rattsbreath "The shadow of human cloning tugs like a heavy ball and chain" Nominated for 3 Academy Awards

grantss Good action-thriller. Very original and innovative script, based on the novel by Ira Levin.The cast is a prestigious one - Sir Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, James Mason - and they all put in great performances. Olivier got the Leading Actor Oscar nomination but Peck is the one to watch. He appears as the arch-villain of the piece, and is quite convincing. It is a rare occasion when Gregory Peck plays a villain, and he pulls it off superbly.Steve Guttenberg makes a brief appearance, in one of his earliest roles, but don't let that put you off.A reasonably entertaining and intriguing movie.

meritcoba "I confess that I am prejudiced," Kristl said as she turned to Henry.She had to blink a few times before she refocused, because the lights had flooded the theater and temporarily blinded them. Henry had yet to fix that. He meant for the light to gradually increase in strength with the music, but instead it suddenly bathed in a blinding white light. He had however managed that the music would start softly and then rise to an acceptable level. Acceptable meant that they both could hear each other. Normally they would start talking when the credits started to roll, but on request of Kristl they had sat in silence until the black at the end of the credit roll would show. "Why is that? Because it is an old movie?""No... It is because it got some of the best actors from around that time in it. Laurence Olivier, James Mason and Gregory Peck. I can not help to like movies which contain the latter two. I am a bit so-so on Olivier, but he is considered by most to be one of the best actors to date.""Is it insulting when I say that it's an old men movie?""It depends on what you intend. Is an old man movie, something bad? It is true, that it is a remarkable movie in that way. It stars people who are well into the sixties.""Yeah. That fight at the end had something funny. Those two old men beating each other up. ""Oddly enough, I found that struggle quite unsettling. Shocked me more than fights from action movies. Maybe because I had not expect it.""And bloody to.""So.. no scantily clad ladies waving swords about.. did you like it?""It was okay. The story has an interesting angle. Actually you know what the bad guys are doing and how, but you don't know why. And you follow Lieberman, Olivier that is, trying to figure it out. I bet a lot of people figured it out halfway through..I didn't. Although it wasn't much of a surprise in the end..""Only an very implausible plot. It is impossible to recreate the same conditions that shaped the people in the early twenty century, in the second half. The world was just completely different. Just to name a few important changes: you got cars, airplanes and television. This alone changed the world. Totally impossible.""Yeah, but fun.Besides, maybe they thought: let's give it a try.""If you are a fanatic you do not even to think that. You just do it..""Right. And Nazis are fanatics… just look at Raiders of the Lost Ark…""Yes.. or you can be a scientist obsessed with a project.""Like Mengele.""A fanatic and a scientist.. a dangerous combination. They can make the world go boom just because they want to.""And it is fun just seeing them old actors act. Peck seems very there in every scene he is in. And his boisterous overbearing personality contrasts with the down on his luck old Olivier. Yet these Nazis can not touch the vulnerable Olivier because then other people will get on to them. Publicity has its advantage," Krisl said.Henry nodded."It is a nice movie.. based on a story of Ira Levin. Yet again.""And there was this German guy in it.""You noticed?""Yeah.. that guy from that German movie we once saw. Der himmel uber Berlin.. and the one that played Hitler in Downfall.""Bruno Ganz.""Ah, that is his name?""Yes.""Another movie about Nazis and that Hitler guy.""It is an infinite source for stories," Kristl nodded."Yeah.. he sure casts a long shadow over Germany.""It is a sad thing… It sure is." Kristl sighed."We call that..FUBAR!" Henry laughed.www.meritcoba.com

david-sarkies ********** SPOILER ALERT************ I guess this movie would be heaps better if you don't actually know that it is about a Nazi plot to resurrect Hitler through the use of clones. If this is what you know about this film then you are likely to write it off as just another piece of Hollywood rubbish. However the film is far from that, and that fact that it has Lawrence Olivier and Gregory Peck as the lead actors should suggest that it is actually a lot more than that. Needless to say, both of those actors play their roles brilliantly, and when somebody suggested that if a lesser mortal than Gregory Peck were playing the villain then no doubt this movie would have fallen in a heap.There are a few problems though, however the idea of cloning that is explored in this movie suggests that the original writer really knew his stuff. Basically what Megnele (Peck) is attempting to do is to create the same conditions of life that gave birth to Hitler, and this after producing a huge batch of cloned Hitler babies he places them in families around the world that matched the age of Hitler's parents. However, at a specific moment, Hitler's father died, so Mengele sends out a team of Nazi assassins to kill the adopted fathers of these children at the right time in hope to turn one of them into Adolf Hitler.There is a problem though, and that is that while he may be able to control the family upbringing, he is not able to control the geopolitical events that led to the rise of Hitler. For instance, Hitler went into World War 1 as a corporal, was shot and wounded, and spent the rest of the war in hospital. Germany then went on to lose the war, suffered economic collapse, and revolution as a result, and was then humiliated by the victors. Even after that, the entire world economy collapsed at which point Hitler was able to rise to power.Despite those factors, the film itself is still very, very well made, but then again, if you are reading this, then you have probably already seen the film, because I suggested that if you haven't seen this then you shouldn't read this commentary.