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Lifeforce

Lifeforce

List Price: $14.95
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Mathilda May is the reason to watch this!
Review: This is the only film I've seen Mathilda May in, but from what I've seen, she's (along with Sophie Marceau) the most beautiful French actress around. Plus, she's almost always nude in this film. With that out of the way, the rest of the movie isn't particularly good. There are some tense scenes, especially in the beginning and in the finale, but the script is too much of a mess and the result is slightly incomprehensible.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Good lord, what were they thinking?
Review: This is one of the most truly execrable sci-fi/horror flicks ever made (and I generally love bad sci-fi movies). It's badly written, badly edited, and the acting is truly awful. The special effects are so-so and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. There are only two reasons to buy this video: to watch a beautiful woman walking around naked, including full-frontal nudity (sexism alert: the handsome male vampires have their naughty bits blurred out), and to see what Patrick Stewart had to suffer through before becoming Jean-Luc Picard.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining, though it ruined Mathilda May's career
Review: Lifeforce is an entertaining sci-fi tale with everything a sci-fi/horror fan or teenager could want from a movie: plenty of action, lots of explosions, a heavy amount of gore, and a beautiful woman who walks around nude for most of the film. I don't think mentioning the plot would be that useful. If you're reading this review then you probably already have an idea of what this film is about.

When I first saw this film, I watched a heavily cut version. Virtually all the nudity was cut and the violence was toned down a bit. I just recently saw the director's cut edition-which is fifteen minutes longer than the original cut and about 30 minutes longer than the version I saw. I must say, no matter how bad some of the dialogue is this is an entertaining film. There's rarely a moment the film sags through its entire 116 minute running time. Honestly, I think the film could have gone on another 20 or so minutes.

The special are fairly decent. For a film that cost 28 million dollars to make (a monstrous budget in 1985) it certainly looks not bad. The scenes featuring Halley's Comet and the alien spacecraft are visually stunning though the scenes where people's lifeforces are absorbed by the space vampires do look a tad cheesy.

Mathilda May, of course, plays the nude space vampiress and I have to say she is gorgeous. When I let my friend borrow this film he agreed with me on that fact, too. For a reason, though, I wish she had chosen a better film than this to work on. She is a decent actress and she never made the transition to American cinema she deserved to. It's too bad she's been typecast as the nude woman since in so many of her films she shows nudity

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of the best films from director:Tobe Hooper.
Review: I purchase this DVD, not too long ago. Am very surprise the picture and especially 5.1 surround sound is impressive. This international version with 15 additional footage, adding Violence and Certain scene of erotic footage, also some amazing visual effects supervise by John Drkstra, best known for his new breaking effects on the Original Star Wars. Hooper did a great job on the film, it had something new, that came out at that time in 1985. Terrific music score by Herny Mancini(The Pink Panther Films, The Great Mouse Detective) also Micheal Kamen is Uncredited for writing additional music for the film. Good Screenplay by Don Jakoby(John Carpenter`s Vampires) and Dan O` Bannon(Alien, Return Of The Living Dead, Total Recall). I did like the cast in the film-Steve Railsback(Disturbing Behavior) in the lead role, Peter Firth as Colonel Colm Caine, Frank Finlay as Prof. hans Fallada, Patrick Stewart(Star Trek:The Next Generation) and Mathilda May(The Jackal) as the film strong and sexy alien invader. The film has some strange sense of humour and Production Designs are the high point of the film.

Anyway you cannot expect much from Globus/Golan Production most of thier films, they produced failed miserly at the Box Office. They were much more on the visual quality of thier film, they produced than the story, most of the time. Still is one of thier best produced film. The last shot in the film, it has one of the visual effects shots in the scene, it nice to watch. This is an fine Camp Classic.

Those who like the film and has a DVD Player with the best home theater. This is worth buying for the great non-anamorphic Widescreen picture(2.35:1) format and new digitally 5.1 Dolby Digital Sourround Soundtrack. Grade:A-. JDC Scope.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A real rollercoaster of a movie
Review: Lifeforce marked the beginning of the end of Tobe Hooper's career as a big name Hollywood director. So much of this movie is wildly out of control it is not hard to understand why, and it was heavily cut and altered by producers Golan/Globus. This slightly expanded version does clear up some of the problems, but the wacky combination of black comedy and alien terror will still be hard to take for those looking for a harsher and more linear tone. Still fans will find it worth a look.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A visually stunning film
Review: Tobe Hooper made his hollywood debut with Salems Lot , He went on to help Steven Speilberg with Poltergiest now with the help of awsome visual effects talent John Dikestra who's lavish effects were awarded for his work on STAR WARS makes this epic Sci Fi Film as strange as it is you can't help the fact that the ploit is in uniqe only because it's never been done before.

Haleys Comet only passes by once in a century when a space survey team confronts the comet they dicover that there is something inside of it this something is some kind of alien space craft a huge umbrella like collector thats over a mile and half long.When they take a misson inside of the craft they discover a bat like lifeorm seemingly thousands of these things stange enough they also find three perfectly in tact humans so prfect that there almost to humanoid.

But what lies in this craft and what these three humaniods can do is beyond anything ever seen because this crafts only purpose is to collect the lifeforce from human soles its up to one caption and piolt to get clos to them to stop them from desroying the hole entire planet from being draned.A creative film wild and suspensful incredible visual effects its not perfect sci fi film by any mean but you will have fun watching it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A GOLAN-GLOBUS MOVIE WITH THE SIGNATURE OF TOBE HOOPER
Review: LIFEFORCE is a pure product of the hilarious couple Golan-Globus when they were at the top of the Cannon group. During that period, they produced a lot of movies, with a lot of stars, which regularly were total flops.

Here we have : a) A director who just had a huge success with "Poltergeist" b) A writer who brought "Alien" to Ridley Scott c) A superb actress who agreed to be filmed naked d) A story filled with aliens, living deads and vampires. How is it possible to fail with these cards ?

Believe me or not, but our beloved producers did !

The result is an average sci-fi-zombie-vampire movie you will have forgotten in 24 hours. The plot is ridiculous, the dialogs childish and the special effects not to be remembered even if John Dykstra was involved in the project.

A DVD to rent only if you're a sci-fi fan.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Expect some entertainment, nothing more
Review: Lifeforce begins interestingly enough with a joint British-American team on board a shuttle who discover a spacecraft hidden inside Halley's Comet. From this point (actually at the very beginning) this movie grabbed my attention. The first 45 minutes were quite engrossing, as the details about what the astronauts found on board the shuttle began to unfold.

The three "humans" (two male, one extremely sexy female) they found encased in the space shuttle and were brought back are actually space vampires that constantly absorb people's lifeforce, turning them into zombies who must also take other people's lifeforce to become normal again, at least temporarily.

After all this, I felt I was in for a real treat. Well, the film's not a classic but it's far from boring. You see, Lifeforce gets a little too hokey for its own good when Steve Railsback and Patrick Stewart appear. The next 45 minutes are quite bad, not really dull, just ridiculous. Railsback really overacts his part in this duration and I almost laughed a couple of times. It isn't until the last half hour that the movie manages to gain some momentum again, as the climax features a wide destruction of London, and all at the center of it is one vampiress.

Despite a running time of just about 2 hours, Lifeforce felt rushed (particularly in the 45 minute sequence I mentioned I didn't like). Some of the sequences just go by too quickly. This aspect really doesn't help create a fast pace. It only makes the movie look clumsy.

Well, acting wise it's overall okay, surprisingly enough. So Railsback may be easy to laugh at, but Peter Firth and Frank Finlay hold their own and more. Of course, the real scene stealer would have to be Mathilda May, who plays the lead vampiress. There's not a single review below that doesn't mention her and it's for a good reason. She's simply the most beautiful foreign actress (she's French) I've ever seen. Heck, she might be the most good-looking actress on film. Her performance is actually decent. She portrays evil well enough and is actually rather creepy and seductive. And yes, she is naked for just about the entire movie, something of an added bonus.

The single most unintentionally funny scene in the movie must be when May is escaping the complex and the guards inform each other through the radio about having to look for a naked girl. The discussion they have is utterly hilarious and the British accent on the guy over the radio sounds like the guy on the top of the castle in the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

There's actually something for anybody to appreciate about this movie. There are the fine special effects, the gigantic set designs, a pace that is rather fast, and some decent performances. I have nothing really good to say about the script or the direction, but Lifeforce is entertaining enough to be worth a rental.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Lifeforce probably could have been a lot more
Review: Lifeforce is strange science fiction/horror. It's not really scary, though it does have some suspenseful and memorable moments. It's somewhat well-paced and there are some decent action sequences. The plot is also somewhat interesting but there are so many other aspects that hurt this movie.

The plot? The shuttle Churchill discovers a ship hidden inside Halley's comet. Exploring inside it, they discover hundreds of frozen bat creatures and three nude humans (or humanoids) inside see through chambers. Two of them are males, one of them female (the very beautiful and sexy Mathilda May). However, something aboard the shuttle goes wrong and the crew is killed off with the exception of one man. A rescue shuttle brings back the three humanoids. They escape and begin a rampage of terror throughout London as two men (Peter Firth and Steve Railsback) must try to stop them.

I was very much engrossed in the plot, especially the whole lifeforce idea and the interesting twist on vampires. But the movie went downhill as soon as Railsback reentered the movie. He overacts his part and is totally unconvincing. The scene where he shouts at a possessed Patrick Stewart is almost laughable. There's also the musical score from Henry Mancini. It's way out of tone from the movie and sounds almost ridiculous at certain points.

The special effects in the film range from mediocre to good. At some points, the film looks cheesy and at other times it looks like the big budget film it is.

As for acting, some of it is actually not bad. Railsback is terrible but Firth is okay. To be honest, the best performance probably goes to Mathilda May, one of the most drop-dead gorgeous actresses I have ever seen of film. I wish she accepted better roles than this. Maybe this is the reason I have never seen her in another film. She's actually very good at being the seductress that she is in the movie, just as good and even more subtle than Sharon Stone was in Basic Instinct. This is also quite amazing considering the fact she walks around the movie naked most of the time and acts very calmly and cooly.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Elaboratly Pointless Film
Review: Well, I had heard so many things about this film saying howweird and cool it was that I was very excited. So, I popped it into myDVD player, and pressed play. Here's the review. Well, I managed to sit through the whole thing. The beginning, on the Church Hill and inside the ship by Halley's Comet, was fairly interesting. Kinda cheesy, but effective. Good effects from Dykastra, whos always dependable. Then, well, it got weird.

The rest of the film was interesting, but it just seemed to be so darn pointless, and very badly paced. It was boring much of the time, with dialoge mouthed by mediocre actors doing things muddily explained or just not explained at all. All the while, it still has good effects, though.

There were definitly some good, even original ideas in the film, but Tobe Hooper is, to tell you the truth, so bad at Science fiction (Which is what this film is at its heart) that things seem . . . . well . . . . . just plain clumsy.

The set design is also something I have some beef with. While the sci-fi sets look good for the time, every other set looks like something out of a moderatly budgeted Television show. I don't know why, they just looked fake, without enough details to even pass as real.

And whats the deal with the music. Totally, completely, utterly wrong for the movie. It ruined the tone at almost every turn. Overly dramatic and just plain innappropriate for the film.

Lifeforce did have excellent effects (Though they were not shown enough), some good ideas, and some interesting and frightening moments. But, with Tobe Hooper at helm, it loses it's way. My advice, rent it first, to see if it's for you.

PS - The 15 minutes of restored footage were seamlessly inserted. I couldn't tell what was new and what was original


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