Z/Web

This movie is just fun. It’s totally dumb — all of the characters are hilariously idiotic. For instance, one bad guy tells another to “take care of Larry,” meaning to care for him, but the dumber associate thinks he means take care of him and kills him! The “plot” concerns a genius chemist (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who’s invented a new drug 51 times more powerful than heroin. He’s trying to sell it to drug dealers for $20 million. Of course, nothing goes right, and there’s lots of explosions, shootings, and back-stabbings. The film’s set in Liverpool, England, and part of the story is the big Liverpool vs. Manchester United soccer match (they’re two of the biggest football clubs in England, if you don’t know). I found that pretty cool, but unfortunately they don’t show much soccer. All in all a completely silly film, but fun for a lark. A lot of pointless bad language though.

Not a bad remake, actually. It’s been a long time since I read the book or watched the original George Pal version. This one definitely has the special effect award, and I liked Guy Pearce in the lead, and the Morlocks were truly scary, but the film lost steam toward the end. The bizarre bit where Guy blows up the time machine and somehow erases the Morlocks from existence didn’t make any sense at all to me. Watch this one for the amazing special effects: the geological time passing while he’s zooming to the future is definitely worth seeing.