| Product: |
The Black Hole (DVD) |
| Date: |
12/09/08 (83 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good sets, special effects and model-work, grisly death scenes
Disadvantages: Poor, wooden acting and a naff script
If our sun was suddenly replaced by a black hole of equal mass, what would happen?
In eight minutes, the last of the sun's light would reach Earth and the sky would turn dark, like turning the light off in a room.
The Earth wouldn't be sucked into the black hole as there'd be no reason for it to suddenly lose angular momentum, so it would merely continue on its merry way, orbitting round and round as it does now.
The place would certainly be a lot colder, but no harm done.
Having studied relativity at university and being a general boffin of sorts, I went in to watching this movie with a certain dread of coming across many myths and a writer who certainly hadn't done his homework.
Okay, so this film did have a good go at being realistic, but hey, it's a Disney production, so although plenty of other things made no sense whatsoever, I was willing to put all of the technical mumbo-jumbo aside.
Say hello to the USS Palomino, an interstellar spaceship searching for habitable planets.
The crew, captained by Dan Holland, played by Robert Forster, includes Yvette Mimieux as Dr. McCrae, Anthony 'Norman Bates' Perkins as Dr. Durant, Ernest Borgnine as Harry Booth, and the hovering proverb-spouting droid VINCENT voiced by Roddy McDowall.
During their mission, they discover a massive black hole with a spaceship just managing to hold its ground just outside of the event horizon.
The crew of the Palomino determine that the mysterious spaceship must be the presumed-lost Cygnus and after the risk of boarding, find it in the hands of a horde of humanoid robots controlled by Doctor Reinhardt, played by Maximillian Schell, and the sinister robot Maximillian (guess where that name came from).
Soon enough, the crew discover that Doctor Reinhardt and the Cygnus hold a terrible secret, and eventually he plans to pilot the ship straight into the centre of the black hole in the vain hope of discovering a new existence on the other side.
In practical terms, this is "Event Horizon" meets "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", as Doctor Reinhardt is without-a-doubt a Captain Nemo rip-off, so story-wise there's nothing original here in the great scheme of things.
However, although the magical Disney logo appears at the beginning of this DVD and you expect everything to be cute and fun, this is most certainly not a film for young children.
This is not just because of a few instances of bad language (not overly coarse, mind you), but there are a couple of absolutely brutal death scenes, which make for general unpleasant viewing, but of course had me laughing with glee.
Special mention has got to go to the superb sets designed for this film, and there is some fantastic model work of the Cygnus, making it appear absolutely huge.
The black hole itself looks relatively menacing, big and swirly, but there is a special effects scene towards the end where the Cygnus is attacked by a load of burning red asteroids, and it all looks pretty naff.
This can be overlooked however, as the rest of the film looks really very good.
The big problem for the film is in the acting.
Most of those involved wooden up an already pathetic script, and the biggest surprise at showing such ineptitude is Ernest Borgnine.
Now whenever a film comes along with ol' Ernest involved, I'm usually quite impressed with his performances.
"The Wild Bunch", "All Quiet on the Western Front", "The Poseidon Adventure", "Gattaca" and "Escape From New York" come to mind, and he always plays a good supporting actor, but in this he's quite miserably bad, which is a shame given the star-name potential.
Give the man his due though, he's 91 and still making movies!
The rest, including Schell, aren't really worth mentioning, though it was nice to see Anthony Perkins onscreen in his handsome-with-mother-issues persona again.
For some, coming out two years after "Star Wars", this was an obvious ploy to cash-in on the whole sci-fi swing cinema was going through at the time, and there are many instances where the films are similar, especially in the laser pistol shootouts and the inclusion of the friendly droid.
Roddy McDowall, a man I best know as Cornelius from "Planet of the Apes", lends his voice to the floating big-eyed robot VINCENT, who's extremely wise and child-friendly, and an obvious attempt to make money after the film with plenty of merchandise.
He's easily a rip-off of R2-D2, and his continuous string of proverbs gets really annoying.
We also meet another, similar droid, the beaten up hick BOB, voiced by the legend Slim Pickins (the guy who rode the bomb in "Dr Strangelove"), and he's fun to have around, although he doesn't really interact with the other characters except for VINCENT.
By the way, VINCENT stands for Vital Information Necessary CENTralized, if you really wanted to know.
BOB stands for Bob.
Meanwhile, the 'evil' robot Maximillian is obviously based on the cylons from "Battlestar Gallactica" with his big blood-red eye, but at least he doesn't have a ridiculous voice-over, as the muteness can become quite chilling.
I suppose he looks more like the cylons from the new series, but he certainly comes across as quite sinister.
Overall, this film's a game of two halves.
It looks excellent, with its sets, model work and design, but the script and actors are quite terrible.
However, even though the plot is nicked from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", it does have a nifty, if obvious, twist near the end, and is truly enjoyable with its good use of action and mystery.
Check it out when it next comes on the telly and you shouldn't be disappointed.
Summary: A not-for-kids Disney action sci-fi, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"-style
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