size of Chicago, and unique geometry theories about how many vectors are required to plot a point in space. Emmerich and Devlin boasted "Stargate" was a huge success (it wasn't) and now seem ready to pronounce this movie the next "Star Wars." With ID4 (even the acronym is pointless, but I digress) now out on video (another digression -- has anyone besides me noticed the skull face on the box cover yet?), and "Star Wars" once again in theaters to provide comparison, I can confidently say (to paraphrase an old Vice Presidential debate sound byte) "I've known Star Wars for twenty years, and you, sir, are no Star Wars." |
Back To Rants and Commentary