Rating: 
Summary: No sir, I didn't like it...
Review: I wish the postman would send me a rebate by mail for the nearly three hours of my life I threw away watching this piece of junk.With few redeeming qualities, Costner's The Postman is the epitome of the majority of films that Costner has devoted himself to over the past decade. They're all hollow, quirky, and boring attempts by Costner at being an everyman just trying to fight his way out of some lame situation and happening to come out on top, and with the girl, no less. With other actors, this approach works and the audience can empathize; with Costner, you find yourself anticipating your next bathroom break. Return To Sender.
Rating: 
Summary: I like this one more every time I see it.
Review: I really like Costner heroes because they are very "real" people. The Postman is not a perfect heroic figure - he is simply a guy, trying to get along in a difficult situation, but unwilling to compromise his own integrity. THAT, and that alone, is what makes him heroic. His own moral code is not perfect - he's willing to lie and cheat in order to survive - but those values which ARE important to him, he will not compromise. He finds, during the course of this movie, that one can accomplish a great deal when one works with a group of like-minded people. He learns that people CAN be trusted. He learns to fight back and he learns that he is willing to risk his own life for higher principles. It's not an overtly moralistic story, but it is very much a story of doing what's right and standing up for what one believes. The Postman is truly a hero. Abby was likewise a very believable heroine. She was one of the strongest females I've seen portrayed in movies, to the point of seeming almost "crazy" in her insistance at being strong and brave. She helps make him the hero he becomes, and not through her own weakness, but through her strength. Giovanni Ribisi delivers a powerful performance as the mentally disabled boy. I didn't recognize him at first, he played this character so well. This was a wonderful movie, and I find it refreshing to see a movie that shows qualities like integrity and loyalty as heroic and valuable.
Rating:
Summary: another review...
Review: I think it's unfortunate that this movie got slammed by criticsand pretty much everyone. It's a great story about hope and rebirthin a bleak post-apocalyptic world, with Costner playing the anti-heroto the hilt. Olivia Newton is strong (and stunning) as Abby. Thelocales are spectacular. The focus is really on the people involved,and their interactions, motivations, and choices. I could go on, butthis movie really deserves to be described as 'epic'. One of myfavorite movies. In fact, I'd watch it right now if my @#$@ dvdplayer wasn't broken.
Rating:
Summary: VAIN
Review: Sometimes actors and indeed all types of artists seem to have a need to create pieces simply to flatter their own sense of self-importance or vanity. The Postman seems like such a vehicle for Kevin Costner. Maybe not to quite the magnitude that John Travolta's Battlefield Earth is, but it is still an overly long, dull, and completely (and needlessly pretentious) film. I read the reviews and often the "official" reviews don't at all reflect what an average movieviewer would think, so I reserved my opinion until I saw the film for myself, which I eventually did. I am not the biggest fan of Kevin Costner to start with, so this skewed my opinion, but I am definitely a fan of receiving postal mail, so I thought... well, maybe at least having mail delivered is a good reason to watch the film. From the beginning til the end, the dialogue is totally inane, the characters are one-dimensional, and Costner's inability to act is at the worst junction of his career. I think the story could have been simpler, and the ending... oh, heavens to betsy, the ending! At some point in the film, Costner is enslaved by some sort of tribe that lives by a set of rules. This tribe rides through the land demanding tribute from the villagers. I do not remember the name of this group, but it seems its members were tattooed with certain numbers (maybe it was 8) and any member of the group 8 could at any time challenge the leader of 8 for dominance of the group. Whatever the case, when Costner's character becomes a slave in this tribe of 8 (or whatever it is) he manages to escape, which is when he finds a wrecked postal truck, the skeleton of a dead postman and a bunch of undelivered mail. He dresses in the postal uniform and attempts to deliver mail to a nearby walled-in village, which is greeted by both skepticism and hope. Fair enough. The scene at the end, however, which culminates with the most idiotic fight scene I have ever seen on film, is between Costner, (who is, naturally, the Postman) and the leader of this tribe of 8 (Bethlehem, played by Will Patton who seems relatively unknown although he appears everywhere, including in No Way Out with Kevin Costner. Costner, who is tattooed with the symbol of 8, challenges this leader to a fight in order to gain leadership himself. You can imagine how hokey and completely unbelievable this is. You can also imagine that Costner wins and creates a new, just, and democratic society... whatever.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to believe people actually like this.
Review: By the 3.5 star average The Postman has from viewers, it's obvious it has its fans. But I must say, this is a terrible movie. There's a lack of anything interesting, save cinematography and an interesting premise. Everything else is mostly flat and dull, resulting in a true corny bore.
Rating: 
Summary: Dances with post-apocalyptic bandits
Review: I finally caught this movie on cable television last night and described it to my husband as a science-fiction version of "Dances with Wolves." Interestingly, it was being shown as part of a week of Westerns, and basically that is what it is also. It's very long, just like Dances with Wolves, Waterworld and every book that David Brin (with whom I am acquainted) has ever written. So, if you enjoy long books and long movies, you're in luck. The movie is no classic, but it is nevertheless enjoyable and entertaining. Costner's acting is OK, Will Patton is a standard-evil-genius-villain-type, and Larenz Tate shines as Costner's sidekick. I think the premise is a worthy one, and even a believable one (if you find post-apocalypse believable to start with). The U.S. Postal Service is the one federal agency that everyone uses, that most appreciate (though they do gripe about it) and that was (I think) the first one founded. It has a simple, vital, helpful mission: to bind society together through communication. Therefore, it likely would be the first one restored, and Brin and Costner illuminate this premise capably.
Rating:
Summary: post-apocalyptic, post-intelligence
Review: Post-millennial, post-apocalyptic, and post-intelligence, The Postman is the story of patriotism being reborn (ironically, the patriotism is in opposition to nationalism, which is the flip side of the patriotic coin) in the form of Postal Carriers. Yeah, OK, It's dumb. The United States has become defunct, 'Adolf Hitler' holds all of the power, and the first thing that the new US Government is trying to get working is the mail...To add more to the plot synopsis, a travelling actor (Costner) is drafted by an ultra-nationalist army called The Wholeness (run by a psychopath named Bethlehem (Patton)). As you can probably guess, The Wholeness has nothing to do with Tastee Wheat. Because Costner disagrees with the politics of the program, and because he's a 'loner', he escapes. On the verge of dying, he discovers a postal truck, dons the clothes of the postman, and starts delivering mail. The misguided and laughable premise is but one of the films many flaws. Another is its three-hour running time. Being forced to watch misguided sci-fi for three hours is a form of Chinese torture. Yet another are the over-the-top acting jobs by Kevin Coster, Will Patton, and Olivia Williams. The only person who acts his role just right is Larenz Tate, who gets stuck with the name Ford Lincoln Mercury (he named himself after a car dealership!) and ends up becoming a laughable character for the rest of the movie. Note: Whenever you have a movie that is so obviously B-rate, taking on such heavy subjects as nobility and Nazism isn't the thing to do.
Rating:
Summary: Call in the editors, quick!
Review: As a huge fan of David Brin, whose book "The Postman" served as the basis for this film, and the post-apocalyptic genre in general, I was looking forward to seeing this movie. My friends tried to warn me away from it, and after all the negative press I read, it was hard to keep an open mind. The Postman isn't awful, but it is incredibly overlong. It seems to crawl about as fast as a bulldozer out of gas. Thankfully, the plot develops in that time, but The Postman lacks the sweeping, involving, intricate details that define an "epic" (and David Brin's books). The problem is that Costner and the editors wanted to include as much material from the novel as possible, but instead of folding plots into each other, it only half-develops different lines, or totally leaves them untouched. The Holnists, for example, while only playing a major role in the last quarter of the book, become a variety of "devolved" enemies and serve as the "main bad guys" in the film. David Brin's works are extremely complex and intelligent, which Costner and company no doubt recognized, but The Postman was partially dumbed-down for audiences more interested in brainless action-schlock like Mission Impossible 2 or the watered-down "epic" Gladiator. The dumbing-down occured in the wrong places; the editors no doubt assumed that audiences would have the attention span to sit through a three-hour movie but still wanted something substance-less - it just doesn't work. By trying to satisfy the fans who wanted the complexity and sincerity of the book, and attempting to appeal to the wider popcorn-munching audience, Costner strove for a middle ground, the same route he found with dazzling success in Dances With Wolves, and ended up falling off the fence. The Postman is worth watching for the post-apocalyptic sets and ideas, especially if you are interested in the genre, but I can't imagine this film as much more than an artifact, appealing to the few of us who enjoy the post-nuclear, post-apocalyptic films like The Postman. DVD dirt - The transfer is OK - not great, but not terrible. You can tell it was done in the early days of dual layer, because there is a slight hiccup at every chapter change. Some sections of the film seem quite dirty, with obvious splotches and scratches. The sound transfer isn't bad, but the voices and the effects aren't mixed properly; viewers with a center-channel system can simply turn that speaker up, but those without will experience very quiet dialogue with very loud music and ear-blistering explosions that seem almost out of place. The only extra worth talking about is the "Postman's CGI Route" featurette, which talks mostly about splicing green-screened actors onto computer-touched-up shots of landscapes, or replacing some background scenery with matte images or still frames. Nothing terribly special, and the featurette only lasts for 15 minutes or so.
Rating:
Summary: If you liked Waterworld, you'll LOVE the Postman
Review: Unfortunately, this dubious snoozer is based on a good sci-fi story of the same name by David Brin. I recommend the book, but cannot say the movie is worth watching from a sci-fi (or any other) point of view (unless you liked Waterworld). For the record, most of the "stunning vistas" seen in the movie are matte paintings.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book - Bad Screenplay
Review: I guess I keep hoping that Hollywood will get science fiction right. With few exceptions I wait in vain. David Brin's book is an excellent work which I remember fondly long after reading it. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't even come close. Kevin Costner's direction and acting is lackluster. The screenplay is miserable. It's a shame, really, since I was looking forward to seeing something from a "real" science fiction author converted onto the screen.
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