Re: First time impressions from the Babylon 5 virgin
"The River of Souls"
Oh, I don't think I'd use good and River of Souls in the same sentence. Crap, I just did, didn't I?
To be fair, it didn't start off bad. For the first 20 minutes or so, I was convinced that all the fan whining was just that. Ian Mcshane's character is interesting, and Corwin gets some funny stuff to do (the happy bat is probably one of the few bits of humor that doesn't fall completely flat in RoS).
Then things started to fall apart. For one, the holo-brothel story doesn't go anywhere, and isn't that funny (the best part is holo-Lochley out of uniform, and even that was done better, and funnier, on Deep Space Nine when Kira had Quark's head in the holodeck). It's just padding, which there's a lot of in this "movie." JMS may write books and teach courses about screenwriting, but the fact is there's not 90 minutes of story here. At the 45 minute mark, I started looking at the clock. It just goes on, and on, and on, stretching out a premise that isn't really treading new ground on season one's "Soul Hunter"
Martin Sheen isn't bad here, but he isn't good, either. I'm immediatly reminded of a story Nick Meyer tells about Star Trek II, where Ricardo Montalbon was overacting during his first day as Khan, and Meyer didn't know what to do. Timidly, he told Montalbon to take it down a notch. Montalbon thanked him, saying, "Thank you, I need direction" or something along those lines. I can't help but feel that Janet Greek was in a similar situation here, only with Martin Sheen, she was too much of a fan of his work to say anything. The DVD feature seems to support this, as everyone heaps praise on Sheen.
Now, I'm a big fan of him as an actor, but he's clearly operating without a director, leading some scenes (like his entrance) to be painfully over-the-top, and others to be well-acted. He certainly has more to do than Ian McShane, who after appearing in the first third of the movie, drops of the map and is a practical non-presence for the rest of the show. He doesn't even get to say goodbye, Garibaldi does that for him in the end.
Speaking of which, it is nice to see Garibaldi fitting into his role that he assume at the end of season five as head of Edgars industries. It's also nice to see Lochley starting to fit into her role as the sole commanding presence on Babylon 5. But, that doesn't fill 90 minutes.
And I have to wonder why Richard Biggs is even in this movie. I was hoping we'd get to see more of the good doctor, especially since Richard Biggs' passing means he won't appear again, outside of In The Beginning (which I'm saving for the end) and one episode of Crusade.
All we get is pseudo-Franklin for one scene (with some very cheesy effects during Lochley's "death."
Grade: A very generous... C
Neroon said:
Oh THIS ought to be good!
"The River of Souls"
Oh, I don't think I'd use good and River of Souls in the same sentence. Crap, I just did, didn't I?
To be fair, it didn't start off bad. For the first 20 minutes or so, I was convinced that all the fan whining was just that. Ian Mcshane's character is interesting, and Corwin gets some funny stuff to do (the happy bat is probably one of the few bits of humor that doesn't fall completely flat in RoS).
Then things started to fall apart. For one, the holo-brothel story doesn't go anywhere, and isn't that funny (the best part is holo-Lochley out of uniform, and even that was done better, and funnier, on Deep Space Nine when Kira had Quark's head in the holodeck). It's just padding, which there's a lot of in this "movie." JMS may write books and teach courses about screenwriting, but the fact is there's not 90 minutes of story here. At the 45 minute mark, I started looking at the clock. It just goes on, and on, and on, stretching out a premise that isn't really treading new ground on season one's "Soul Hunter"
Martin Sheen isn't bad here, but he isn't good, either. I'm immediatly reminded of a story Nick Meyer tells about Star Trek II, where Ricardo Montalbon was overacting during his first day as Khan, and Meyer didn't know what to do. Timidly, he told Montalbon to take it down a notch. Montalbon thanked him, saying, "Thank you, I need direction" or something along those lines. I can't help but feel that Janet Greek was in a similar situation here, only with Martin Sheen, she was too much of a fan of his work to say anything. The DVD feature seems to support this, as everyone heaps praise on Sheen.
Now, I'm a big fan of him as an actor, but he's clearly operating without a director, leading some scenes (like his entrance) to be painfully over-the-top, and others to be well-acted. He certainly has more to do than Ian McShane, who after appearing in the first third of the movie, drops of the map and is a practical non-presence for the rest of the show. He doesn't even get to say goodbye, Garibaldi does that for him in the end.
Speaking of which, it is nice to see Garibaldi fitting into his role that he assume at the end of season five as head of Edgars industries. It's also nice to see Lochley starting to fit into her role as the sole commanding presence on Babylon 5. But, that doesn't fill 90 minutes.
And I have to wonder why Richard Biggs is even in this movie. I was hoping we'd get to see more of the good doctor, especially since Richard Biggs' passing means he won't appear again, outside of In The Beginning (which I'm saving for the end) and one episode of Crusade.
All we get is pseudo-Franklin for one scene (with some very cheesy effects during Lochley's "death."Grade: A very generous... C
