Movie Review: Midway (1976)

Genre: Historical World War Two Action  

Director: Jack Smight  

Starring: Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, Hal Holbrook, Toshiro Mifune, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, Edward Albert  

Running Time: 131 minutes  

Synopsis: It's 1942, and the United States Navy is weakened and reeling after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto (Toshiro Mifune) wants to press Japan's advantage and plots an attack on the Midway Atoll in the Pacific. A cryptographic unit led by Commander Rochefort (Hal Holbrook) breaks enough of the Japanese code to allow Admiral Nimitz (Henry Fonda) to plan a high-risk ambush, committing all of the Navy's aircraft carriers. The trusted Captain Matthew Garth (Charlton Heston) is assigned to the USS Yorktown, along with his son Lieutenant Thomas Garth (Edward Albert). With both countries holding nothing back, tense surveillance maneuvers precede an epic battle, with the fate of the Pacific War at stake.

What Works Well: This is a grim-faced and square-jawed recreation of the seminal World War Two naval battle, filled with star presence and impressive hardware. The storytelling represents both sides and seeks the small details that shape history, including a broken radio preventing a crucial transmission, malfunctioning electronics resulting in lost torpedo bombs, and crucial battlefield decisions made within the fog of war and riding on gut instinct. Director Jack Smight admirably translates unfolding battle tactics into comprehensible plot points.

What Does Not Work As Well: A wedged-in romance between Lieutenant Garth and his interned Japanese-American lover is a clunky distraction. Equally clumsy is a hodgepodge of ineloquently inserted historical footage borrowed from other Hollywood productions and unrelated battles. Some stars like Robert Mitchum and particularly James Coburn lend their presence to just a few scenes before cashing their cheques.

Key Quote:

Admiral Nimitz (to Captain Garth): We can't trade them carrier for carrier, Matt.

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Movie Review: The Omega Man (1971)

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Thriller  

Director: Boris Sagal  

Starring: Charlton Heston, Rosalind Cash, Anthony Zerbe, Paul Koslo  

Running Time: 98 minutes  

Synopsis: Two years after germ warfare annihilates humanity, Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) is one of the few surviving humans. During the day he scavenges, while at night he fends off attacks by "The Family", a cult of infected and light-sensitive but not-yet-dead humans led by Matthias (Anthony Zerbe). Neville is a former military scientist who may have discovered a vaccine for the deadly germs, and he starts to suspect there may be other human survivors nearby.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend enjoys a spooky opening segment that features Neville navigating an abandoned Los Angeles cityscape and helping himself to a "new" car. Charlton Heston as the lonely but determined survivor is reliably sturdy, and his interracial romance with a fellow survivor (Rosalind Cash) carries a black power spark. The ending, while hokey, still delivers an undeniable shudder.

What Does Not Work As Well: Beyond the introductory scenes, little distinguishes this movie from a television-level production, and many of the key character actions occupy the silly end of the scale. The antagonist "Family" members live dangerously close to parody, and Matthias' ceremonial philosophizing about cleansing fires and the surviving humans being the root of all evil is at odds with the cult's doofus incompetence. The scientific underpinnings of the dystopian premise are barely sketched in and frequently violated. 

Key Quote:

Matthias (to Neville): Definition of a scientist: a man who understood nothing, until there was nothing left to understand.



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Movie Review: Skyjacked (1972)

Genre: Hijacking Thriller

Director: John Guillermin

Starring: Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux, James Brolin, Walter Pidgeon, Jeanne Crain, Susan Dey

Running Time: 101 minutes

Synopsis: Captain O'Hara (Charlton Heston) is in charge of a Global Airways flight to Minneapolis when one of the first-class cabin passengers (Susan Dey) discovers a lipstick message on the bathroom mirror, claiming there is a bomb onboard and demanding a re-route to Anchorage. Angela (Yvette Mimieux) is the chief flight attendant, while the hijacker suspects include musician Brown (Roosevelt Grier), Senator Lindner (Walter Pidgeon), army veteran Weber (James Brolin), and Mrs. Shaw (Jeanne Crain), the wife of a depressed businessman.

What Works Well: The guess-the-hijacker game is engaging enough for the first 40 minutes. Once revealed, the unhinged machinations in the antagonist's mind hint at an intriguing psychological profile that, in better hands, could have been much better explored.

What Does Not Work As Well: Jumping on the bandwagon of the era's airplane-related crisis movies, this is a derivative disaster drama stocked with plastic and crushingly uninteresting characters. Almost all the details are botched, including basic terrorist negotiations and the time needed to refuel and fly between destinations. Most of the character actions and decisions are inane, and the flashback scenes attempting to provide background context are embarrassing. In the most realistic aspect, the economy passengers are unapologetically treated like cattle.

Conclusion: Somehow, the Russians save the day.



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Movie Review: The Big Country (1958)

Genre: Western

Director: William Wyler

Starring: Gregory Peck, Carroll Baker, Jean Simmons, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Chuck Connors, Charles Bickford

Running Time: 166 minutes

Synopsis: Former mariner James McKay (Gregory Peck) relocates from Baltimore to the west as he prepares to marry his fiancée Pat (Carroll Baker). Her father Henry "the Major" Terrill (Charles Bickford) owns a massive ranch, and his loyal foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) desires Pat and resents James' presence. The Major is locked in a feud with nearby landowner Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives), as both are dependent on water from land owned by schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), who is romantically pursued by Rufus' loathsome son Buck (Chuck Connors). James attempts to peacefully de-escalate every situation, but his quiet dignity unsettles the locals.

What Works Well: An epic western, William Wyler's adaptation of the Donald Hamilton book explores multiple grand themes, from personal (a man's measure of self-worth) to societal (the slow evolution towards non-violence). Strong romance elements provide James McKay with two possible matches in Pat and Julie, and as illustrations of his character, McKay's treatment of women contrasts sharply with the more brutish Leech and Buck. The film's strength resides in multiple sturdy character arcs, veterans Charles Bickford and Burl Ives adding depth to the antagonism between The Major and Rufus, while the father-son tension between Rufus and Buck provides a powerful undercurrent. Expansive cinematography by Franz F. Planer complements a running "big country" reference, and the music score by Jerome Moross is one of the iconic western soundtracks.

What Does Not Work As Well: Given the breadth of storytelling, the ending deserved more reflective exposition.

Conclusion: Big narrative ambitions fulfilled on a big canvas.



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Movie Review: The Wreck Of The Mary Deare (1959)

Genre: Marine Mystery Drama

Director: Michael Anderson

Starring: Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Richard Harris

Running Time: 104 minutes

Synopsis: During a storm in the English Channel, salvage boat Captain John Sands (Charlton Heston) stumbles upon the drifting and seemingly abandoned cargo ship Mary Deare. He clambers onboard and is surprised to find Captain Gideon Patch (Gary Cooper) alone and still trying to maneuver the vessel. Patch refuses to share his agenda with Sands, but an inquiry involving the ship's owners and Second Officer Higgins (Richard Harris) awaits once the two men make it back to shore.

What Works Well: Gary Cooper (despite his ailing health and in his penultimate role) and Charlton Heston demonstrate commendable agility and forge a robust partnership at the adventure's heart. Joseph Ruttenberg's cinematography in stormy and underwater conditions is stellar, particularly the opening encounter between the Mary Deare and Sands' salvage boat, and the closing scuba diving sequence.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is constipated by Patch's refusal to reveal his motivations. By the time the drama moves to dry land, it's too late to float the tell-but-don't-show insurance fraud conspiracy. The Higgins character is a stock henchman; the real villains remain shadowy and barely defined, robbing the movie of tension. The logic holes are plentiful, including why the bad guys never ditched Patch overboard, or why they conveniently left one lifeboat behind.

Conclusion: Quite wet, but just about salvaged by star power.



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Movie Review: Two-Minute Warning (1976)

A wobbly combination of sniper thriller and big-scale disaster movie, Two-Minute Warning deploys an anonymous villain to dispatch featureless victims in a void of emotions.

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is hosting the annual football championship game (the NFL's Super Bowl in all but name), and the local Los Angeles team is up against their Baltimore rivals. Police Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston) has to stretch his resources to cover the game, while Sergeant Chris Button (John Cassavetes) is the local SWAT team commander. Sam McKeever (Martin Balsam) is in charge of stadium security.

From a hotel room window, a mysterious sniper shoots and kills a cyclist. The sniper then drives across town, enters the Coliseum, infiltrates an off-limits area and sets-up above the scoreboard. The stadium starts to fill with 92,000 spectators, including Mike Ramsey (Beau Bridges) and his family, gambler Stu Sandman (Jack Klugman), quarreling lovers Steve and Janet (David Janssen and Gena Rowlands), and a professional pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon).

The game starts and the television broadcast trailer is a hub of noisy activity with access to multiple camera angles, until an overhead camera from the hovering blimp picks up the sniper, hiding and waiting to unleash death from his vantage point.

For all its big-budget glitz, Two-Minute Warning teeters on the brink of an exceptionally nihilistic vision where innocent people die needlessly, murdered in a mass casualty event by a faceless assassin with no rational cause. But instead, this weird hybrid of Dirty Harry and every 1970s big-budget disaster movie falls on the wrong side of the entertainment fence.

For a full 90 minutes, director Larry Peerce occupies himself with banal details of uninteresting characters getting ready to attend the big game and then taking their seats as spectators, a parade of familiar actors appearing in snippets to reveal how utterly ordinary and unworthy of any screen time their characters are. In the meantime the faceless and nameless sniper occupies his station above the stadium scoreboard, and for all his careful preparations does nothing to safeguard against fans with binoculars and the overhead blimp, stuffed with cameras.

And Two-Minute Warning is then padded with numerous on-field football action scenes of no consequence to the plot, an unwanted sports drama erupting in the middle of a stale disaster thriller.

While the breathtakingly bungled response of the police and SWAT teams may not be unrealistic, Peerce stretches credibility to the limit, Captain Holly, Sergeant Button and security chief McKeever checking every wrong box of inaction and displaying all the urgency of suntanning sea lions as tragedy beckons.

It is the final 30 minutes of carnage that almost save the movie. Once the surprisingly indestructible sniper decides to open fire at the game's two-minute warning mark (again, his reasons for choosing this time are not explained), Peerce kicks the action into gears of utter panic and choreographs good scenes featuring thousands of people stampeding. Acts of tragedy, idiocy and heroism converge, and a decent number of the stars on parade encounter a bloody death moment to justify the paycheque.

Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes just grit their teeth and hide behind macho sunshades, trying hard to act heroic, inject purpose, and look serious, but alas they stand defeated in a stadium occupied by bad scripting.

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Movie Review: El Cid (1961)

A historical epic about a legendary Spanish leader, El Cid is a grand spectacle but leans towards quantity over quality.

It's early in the 11th Century, and Spain is experiencing political divisions. The nation's Muslim Moor tribes are being agitated into rebellion by Ben Yusuf (Herbert Lom), a militaristic Moor leader based in North Africa and intent on conquering Spain in the name of Islam. 

Castilian leader Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (Charlton Heston) seeks to unite Christian and Moor tribes in Spain under the banner of King Ferdinand (Ralph Truman). Don Rodrigo earns the title El Cid for his prowess in battle, a strong moral code, and a dedication to justice and Spain's national interest. But he loses the love of Doña Ximena (Sophia Loren) when he kills her father to defend family honour.

After Ferdinand's death El Cid attempts to avoid the fracturing of Spain in a power struggle between the King's sons Sancho (Gary Raymond) and Alfonso (John Fraser). A period of exile allows a reconciliation with Ximena before the Ben Yusuf threat re-emerges and a showdown looms in Valencia.

Produced by Samuel Bronston, directed by Anthony Mann and clocking in at a grandiose three hours, El Cid is a weighty exercise in epic filmmaking. Loosely based on what is known about the El Cid legend, numerous characters and thousand of extras bring to life multiple story lines featuring palace intrigue, religious conflict, personal plotting, political infighting and shifting loyalties over decades, tracing Don Rodrigo's influence on Spain's history. While enough is always going on to maintain a base level of interest, the film is also often slow and lumberous, and rarely emotionally stirring.

El Cid's greatness is portrayed as stemming from unyielding loyalty to the King combined with an unwavering commitment to a vision of a cohesive Spain where Moors and Christians set religious differences aside and unite to build a strong and just nation. Charlton Heston carries the grit and intensity to convey the character's strength, but the surrounding material is not as cogent.

The script by Philip Yordan, Fredric M. Frank, and Ben Barzman is an uneven effort, and appears intent on prolonging running time at the expense of narrative thrust. Scenes of pomp and circumstance and marching armies occupy an inordinate amount of time, and the sappy, unhappy personal drama between El Cid and Ximena sucks the momentum out of the first two hours. Stars Heston and Loren did not get along, and the lack of chemistry is obvious on the screen, Loren in particular confined to a single stone-faced expression.

When it's time to capture either skirmishes or epic battles, the action is surprisingly incoherent. Skipping past both strategic and tactical considerations, Mann appears content to allow extras to charge at each other and then film the logjam. The outcome is a mechanical exercise in many men swinging many swords and falling off many horses.

The final hour set in Valencia finds better focus, El Cid earning his legend with a mythical determination to inspire no matter the personal consequences.

The supporting cast members mostly make up the numbers, the acting fluctuating between adequate and stiff. Geneviève Page as the sister of Alfonso and Sancho shows the most spirit and should have been provided with more to do. Raf Vallone and Michael Hordern (as El Cid's father) appear in relatively small roles.

A test of endurance, El Cid offers a few moments of fulfillment amidst excessive equestrian cavalcades.

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Movie Review: The Naked Jungle (1954)

A romantic drama and disaster thriller, The Naked Jungle juxtaposes a unique marital conflict with an impressive nature-induced catastrophe.

It's the early 1900s and mail-order bride Joanna (Eleanor Parker) completes a long journey from New Orleans to the South American jungle to meet her new husband Christopher Leiningen (Charlton Heston). He is a proud self-made man who left home 15 years prior at age 19 and carved a vast cacao plantation out of previously flooded land with the help of local tribe members.

Christopher has no experience with women and is shocked to find Joanna not only stunningly beautiful but confidently standing up to him and speaking her mind. They clash repeatedly, and once he learns she is a widow he rejects her, unable to deal with his wife not being a virgin.

But after he makes plans for her to return to New Orleans the plantation comes under an existential threat from the all-consuming ant army known as the marabunta. Joanna will have to decide if her relationship with Christopher is worth fighting for as he stands to lose everything.

An innovative hybrid unafraid to chart new territory, The Naked Jungle effectively merges two disparate themes into one drama. Based on a 1937 short story by Carl Stephenson, the film is a remarkably efficient 95 minutes with director Byron Haskin wasting no time in setting the jungle context and introducing Joanna and Christopher as two compelling characters. They meet for the first time but are already husband-and-wife, and in a case of two similar personalities clashing, the tension of incompatibility jumps off the screen. Both are smart, proud, stubborn, sensual and outspoken, but he is too caught up in his own legend to accept an equal counterpart.

The first hour traces their relationship with no shortcuts and no easy resolutions. Some of the emotional notes suffer from clunky repetition as Christopher refines his (mostly) passive aggressive mistreatment. Gradually the couple at least grow more civil towards each other as he concludes that the marriage experiment was a bad idea and she has to return from whence she came. 

Then the local whispers of something strange deep in the jungle grow into more urgent drum beats about an approaching army of ants two miles wide and twenty miles deep, devouring everything in its path. True to form Christopher decides he will make a stand to try and save his life's work. He accelerates Joanna's planned departure, now more out of care than dismissiveness. 

But she has other ideas and the final 25 minutes are a breathless and genuinely exciting battle against a billion-ant beast. The special effects conceived by George Pal are stellar for the era, and Haskin is successful at finding an eloquent resolution to serve both narrative streams.  

Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker make for an appealing forced couple. Parker in particular finds joy in an early feminist role, uncomplaining but never silenced and always adhering to her principles and essence. The rather sparse supporting cast includes Abraham Sofaer as Christopher's chief aid, William Conrad as the judicious local commissioner and John Dierkes as a competing plantation owner. But with two powerful central characters and a billion ants on the march, The Naked Jungle has understandably little room or need for anyone else.

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Movie Review: The Agony And The Ecstasy (1965)

A historical drama about the creation of one of the world's most famous artefacts, The Agony And The Ecstasy lacks subtlety but overflows with admirable passion.

The film opens with a 12 minute documentary about Michelangelo's rise from humble beginnings in Florence to celebrated status as the leading sculptor of the Renaissance era. The story then starts in Rome of the early 1500s, with Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) working on a commission for Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison) to create 40 sculptures for the Pope's future mausoleum.

The Pope is leading his armies in battles to unify various restless regions under the papal flag. He switches Michelangelo's attention to the Sistine Chapel, requesting ceiling paintings of the twelve apostles. Michelangelo is hesitant and uninspired, insisting he is a sculptor and not a painter. After starting the work he defaces the early images and abandons the commission.

After a period of seclusion Michelangelo returns with a new premise to transform the chapel's ceiling with imagery related to the creation of humanity. The Pope is impressed, but the work takes a long time, again creating tension between the two men. The strain impacts the artist's health, while the Pope's wars take a turn for the worse and his supremacy is challenged.

A grand adaptation of one chapter in Irving Stone's book with a script by Philip Dunne, The Agony And The Ecstasy does not hold back on conveying a sense of art history in the making. With studio 20th Century Fox aiming for a spectacularly-scaled production, director Carol Reed is sometimes lost attempting to capture the intimate process of artistic genius creativity under widescreen, vivid colour, big-set requirements. The dubious decision to also deliver an art history lesson does not help.

And so the film rides ups and downs for 140 minutes, good intentions and a committed attitude often prevailing. The best scenes by far are the more intimate interactions between Michelangelo and Julius. The two men often infuriate each other, but a mutual respect underpins their commercial relationship, and as the film progresses something resembling a deep friendship emerges. Reed finally nails his crescendo, not in any epic shot but with the two men alone and quietly discussing the meaning of life and faith underneath the newly painted The Creation of Adam.

Earlier, the special effects team conjures up a satisfyingly spectacular sunlight-and-cloud formation to inspire the artist out of his doldrums, and Reed weaves in scenes at the Carrara quarry for eye-popping recreations of the marble extraction process.

Elsewhere the supporting cast is sidelined and underpowered. Harry Andrews features as papal architect Bramante, while Tomas Milian is up-and-coming artist Raphael, a potential rival for Michelangelo. Adolfo Celi is Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, future pope and here portrayed as the artist's father figure. The Cardinal's daughter Contessina Antonia (Diane Cilento) is a smart and resourceful but half-hearted love interest.

The overall historical context is also patchy. Julius II is known as the Warrior Pope, and the film features several scenes of battle preparations and brief skirmishes. But beyond vague references to tensions with France, cities in rebellion and enemies circling Rome, Dunne and Reed are uninterested in further expounding on the causes behind the War of the League of Cambrai.

The Agony And The Ecstacy takes its title to heart. The emotions are often overheated, the arguments loud and impassioned, admiration and fury separated by thin margins. In this imagining of timeless art under gestation, there are no half measures.

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Movie Review: Airport 1975 (1974)

An in-flight disaster movie, Airport 1975 is cheap, cheesy, and the birth ground for countless classic cliches.

Columbia Air Lines Flight 409 is a red eye from Washington to Los Angeles on board a Boeing 747. The head flight attendant is Nancy Pryor (Karen Black), who has a troubled relationship with her non-committal boyfriend Captain Alan Murdock (Charlton Heston), the airline's Chief Flight Instructor.

Captain Stacy (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) is in charge of the flight. The passengers include Mrs. Patroni (Susan Clark), who is the wife of the airline's Vice President for Operations Joe Patroni (George Kennedy), a couple of nuns (Helen Reddy and Martha Scott), a young girl being transferred for a kidney transplant (Linda Blair), a retired movie star (Gloria Swanson, playing herself), a trio of drinking buddies, and a heavy drinking older woman (Myrna Loy).

Meanwhile, businessman Scott Freeman (Dana Andrews) takes off in his small Beechcraft plane to fly to a meeting. Due to severe fog both flights are diverted to Salt Lake City. Freeman suffers a massive in-flight heart attack, and his out of control small plane strikes the cockpit of the 747. The flight deck crew are all incapacitated, and Nancy has to take over the controls. Over patchy radio communications, Murdock and Joe Patroni have to keep Nancy calm and find a way to help her.

Directed by Jack Smight, Airport 1975 is the first sequel to 1970's Airport. Featuring a large cast of mostly fading star names packed into the plane with really nothing to do, the film is most famous for giving life to most of the stereotypes later mercilessly exploited in 1980's Airplane!. The singing nun, the sick child, the drunk guys, the token black dudes, the fading movie diva: they are all here. As are the macho Charlton Heston and George Kennedy, barking away in loud voices at no one in particular and bumbling about trying to shout and shove their way to a solution.

The special effects are low quality, the characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is laughably bad, and the female flight attendants are subjected to rampant sexism. And for a disaster movie the film is remarkably devoid of any sort of excitement, action or suspense. The mid-air collision literally takes place in the blink of an eye. What precedes the mishap is boring, and what follows mainly consists of Karen Black sitting in the Captain's chair, looking particularly cross-eyed as she follows mundane instructions over the radio.

Back in the passenger compartments the actors are up to nothing in particular, and even Linda Blair as the young transplant patient does not appear unduly concerned. Just when you need the devil to show up and add some head-spinning carnage and turbulence-induced vomit to a movie, he is nowhere to be found.

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Movie Review: The Ten Commandments (1956)

A religious epic, The Ten Commandments is the story of Moses recounted on an impressively massive scale.

In ancient Egypt, the Hebrews are enslaved people, used primarily for the arduous task of constructing massive monuments and new cities. The Pharaoh hears of prophecies that a newborn will grow up to lead the slaves to freedom, and orders the death of all male Hebrew babies. Slave Yochabel (Martha Scott) packs her infant son in a basket and sets him adrift on the Nile to spare him from death. He is picked up and adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter Bithiah (Nina Foch), and she names the baby Moses. Only Bithiah's servant Memnet (Judith Anderson) knows that the baby is the son of Hebrew slaves.

Moses (Charlton Heston) grows up vying with Rameses (Yul Brynner) for the right to succeed Pharoah Sethi (Cedric Hardwicke) to the throne, a prize that comes with marriage to the ambitious Nefretiri (Anne Baxter). Rameses recruits the services of Hebrew collaborator Dathan (Edward G. Robinson) to try and uncover the identity of the Deliverer who will free the slaves.

Moses is more capable and more resourceful than Rameses, and also more empathetic to the plight of the Hebrews. He demonstrates mercy to stonecutter Joshua (John Derek) and Joshua's love interest and water carrier Lilia (Debra Paget). But before Moses ascends to the throne, Memnet intervenes, forcing Moses to face his true destiny. Spared from death, he marries Bedouin shepherd's daughter Sephora (Yvonne De Carlo) before embarking on a monumental battle of wills with Rameses.

Producer and director Cecil B. DeMille's crowning achievement (and his second crack at the story after a 1923 silent version), The Ten Commandments is three hours and 40 minutes of grand storytelling, old-fashioned Hollywood at its extravagant best. The cast features a galaxy of stars, the extras in some scenes number in the thousands, the sets are numerous and impressively crafted, and the film bursts with the colours of abundant and imaginative costumes.

The popular Moses and Exodus stories are probably amalgams of people and events composed from legends, fractured oral histories and religious texts. To his credit DeMille cites several books as sources for the film, and benefits by steering away from Bible-in-pictures territory. The long story unfolds in four manageable parts: Moses' rise to prominence as a military leader, city builder and potential future Pharoah; his awakening to his true origins and acceptance of his destiny; the struggle to free the Hebrews; and finally the arduous Exodus out of Egypt and towards the new challenges beyond.

The narrative is punctuated by several memorable setpieces. The scenes of mass motion and human activity feature outstanding choreographed artistry, and DeMille always maintains a strong hold on what his cameras are capturing. The city-building, rock-making and Exodus sequences make use of extras in every corner of the VistaVision screen, conveying a profound sense of open space, ongoing industry and masses on the move.

The latter parts of the film scale some unforgettable heights. Moses and his close allies sheltering during the haunting passover night is a quiet but immensely powerful moment in the shadow of creeping horror. The pillar of fire halting an army, the extraordinary parting of the Red Sea, and the Ten Commandments being carved in stone by mystical flames are innovative visual achievements representing the era's state of the art.

And despite all the theatricality on display, The Ten Commandments generally avoids the pitfall of overstated reverence. This is a movie that tries hard to represent real people displaying naked ambition, conspiracy, sensuality, doubt, mixed emotions, and fallibilities. The script does not try to sound as if every spoken word needs to be enshrined on a hallowed wall.

A story this big needs sturdy acting shoulders to stand on, and DeMille assembled an impressive cast, with the luxurious length affording substantive screen time for several performers. Charlton Heston rises to the challenge of portraying Moses with plenty of authoritative presence, whether as a strapping young man earning his way towards the Pharoah's chair or as the grizzled prophet leading his people to freedom with supernatural winds in his sails.

Heston needed a robust foil to shine, and Yul Brynner delivers as Rameses, Moses' rival for leadership and subsequently his existential foe in the struggle to free the Hebrews. Until late in the film Brynner remains a strong presence representing the Egyptian viewpoint. Edward G. Robinson, Anne Baxter, John Derek, Nina Foch, Martha Scott, Yvonne DeCarlo, Debra Paget and Cedric Hardwicke all provide sustained and animated support, DeMille wisely introducing most of the key characters early in the story and then coming back to them repeatedly in different contexts as Moses' life evolves.

Bold and grandiose in breadth and scope, The Ten Commandments is a domineering and engrossing cinematic achievement.

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Movie Review: True Lies (1994)

A tongue-in-cheek spy thriller with a big dose of domestic intrigue, True Lies combines a big budget action spectacle with the travails of a married couple keeping secrets from each other.

Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) lives a double life. He works as a globe-trotting spy for Omega Sector, a national security counterterrorism agency, but back in Washington DC his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku) believe that he is a boring computer systems salesman. Harry and his partner Albert Gibson (Tom Arnold) uncover a plot by glamorous art dealer Juno Skinner (Tia Carrere) and jihadist terrorist Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik) to detonate stolen nuclear warheads in the United States.

Meanwhile Helen is getting bored with being physically and emotionally abandoned by Harry, and is slowly falling prey to the smarmy charms of used car salesman Simon (Bill Paxton) pretending to be a spy. Harry uncovers Helen's near-infidelity and without revealing his true identity provides her with a fake mission to boost the level of excitement in her life. When Aziz's men intervene and capture both Harry and Helen, the married couple have to confront each other and disrupt the terrorist plot.

Director James Cameron reunites with Schwarzenegger, and while True Lies is far from recreating the magic of the first two Terminator movies, it does deliver a silly fun time. Inspired by the French film La Totale! by Claude Zidi, everything is exaggerated with an overdose of stunts, destruction and special effects. The final 45 minutes is a non-stop cascading climax featuring explosions, endless firefights, rocket launchers, Harrier jets, helicopters, one blown up Florida bridge and several severely damaged high rises. None of it is subtle or even smart, but it is breathlessly entertaining.

What sets True Lies apart is a middle act that takes a break from the terrorist plot and delves into the troubled married life of Harry and Helen, In turn awkward and intriguing, Helen's clumsy drift towards having an affair to add excitement to her dull life with Harry adds an ironic element. What follows is original, funny and disturbing, as Harry's treatment of Helen certainly provides her with a thrill but also borders on abusive.

The rest of the film is James Bond on a really big budget and a little bit of laughing gas. Schwarzenegger slips comfortably into the suave spy persona, and even enjoys a tango twirl with Carrere at a swish Swiss villa bad guy gathering spot. The terrorist conspiracy is short-changed Bond-style into the barest of caricature characters hissing evil, but this being seven years ahead of September 11 2001, Cameron deserves some credit for predicting the zeal of jihadist groups.

Supporting Schwarzenegger is a game Jamie Lee Curtis who adds immeasurably to the film in a role that's much more than the token wife. Tom Arnold and Bill Paxton are the main sources of humour, while Charlton Heston pops up in a short role as the head of Omega Sector before disappearing entirely.

At two hours and twenty minutes the film is sloppily edited and much longer than it needs to be, Cameron extending almost every scene beyond what is necessary. True Lies is over the top in every respect, a case of too much of everything still providing something for everyone.

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Movie Review: The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)

A slow-moving version of Jesus' life story as described in the Gospel, The Greatest Story Ever Told lacks cinematic heart and soul. The film best resembles a well-intentioned but creatively challenged Catholic high school play on a big budget.

Jesus is born in a Bethlehem barn, in the presence of three elderly men who traveled a long distance guided by a bright star. The Roman client king Herod the Great (Claude Rains), fearing a prophecy about the birth of a great leader, orders the killing of all infants in Bethlehem, but Jesus is smuggled to safety. More than thirty years later John the Baptist (Charlton Heston) is proclaiming the imminent arrival of God's messenger, calling on all to repent and baptizing them in the Jordan river.

Jesus (Max von Sydow) appears and is baptized by John, before heading to the hills and meeting the Dark Hermit (Donald Pleasence), a personification of Satan. Jesus then returns to civilization and starts preaching his teachings of love, tolerance and humility, gaining followers including James, Matthew, and Judas (David McCallum). King Herod Antipas (Jose Ferrer) starts to hear of Jesus, his followers and his healing miracles, as does the prefect of Judaea Pontius Pilate (Telly Savalas). With Jesus' followers multiplying and his reputation spreading, King Herod and Pontius Pilate conspire to arrest him.

A grand, costly film produced and directed by George Stevens, The Greatest Story Ever Told arrived late in the cycle of Hollywood's historical epics, and helped bring to an end the popularity of the genre. For all its good intentions, the film is stiff, overly reverential, and awkwardly staged. At close to three and a half hours (there are also longer and shorter versions), it is also protracted and tiresome, with a snoozy Alfred Newman music score.

Adding to the sense of stagey aloofness, the film was shot with the single camera Cinerama process. The already slow pacing suffers from the resultant stiff character placement and interactions, with very few close-ups and characters seemingly never facing each other even when exchanging dialogue. Many scenes feature static postcard-style arrangements, and most of the film suffers from Every Spoken Word Is Important And Shall Be Recorded In A Future Film syndrome.

The film runs through most of the highlights of Jesus' life, although surprisingly his walk on water and feeding the multitudes occur off-camera. The raising of Lazarus is a highlight, but Stevens focuses on reactions rather than the event itself.

Continuing the trend previously seen in The Longest Day and How The West Was Won, Stevens employed pretty much every star name in Hollywood. A familiar face appears in almost every role, including Van Heflin, Dorothy McGuire, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Michael Ansara, Carroll Baker, Angela Lansbury, Robert Loggia, Shelley Winters, Sal Mineo and Sidney Poitier. Most of the stars get one scene, and some have literally a few seconds of screen time. And it only takes about two seconds for John Wayne's cowboy drawl to ruin the film's emotional highlight.

Faring better are Max von Sydow and Charlton Heston in the two most prominent roles. von Sydow was cast because he was a relative unknown, and brings a quiet dignity to the proceedings, doing his best in difficult circumstances. Heston knows a cheesy epic when he sees one, and tears into the role of John The Baptist with venom.

The Greatest Story Ever Told is useful as a straightforward history lesson on a familiar topic, but is much less engaging as a movie.

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Movie Review: Earthquake (1974)

A big scale disaster movie, Earthquake has some effective moments of destruction but is an otherwise sloppily constructed and cheese-filled exercise in tolerating aggravating stock characters spouting horrible lines of dialogue.

In Los Angeles, building engineer Stewart Graff (Charlton Heston) is having marital problems with his depressed wife Remy (Ava Gardner). A series of minor tremors create concern at the Mulholland Dam overlooking the city. At the California Seismological Institute a young staffer crunches the numbers and concludes that a major quake will likely strike the city within 48 hours, but his methodology is unproven. Meanwhile Stewart's boss and father-in-law Sam Royce (Lorne Green) promotes Stewart to President of their engineering company, but Stewart is more interested in pursuing young widow Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold).

The big quake does hit, effectively destroying Los Angeles. Stewart has to help Sam save employees from their partially destroyed office tower. Remy, Denise and Denise's injured young son Corry are evacuated to the basement of a supposedly quake-proof highrise. Others caught up in the mayhem are wannabe motorcycle daredevil Miles Quade (Richard Roundtree), short-tempered police officer Lou Slade (George Kennedy) and the financially strapped Rosa Amici (Victoria Principal). But just when it appears that the worst is over, there is more shaking to come.

Produced and directed by Mark Robson, Earthquake arrived at the peak of the epic disaster movie cycle of the early 1970s, with The Towering Inferno and Airport '75 released in the same year. Unfortunately gimmickry was already creeping into the genre as productions competed for viewers' attention. Unable to secure any relevant current stars to boost the box office, Earthquake resorted to something called Sensurround, a mammoth sound system designed to literally shake theatre seats with sub-audible "infra bass" sound waves.

Which is just as well, because what is on the screen is pretty awful. Earthquake underwent extensive post-production editing to tighten up the narrative, and the outcome is notably choppy. Other than the few minutes of special effects depicting the earthquake itself, the rest of the movie is two hours of badly-acted television-level drama. Despite a script co-written by Mario Puzo, the dialogue is cringe-worthy, the characters are stiff, and the attempts at drama and conflict border perilously near laughable.

The marital strife between Stewart and Remy plays like a particularly bad daytime soap episode, while Stewart's lusting after Denise is tawdry. Miles Quade disappears entirely from the ending of the movie, after wasting plenty of set-up time with a useless story about his ambition to be the next Evel Knievel. Walter Matthau appears under a pseudonym as an oblivious barfly, while George Kennedy plays a stock angry but good-hearted cop. Victoria Principal wages battle on two fronts: she fights against a frizzy hairdo that occupies half the screen, and fends off a deranged homicidal national guardsman (Marjoe Gortner) who stumbled in from another movie.

The only bits worth watching are the prolonged earthquake strike scenes, and the special effects range from reasonably impressive to amateurish. When an elevator crash ends with cartoon blood drops childishly superimposed on the image of mangled bodies, the splatter is literally on the screen for a genre that had nowhere to go but down.

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Movie Review: Planet Of The Apes (1968)

A seminal science fiction film, Planet Of The Apes challenges humanity's status as the dominant species through a provocative confrontation on a planet ruled by apes.

On-board a spaceship, astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston) and three crew members enter deep hibernation as they head back to Earth after an 18 month journey. Due to their near light speeds of travel and time dilation, Taylor knows that close to 2000 years would have elapsed on Earth by the time of their return. The crew is awoken when the spacecraft crash lands into a lake on a seemingly hostile, barren planet. Taylor, Landon (Robert Gunner) and Dodge (Jeff Burton) survive the crash and set about exploring their surroundings. They traverse a desert and reach fertile soil, where they first encounter foraging wild humans with no language skills, then civilized ape soldiers on horseback. Taylor is captured by the apes, treated like a wild animal, and taken to a nearby city.

Held captive and treated like a savage, Taylor realizes that on this planet, the apes are the masters and the humans are the animals. He is introduced to ape scientists Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter), who are amazed to learn that Taylor can write and talk. His mere presence casts doubt on the prevailing theories of ape supremacy, and he is immediately perceived as a threat by the ape leaders, including Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans). Despite having the cage company of Nova (Linda Harrison), a wild woman, Taylor realizes he has to plot an escape to try and save himself from a fate worse than death.

An adaptation of the book by Pierre Boulle with a screenplay co-written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, Planet Of The Apes is a stirring science fiction adventure in a land where evolution appears to have taken a different turn, and man gets to face a taste of his own medicine. The film enjoys debating religious, evolutionary, and species-specific arguments from the perspective of apes as rulers and humans as savages incapable of evolving. Presenting apes as intellectuals while the humans are confined to filthy cages is a brilliantly disconcerting premise.

Director Franklin J. Schaffner constructs a three act movie with excellent pacing and plenty of bravado. The first third is survival against the elements: Taylor and his crew members have to traverse harsh terrain in a desperate search for sources of food and water. The middle third is the jarring introduction to the rudimentary ape society, where science, religion and philosophy are combined by the elders to weave enough of a foundation for the ape civilization to take hold. The arrival of Taylor is a disruptive, and unwelcome, surprise. The final third is a clash of the species. Taylor grows bolder, challenges the apes, and finds in Cornelius and Zira potential allies to help him survive and challenge the laws of the elders about the ranking of apes and humans on the evolutionary ladder.

The movie is a constant source of intellectual stimulation. Schaffner maintains plenty of interest by emphasizing different exploratory levels, transitioning from the physical planet to the ape society and the scientific implications of evolution.

The revolutionary prosthetic makeup techniques by artist John Chambers are excellent, allowing McDowall, Hunter and Evans to express a range of emotions despite their facial appearances being fully transformed into apes. Charlton Heston gets to let loose as the last defender of humanity's honour, expressing rage and fury (with a substantial dose of 1960s anti-authoritarianism) before gradually adopting intellect as the best weapon in the fight for survival.

Planet Of The Apes is celebrated for a shock ending, Taylor forced to confront exactly where humanity stands when it comes to species supremacy. It's an unforgettable conclusion to an imaginative adventure exploring the farthest reaches of space and the most fundamental attributes of what it means to be human.

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Movie Review: Touch Of Evil (1958)

A stylish film noir, Touch Of Evil is an unpredictable mystery propelled by cultural tensions, compelling characters and a central murder that serves as a catalyst for all manner of sordid events.

A bomb is planted in the trunk of a car on the Mexican side of a border town. Soon after the car crosses into the US, the bomb explodes, killing an influential businessman and his floozy. Mexican detective Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his American wife Susie (Janet Leigh) are among the first on the scene. But police captain Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) and his partner Menzies (Joseph Calleia) soon arrive and take over the investigation. Vargas wants to help solve the case since the bomb was planted in Mexico, but Quinlan isn't too welcoming.

Vargas is embroiled in a battle with the corrupt Grandi family. Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) starts a campaign of intimidation targeted at Susie, distracting Vargas from the bombing case. An increasingly morose, overweight and out of shape Quinlan visits his old flame Tanya (Marlene Dietrich), but she's shocked by how badly he's aged. Quinlan's investigation then leads to the arrest of a Mexican man called Sanchez (Victor Milan), the secret lover of the dead man's daughter. But Vargas questions the methods used by Quinlan and Menzies, and starts to delve into Quinlan's history, uncovering plenty of dubious behaviour. Quinlan and Grandi form an uneasy alliance as they now both have a reason to get rid of Vargas, as Susie finds herself isolated at a remote motel and threatened by drug-fuelled thugs.

Directed and written by Welles, Touch Of Evil is celebrated for its brilliant single-take opening sequence. In a remarkably fluid and uninterrupted three minutes and twenty seconds, Welles' camera tracks the bomb as it is placed in the target car and crosses the border, while Vargas and Susie, out for a walk, unknowingly and on several occasions stroll in and out of the ticking bomb's path. The scene ends with a powerful explosion, an artistic exclamation mark that sets in motion the events that will define the film.

The bomb and the double murder turn out to be a relative sideshow in an intensifying battle of wills featuring Captain Quinlan, detective Vargas and the extended Grandi clan. Quinlan instantly learns to dislike Vargas, maybe because he is a Mexican poking his nose in Quinlan's affairs, but more likely because Vargas appears to be incorruptible. Joe Grandi does not need any more reasons to dislike Vargas, the Grandi family's drug business having been the target of Vargas' enforcement efforts. It does not take long for Quinlan and Grandi to recognize their common interests, except that Quinlan is usually a few steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to games of deceit.

Captain Hank Quinlan is one of Welles' greatest creations. Fat, sweaty, grumpy and just plain tired, Quinlan crosses the ethics line as a matter of routine, his mind plotting the downfall of his enemies in multiple dimensions concurrently. Quinlan speaks with a deep rumble at the start and end of every sentence, reluctantly sharing his thoughts and acerbic opinions only in fragments. Less impressive but still interesting is Charlton Heston as a Mexican. The most American of epic heroes does his best, but his stature, accent and overall attitude remain entrenched in the Heston persona, the actor unable to impart sufficient cultural nuance to break away from his established base.

Welles fills the film with sharp shadows, asymmetrical lighting, plenty of nighttime activity, edgy, tilted camera angles, and no shortage of creepy characters even in the secondary roles. Dennis Weaver is unforgettable as the shifty, terrified night manager at the motel where Susie ends up, while Marlene Dietrich is the ghost from Quinlan's past; except that he is so long past his prime that she doesn't bother with trying to recognize him. Zsa Zsa Gabor gets a small role at the Mexican strip club.

Touch Of Evil benefits from a sense of genuine uncertainty, the cast encouraged during rehearsals to improvise and enhance their events and characters. With Quinlan, Vargas and Grandi all working at cross-purposes and with an international border limiting their reach and authority, anything can and does happen. Susie is unknowingly trapped by Grandi in a creepy motel (just a few years before Janet Leigh checked into even more dangerous accommodations), Vargas ends up investigating Quinlan in the Captain's own back yard, an illicit cross-cultural love affair may or may not be the reason for the bombing, Sanchez may be innocent or may be framed by Quinlan and Menzies, and Quinlan is busy plotting against all to save his reputation.

What is certain is that evil is at play, trust is in short supply, long-standing alliances will be tested, reputations are at stake, and more lives are likely to be lost before a measure of peace is restored to a small community on either side of a once-quiet border crossing.

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Movie Review: Tombstone (1993)

A comprehensive recounting of Wyatt Earp's life immediately before and after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone is a thoughtful and often absorbing western.

It's the early 1880s, and brothers Wyatt (Kurt Russell), Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan (Bill Paxton) Earp relocate to the booming town of Tombstone, Arizona, looking to settle down and make some money. A retired lawman, Wyatt wants to stay away from matters of law and order, and just focus on business. In Tombstone he reunites with his old friend Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer), a gunfighter, gambler, womanizer and hard drinker, suffering from an unshakable bout of tuberculosis. Despite having the committed companionship of Mattie Blaylock (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), Wyatt is captivated by Josephine Marcus (Dana Delany) a free-spirited traveling singer.

The Earps' desire for a quiet life is disrupted by marauders known as the Cowboys, led by "Curly Bill" Brocius (Powers Boothe), and including Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) and Ike Clanton (Stephen Lang). A series of distasteful encounters with the Cowboys convince the Earps to once again become lawmen, and Virgil's desire for Tombstone to be gun-free triggers the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Afterwards, Wyatt, Doc and their supporters go after the Cowboys in a wild rampage through the west that will only end when Wyatt's lust for vengeance is satisfied.

A troubled production that aimed for a faithful, epic re-telling of the Wyatt Earp story with all other characters explored in-depth, Tombstone suffered from ambition that exceeded realistic ability, and also butted heads with Kevin Costner's competing, and inferior, production of Wyatt Earp (1994). Tombstone ended with screenwriter Kevin Jarre fired as director, George Pan Cosmatos nominally appointed as director to rescue the runaway production, and star Kurt Russell actually calling the directorial shots, trimming some of his own scenes to reign in the movie's scope.

Given the production challenges, the final film is much better than it has any right to be, and may be one of the most compelling versions of the Earp story. Admittedly the start is slow, and too many rough-and-ready characters are introduced in dizzying succession, with too few of them allowed the luxury of time to properly develop. Lawmen, politicians, bad-guys, businessmen, entertainers and their women occupy the world of Tombstone, and Jarre's original intent was full and detailed backstories for all. That film would have run for many hours. This one comes in at 130 minutes, and between Cosmatos, Russell and a team of three editors, it is hammered into coherent shape.

And once the introductions are set, Tombstone shifts into gear, picks up pace, and runs smoothly. While Wyatt remains at the centre of the story, more of the spotlight is shared, as Virgil, Doc, Brocius, Ringo and Josephine receive plenty of attention. With a portrayal of Tombstone as a mud-splattered frontier town, rough around the edges and almost all made of edges, the characters come to life in a realistic, unglamourous setting.

Much credit goes to Russell, who gives Wyatt Earp all the soul missing from other movie versions of the story. Here Earp is tired of a life as a lawman, eager to be free to make money and move on if necessary, curious about the opportunity offered by Josephine, and quite reluctant to get involved with the Cowboys in any official capacity. He is also quick-witted, self-aware, and loyal to his brothers and to Doc Holliday.

Good as Russell is, Val Kilmer is even better, and he steals the film as Doc Holliday. In a performance that should have nabbed Kilmer at least an Academy Award nomination, he animates Holliday with one-liners and a classic world-weariness that only comes when death waits to pounce both from the inside and from every outside corner. Kilmer nails an attitude of supreme self-confidence despite keen awareness of a life wasted on all the wrong priorities, and demands to be the centre of attention as he turns Holliday into a less conflicted version of Earp, still fighting for what's right, but more for the adventure than the principle.

The supporting cast is astounding in its depth of established and future talent, with Robert Mitchum narrating, Charlton Heston making a late appearance as rancher Henry Hooker, and the likes of Joanna Pacula, Michael Rooker, Harry Carey, Jr., Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Priestley, Thomas Haden Church and Billy Zane ensuring that every character is earnestly portrayed.

The story may be familiar, but Tombstone gives Wyatt Earp respectful, complex and clear-headed treatment. The man finally comes to life, along with the diverse group of westerners who helped to make his legend.

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