Rating: 
Summary: A boring waste of time - HUGE disappointment
Review: Up front, I gotta say that 1) the original was one of my fav SF movies, 2) I have not seen the DVD, but I did attempt to watch this movie on its A&E debut last night (Sept. 8th), and it was so bad I turned it off after the first hour.This movie fails on many levels. It's horribly slow moving. Deathly dull, in fact. Some of the actors are terribly annoying. Lisa Bonet is fine to look at, but she's one level: a sexy whispered voice at all times, and so carries no authority whatsoever. She doesn't seem smart enough to be a lawyer. She was so badly cast and is such a worthless actress that I wanted to shout at the TV every time she came onscreen. Lukas Haas is okay, as are James Caan and David Straithairn, but the doctor's secretary is annoyingly shrill. Except for the badly cast Lisa Bonet, though, I blame the director whenever good actors are less-than-good in a movie. Even the music is bad. The composer is a big-name guy who did music for Twin Peaks (among many other fine credits), but his music seemed very out of place. It seemed like the director attempted to inject some life into deadly-dull scenes through the energy of the music, but it seemed mismatched entirely. My expectations were low, to be honest. Rarely does a re-make do justice, I thought coming into this. But even my low expectations were not met. Oh, the sets and costuming were good, but overall this was a waste of a good SF idea and some decent actors. Don't bother with this one - get the original!
Rating:
Summary: How did this film get funded?
Review: What a disappointment...... This film is based on an Ursula Le Guin book, directed by Phillip Haas, and stars James Caan. How could it be so bad? It is so frustrating when a film is made supposedly from a good book, and then the result is such a poor job. This was boring and pretentious. Do yourself a favour, and DON'T watch it.
Rating:
Summary: George Orr, please dream another remake!
Review: _
Point blank: a BIG disappointment. It makes the original TV movie look phenomenal. Here's why: The acting is shockingly below average. James Caan, an award winning actor, seems to have done this piece as a half-hearted favor to Haas and didn't put his talent into it. Most of the time you expect him to fall asleep, given his mumbly, low monotone conversations. Lukas Haas unjustly portrays Orr as a severely weak pushover, with no spark of life in him. He is "humdrum" about everything (a Haas trademark?), and you find it difficult to identify with him unless your life is confined to a cardboard box. Lisa Bonet also has this "sedated" personna in Heather, but that might be because she realizes that her character is completely unbelieveable and she has so little to work with. The script is too far off the mark. The writer completely missed the driving points of the Lathe of Heaven novel by Ursula K. LeGuin. The whole concept of "The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number", striving to play God for humanity, is completely lost. Only George Orr remains true to the agenda portrayed in the book, to stop himself from having dreams that change reality. Haber has no lofty goal of trying to "make the world RIGHT", and Heather just drifts through the story aimlessly. There is a painful lack of special effects too. You see some nice examples of special effects scattered about, but in places where they are sorely needed there is nothing. . In short, there is no good reason to see this movie, UNLESS you are a Lathe of Heaven fanatic and want to see this for comparison purposes. Even still, it is painful to watch. The only benefit is that it makes you appreciate that charming low budget original TV movie--The Lathe of Heaven is a great story and I'm so glad it is finally available on DVD (it was not available on any commercial media for many, many years--you just had to be fortunate enough to have taped the original PBS broadcast or obtained a copy of that from a friend). If you search the Internet for "James Caan" and "Lathe of Heaven", you'll find a few reviews posted on various websites, most of which are kind to the film with no real basis, so don't be quick to believe them.
| 
