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Phillip McSween (751 KP) rated Barbarella (1968) in Movies

Aug 10, 2020

Barbarella (1968)

1968 | Action, Sci-Fi

6.3

(12 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Vaguely Memorable

An outer space agent travels to another galaxy in search of a missing inventor.

Acting: 2
Good cast, none of whom are swinging for the fences in Barbarella. Honestly, I can compare the acting chops in this movie to the likes of a softcore porn. Science fiction or not, there is absolutely nothing believable about this movie in the slightest. The acting made the rest of the movie hard to watch.

Beginning: 10

Characters: 10
Despite the terrible acting, I didn’t hate the characters, namely the woman of the hour Barbarella (Jane Fonda). She’s quirky and I loved all of her inuendo references to sex. The movie is very sex-oriented and it succeeds, albeit minutely, in Barbarella’s experience and everyone else’s lack thereof. If they had given the movie more of a solid story, the characters would have had a fighting chance at being a part of a solid movie.

Cinematography/Visuals: 10
Not terrible in the way of sci-fi. They tried a number of cool things that really are fairly impressive for a 1968 movie. From the weapons to the numerous space settings, I wasn’t disappointed by what was showing up on screen.

Conflict: 6
I think Barbarella cared more about being trippy than having a true conflict to drive the story. There are points where I cared about the outcome, but it seems more often than not that the movie is satisfied with being light-hearted and slowly paced. There was not enough going on for me to overly care.

Entertainment Value: 9

Memorability: 6
There are a handful of moments that stand out, but there isn’t a lot of replay value here. Even as I rewatch it as we speak, there are some spots that I forgot even happened. Definitely not a movie I need to see twice.

Pace: 5

Plot: 1
Never a good sign when I have to look the story up on Rotten Tomatoes. It was honestly that forgettable. I think the 800 screenwriters on this movie cared more about being funny than they did writing a good movie. Not impressed.

Resolution: 2

Overall: 61
I wanted to like Barbarella, but they gave me nothing to work with unfortunately. I wouldn’t even advise the Amazon Prime users (where the movie is available) to give it a shot. Steer clear.

Kudos

Jesters_folly (230 KP) rated Robo Vampire (1988) in Movies

Aug 11, 2020

Robo Vampire (1988)

1988 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

6.5

(2 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Contains spoilers, click to show

Drug baron Mr Young is fed up with Narcotics agent Tom Wilde interfering with his plans so he hires a Taoist monk to train a vampire to kill him. After his death Tom is rebuilt as an Android Robot and sent on a mission to help rescue a captured officer.
The cover/poster art would have us believe that this is a Robocop vs vampire movie and I suppose that it is in the looses possible sense. First off this is low budget Hong Kong Jiangshi (rotting corpse) movie with added cyborg (Sorry Android Robot) so the vampires are of the hopping type not the western 'gentleman'.
I've given this film a 6 on the basis that it's so bad it's good. Most of the vampires are ok and look like the standard hopping type but the lead vampire seems to be wearing a gorilla mask to make it look rotten. No one bleeds when shot and it's obvious when dummies are used instead of stun doubles . Even taking this into account I would have given Robo Vampire a higher rating but it gets hard to follow. There are two story-lines to follow, the rescue of Sophie, an undercover agent that has been kidnapped and the Tom-robot vs the vampire's and ghost. And this is the first confusing part of the plot. Tom's creators say that he is to be sent on the rescue mission but he is never with the rescue party. Instead he goes off to fight the vampire. So the film switches between the rescue and Tom vs the vampires. Even this wouldn't be a problem except that the story-lines seem to continue even when we're not watching. For example, the rescue party are heading towards the camp with baddies jumping out at them from all directions. The we switch to Robo and when we switch back to the rescue two of the party are swimming in a lake with no sign of any of the others and end up getting captured, then back to Robo, then back the rest of the rescue party who don't even acknowledged that two of their party are missing but aren't surprised when they see them as prisoners. This sort of thing happens a lot, it's almost as if some one just cut out random scenes. Characters also just seem to appear with no introduction and switch sides with no seeming reason.