An ancient virus turns out to be the triggering mechanism for a worldwide speciation event, signaling the next stage in human evolution. Against a backdrop of official denial and misinterpretation, a handful of scientists work to bring the truth to light. This literary disaster won the 2000 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Must have been the year that pretension was in. Or camp. Peopled with absurd characters whose incessant soul-searching is as shallow (and self-pitying) as it is unbelievable. Worse, it’s all chaff, spewed out by author Greg Bear in a transparent effort to conceal a severely under-written plot. Rarely have characters been so comically divorced from their circumstances. In a world in which tens of thousands of people (in America alone) have been murdered for fear of what they believe is a disease, one self-involved woman gushes that she’s never been happier. No wonder mankind is being replaced.
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An ancient virus turns out to be the triggering mechanism for a worldwide speciation event, signaling the next stage in human evolution. Against a backdrop of official denial and misinterpretation, a handful of scientists work to bring the truth to light. This literary disaster won the 2000 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Must have been the year that pretension was in. Or camp. Peopled with absurd characters whose incessant soul-searching is as shallow (and self-pitying) as it is unbelievable. Worse, it’s all chaff, spewed out by author Greg Bear in a transparent effort to conceal a severely under-written plot. Rarely have characters been so comically divorced from their circumstances. In a world in which tens of thousands of people (in America alone) have been murdered for fear of what they believe is a disease, one self-involved woman gushes that she’s never been happier. No wonder mankind is being replaced.
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** Schoolboy science fiction fantasy that is as aggressive as it is repetitious. Ender Wiggin, a brilliant young boy being groomed as a military commander for a war with aliens, solves one new problem after another as he tackles a series of games and mock battles designed to teach him tactics, strategy, and command. Losing is not an option; neither is any limit to Ender’s ability. So each “test” is a fait accompli, and it’s just a matter of how many of them Orson Scott Card can cram into 300 pages. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel. Must have been a bad year. ** Muddled message movie that takes place in a post-nuclear-holocaust New York. Harry Belafonte plays Ralph Burton, a black man with a racial chip on his shoulder, who believes he may be the last man on Earth until he meets Sarah Crandall (Inger Stevens), a white woman who soon begins to fall in love with him. Matters are complicated when Sarah sees a boat churning up the East River; on board is Benson Thacker (Mel Ferrar), a white man who views Ralph as a rival for Sarah. Neither man cares in the slightest what Sarah thinks about the situation. Race is a non-issue (for everyone except Ralph), sexism is accepted as a given (except by Sarah), and all that’s left is a bland commentary on civilization and war. Would-be allegory wastes the setting: no dead bodies, no wild animals, no radiation effects and, with handyman Ralph on the case, no lack of power, either. Maintains an inexplicably high rating on both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Guess the post-apocalyptic crowd will take whatever it can get. Written by MacDougall, from a story by Ferdinand Reyher, and “suggested by a story” by M. P. Shiell (The Purple Cloud). *** Light, fast-paced, almost flippant story that begins when a manned expedition to Ursa Major returns with no crew but rather a message from its captain warning the people of Earth of a terrible approaching danger. Seems there's a war going on in space, and the Ursa Major crew's physical similarity to one of the combatants leads another to conclude that Earthmen, too, are an enemy. Fortunately, Earth has a thriving space program; not so fortunately, their ships are hopelessly outclassed by the aliens'. Physicist Fred Hoyle supplies the clever idea that just might save humankind, while his son Geoffrey jollies the plot along with loads of gallows humor that is so cheerful one might forget that the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Somehow, it works. Followed in 1974 by a sequel, Into Deepest Space. * Another Asylum (Sharknado) crockbuster, this one fudging its title from Edge of Tomorrow. “When the sun strikes an altar hidden within the ancient Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico, it creates a beacon that triggers an alien blitzkrieg.” So says Asylum, in a tacit admission that when your films are as bad as theirs, not even an accurate plot description matters. Kelly Hu stars as an unimaginative prostitute whose liaison with a smug but untalented alien spawns the cast and crew of this film. Perfect for viewers with no self-respect. Direct-to-video. ** Based on an idea that amuses neuroscientists — that human beings use only ten percent of their brain — this violent fantasy follows Scarlett Johansson as Lucy, a student forced by a Korean drug lord (Choi Min-sik) to carry a new narcotic in her abdomen that, when it is accidentally released into her system, begins to awaken the supposedly dormant 90% of her gray matter. Along with her ever-increasing powers of the mind comes the knowledge that she will soon die if she doesn’t get more of the drug, a mission the drug lord is determined to thwart. Besson includes a few funny metaphorical asides by way of cuts to the animal kingdom, which, along with the gun-play and car crashes, are meant to divert us from the absurdity of the characters and story. Morgan Freeman, for instance, plays a scientist whose childish daydreams of expanded brain-use are treated as respectable scientific theories; meanwhile, Lucy’s incredible new intelligence includes a convenient black hole in the area of her battle with the drug lord. Lucy’s self-absorption is understandable, but her amoral anarchism is not. For mavens of mayhem only. |
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