Film Reviews by Gwydion

The Germans are shows repeatedly making simple tactical errors.

No one ever achieved the 'kill ratio' shown.

It insults the memory of those who actually fought.

Wish I had not bothered with it.

Nothing remotely thrilling or interesting about stupid and violent people. Long sections of them sitting around doing nothing much. And a few pointless crimes. Hopeless.

I very much liked this film.

Unlike 'The Right Stuff' and even 'Apollo 13', this got across the extreme dangers of space flight. That even when everything seems fine, there is a lot to worry about. That included the clanking, vibration and alarming noises for take-off.

People wanted Armstrong to be more colourful. But as far as I know, he wasn't. Good to have a movie that respected the facts.

This is about the New Orleans floods. That the authorities basically did not care what happened to the city's black population. Most of whom had to flee and have not been able to return.

Told in an informal style, and all real.

Someone decided to make it in a language most audiences would not understand, and not bother with subtitles. And chose Rhaeto-Romance, but it is unlikely that any variant of Indo-European would have got so far west 5300 years ago.

Not understanding anything spoils the human interactions.

It is also excessively brutal. The aftermath of a battle would have made a lot more sense.

People of the era probably had a lot more social interconnections than are shown.

Someone is hung up on the idea of Heroic Individualism and wasted a grand opportunity.

I think people are offended by what I saw as the best feature - she is allowed to lose sometimes. She seems much more like a real woman with skills, not a fantasy.

You see her growing into her role.

OK, the entire story is fantasy, but it has intelligent aspects and some surprises. I liked it.

A dull rehash of things that were OK in other SF movies, I wish I hadn't bothered with it.

Lots of violence, of course. That's very easy to do.

It is 1942. You see a naive young man who is good at boxing and pleased to get into an elite Nazi school. Makes friends with the son of a high Nazi official. But increasingly sees the faults in the system.

I found it done well, showing how an ordinary person could be part of the system.

The film is set amidst the massive break-down in Russia after the overthrow of the heirs of Ivan the Terrible. And shows how much Russia suffered in that time.

It also shows the failed attempt by Poland-Lithuania, at that time a Great Power, to conquer Russia and convert it from Orthodox Christianity to Roman Catholicism. You see many shots of the Polish hussars, with their 'wings' making them look like angels, but behaving otherwise.

The un-historical romance has a serf who escapes, loves a Russian princess and becomes a military hero. There is also a mystical element, featuring a holy man and a unicorn, which is also visually striking.

You ought to enjoy this.

As others have said, there are a lot of holes in the plot. A lot of mistakes to allow the alien to become a menace.

Having said this, it works as an entertaining adventure film. Few thrillers are very plausible.

The special effects are OK. One forgets that these people are not really in space.

This is mostly for fans of Stargate SG-1. It completes the entire saga, beginning with the removal of the last Goa'uld from the last clone of Ba'al. Who however boasts that the real Ba'al is still free.

Meantime Vala Mal Doran has vanished - we are not sure why.

We then see the original Ba'al change time, and understand now why characters keep vanishing.

Three of the team flee and arrive at an Alternate Earth.

The film gives a harsh and unromantic view of what Native American life was like. Their problem dealing with the developing power of Europeans, in this case seeking to change their beliefs.