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The Last Wave - Criterion Collection

The Last Wave - Criterion Collection

List Price: $29.95
Your Price: $26.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: disappointing
Review: the story was just ok and the acting was fair but the quality of the vhs tape wasn't very good. actually the sound was terrible!!!!
actually worse than a homemade movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Only Two Good Points
Review: There are only two good points for this snoozer. (1. The part where the murder takes place is quite powerful and very well done, and (2. Richard Chamberlain looks good in glasses. Other than that, "The Last Wave" drowns in its own inconsistancies.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Superb but Terrifyingly Creepy
Review: This is one of the creepiest movies I have ever seen. It is as terrifying in its way as "Alien". Note the differences, however.

"Alien" was a straightforward invincible-monster movie, and the general course of action could be predicted without any difficulty once you'd seen the first 30 minutes. "The Last Wave" involves a mystery so bizarre and unfathomable, however, that you don't have a clue to what is really going on until the last few minutes of the movie. Also, fans of gore be warned. Although a man is killed in the opening minutes of the movie, no blood is spilled, no force is used, and the sequence is far from being the most frightening one in the film.

The review from Boston, Massachusetts, January 8, 1999 suggests that Richard Chamberlain's bizarre visions are hallucinations induced by exhaustion and stress. This is not feasible, unless you want to assume that the entire movie, including prosaic and realistic scenes at home and in the courtroom, is just a dream, an assumption which destroys the movie's artistic significance. Too many of Chamberlain's visions are either shared by others or predict events which are experienced by others.

The hail and the black rain are experienced by hundreds, or even thousands, of other people. Chamberlain dreams about a man he has never seen, and later meets him in his law office. The overflowing bathtub is seen by Chamberlain's wife and children as well as himself. The strange pictures left by the mulkirul have been known to the Aborigines for thousands of years.

There is also the question of where the supposed exhaustion and stress is supposed to come from. No source is ever suggested for these, except the weird visions themselves and the terrifying events they concern.

This is not a movie for the faint-hearted. I can't tell you anything about the final moments of the movie without giving too much away, but I hope that nothing like this ever happens to Los Angeles.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another great Peter Weir film
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

The Last Wave is a true Australian classic suspense film.

Peter Weir, known most recently for Master and Commander, does an excellent job directing this film. It co-stars Gulpilil who is known for his role of the Aboriginal teen in Walkabout, also relesed by Criterion.

In the film, a lawyer (Richard Chamberlain) defends a group of Aboriginies accused of killing another. While doing so he has nightmares and hallucinations of a cataclysmic deluge. In the dreams there is an Aboriginie who offers him a stone. He later meets the same Aboriginie he saw in his dreams. This gives him the suspicion that he is clairavoiant, may be part of an ancient Aboriginal prophecy, and that he is a messianical figure in those prophecies.

The film has some very excellent music in it which reminds me of similar music featured in 1980's indie films. Specifically, "Manhunter" and "The Terminator." The music is electronic and very suspenseful and moving. It was composed by Charles Wain and different than *but just as good as) the music in Weir's film "Picnic at Hanging Rock."

The acting in the film is excellent and s beautifully photographed.

The special features on the DVD are antheatrical trailer and an interview with the director Peter Weir.

Fans of Australian cinema and regulars alike will love this film!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WHO ARE YOU?
Review: When Corporate Tax Lawyer, David Burton, played brilliantly by the classy Richard Chamberlain, is asked to defend a group of aborigines, facing murder charges, he learns that law can be more important than men. When he begins having strange dreams, he also learns, they represent frightening shadows of his present reality. David discovers that this secret tribal group, is from another world, across the sea, and can navigate in two forms of time. He perceives two parallel cycles of activity....one set in reality....the other in dreamtime. The tribesmen, through ceremonies with sacred objects, and dreams, display extraordinary powers. They can become animals, fly, and transcend time. Spirits, who come from the rising sun, act through humans, and confront David. David (Mulkurul) realizes his destiny is entwined with this ancient tribe....and they cause him to question. Who are you?

The weather is acting very strange; black rain is polluting the earth. Witches, ghosts, and spirits appear in the night, stealing David's body, for visits to another, more ancient world, returning it in the morning, tired, confused, and frightened. Tribal sorcery, sacred ceremonies, and powerful spirits, cause David to lose the world he knows, and caught up in dark mysteries, he sends his frightened family away, to distance them from the dreams that have taken over his life. Caught up within his own apocalyptic visions of water, the dreams have turned to haunting nightmares ....where he sees an enormous wave mounting....moving....closer....close....and if he doesn't wake up....it will wipe out the entire earth!


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