Here is that great middle point where I can love a movie and yet not disagree with Roger's point. Maybe it helps that, the absence of Ron Howard aside, enough of the crucial elements of the first movie came back, even the great James Horner with his score. Brian Dennehy actually agreed to do a cameo in the sequel reprising his role for no money. He did it because he loved the first movie and the actors. Finally, to Roger's critique, the nature of sequels (for good and bad) is essentially to tell the same story again. I always think of something I heard about Jeff Kenew, director of Revenge Of The Nerds, who refused to take part in any sequels. His reasoning was, "It's done. The nerds won. What are you going to do next, have them win again?"
And this guy knows what about anything other than give his opinion to things, didn't realize he had ever been in a war himself to even give this opinion, looks like his hands would callous and back would get soar just from picking up a news paper
Totally agree with Roger. This film stinks on ice! Peter Hyams movies typically look very good but they are often mediocre. The only decent film he ever did was Capricorn One, a silly but fun entertainment.
Seagal was briefly a breath of fresh air for being lean and doing aikido. But after Under Siege, it was all downhill. Weird how Ebert knew there was a huge media push around him but can’t pronounce his name right.
I saw it back in '89 on home video. I liked it. This is back when Meg Ryan was still doing edgy roles. In this movie, Mark Harmon screws her on top of the hood of a car.
His review if Beethoven II is typical left wing analysis. He says, 'If those dogs are so smart why aren't they smart enough to use protection to not have those babies'. They can't imagine someone WANTING to have children. The usual excuse is we don't want to bring my suffering into this world. That's always a way of covering up your selfish way into not being responsible but using the guise of being virtuous. 'I'm doing it for society bc it would be selfish to bring another life into this suffering.😂 Yet, scientists say it's the best time to be alive. People live longer and trains + plains can take you anywhere in the world w/in a day. 😂
I think that Frank Sinatra did a passable job on the original Manchurian Candidate, but I think he was cast because he was Frank Sinatra. Another actor could have done a much better job than Sinatra's one-note performance. The heart and soul of the original film was Angela Lansbury, who really does come across as the most intelligent, ruthless person in the room, disregarded by the moronic men in power around her, and very nearly succeeds in her mission of revenge against the world. You can almost empathize with her in her quest, and that's a very hard feat for a villain to achieve, especially one who uses her own son as a disposable pawn in her plans.
@@bobthebear1246 Me too! As Dave Barry blurbed for Ebert's book, there's something very satisfying about reading a great writer tearing into an awful movie!
This wasn't the first time Roger broke his protocol. The year earlier, he yelled at the screen at Jaws IV when famously Michael Caine is pulled out of the water and the next shot shows his clothes are bone dry. "HIS SHIRT IS DRY!" Gene Siskel once said that he always imagined one day, watching a bad movie in theatres, that he could jump out of his seat and yell to the audience around him "Aren't your lives more meaningful than sitting here watching this dreck!"
I probably saw this too late, in my mid-30s, so I was just annoyed with the teenagers. The drug scenes seemed as unrealistic as Reefer Madness. I ended up throwing my DVD out.
Where do we even begin with this film?! First of all, what the hell possessed GREAT veteran actors like Jason Robards and Harry Dean Stanton to DO this film?! Obviously, they were offered lots of money to do it because that's the only reason why they would have done so. Secondly, so it was THIS film that gave Corey Feldman the idea that he could be Michael Jackson 2.0. 🙄🤦🏻♂️ And we are now having to deal with that 35+ years later. Thanks, _Dream A Little Dream._ *Good Body/Mind Switching Films* 1) _Vice Versa_ (A GREAT film starring Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage. 4 stars.) 2) _Big_ (a very good film starring Tom Hanks who got his very first Best Actor nomination. Even though it's really not a body switching movie, as it's just about a little boy who successfully wishes to become an adult, but I leave it in here because it is considered to be part of this subgenre. 3.5 stars.) 3) _18 Again_ (An interesting film that stars the legendary George Burns and then-newcomer Charlie Schlatter. It starts out as not that great of a film but it actually gets much better after the mind-switching occurs. The best part of the film is Charlie Schlatter doing a great George Burns impersonation as a young man, so this film is a winner in my book. 3 stars.) *Worst Body/Mind Switching Films* 1) _Dream A Little Dream,_ (1/2 star) obviously, but in a VERY close 2nd... 1) _Like Father, Like Son_ starring Kirk Cameron and the usually funny Dudley Moore. (Despite being the very first of this subgenre to be made and released in the late-80s, it is just awful. First of all, it was merely a vehicle for then-hot teen TV actor Kirk Cameron to quickly get him into motion pictures. Secondly, the film is so poorly written that Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron switch minds because of some stupid secret potion that they both accidentally drink at the same time - yeah, right - however Kirk Cameron keeps his same American accent and Dudley Moore keeps his same British accent. It only gets worse from there, culminating in the all-too-common 80s teen flick trope of the bullied kid coming back at the end and punching-out the bully. Uccch. 🙄🤦🏻♂️ 1/2 star.)
I agree it was a great film and I've seen it twice. And...like father, like son, neither were even NOMINATED for their great performances, which has never made sense to me. No matter what Charlie Sheen eventually became, there's no question he should have had a Best Actor nomination here, just as his father should have had for _Apocalypse Now._ Both Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe deservedly got Best Supporting Actor nominations, but Charlie was conspicuously left out of the Best Actor running. It's a wonderfully written and directed film. It is of course very gritty and very violent just as the Vietnam War was itself. In other words, it's realistic. I really wouldn't compare _Platoon_ to _Apocalypse Now,_ because they are very different kinds of films. _Apocalypse Now_ is less of a Vietnam War film than it is a retelling of Joseph Conrad's _Heart Of Darkness_ just using the Vietnam War as a backdrop for the story, whereas _Platoon_ is actually *about* the Vietnam War. Both are great films in their own rights and both are 4-star films in my opinion.
