Seemingly the only book written by co-authors Larry Levine and Steven Greene, this is a thriller about an NBC newswoman who wakes up an inexplicably changed person after agreeing to undergo experimental cryonic freezing until a cure for her rare disease is discovered. "Greene" pokes his nose into Robin Cook territory, but lacks the medical expertise to make it believable, relying instead on another Cook staple -- silly characters doing silly things -- to drive an underwritten plot to an unimaginative, why-bother conclusion. Not exactly a forgotten gem from the 80s.
**
Seemingly the only book written by co-authors Larry Levine and Steven Greene, this is a thriller about an NBC newswoman who wakes up an inexplicably changed person after agreeing to undergo experimental cryonic freezing until a cure for her rare disease is discovered. "Greene" pokes his nose into Robin Cook territory, but lacks the medical expertise to make it believable, relying instead on another Cook staple -- silly characters doing silly things -- to drive an underwritten plot to an unimaginative, why-bother conclusion. Not exactly a forgotten gem from the 80s.
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** The combined star power of Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, and Kim Basinger can't save awful script (by George Nolfi) that, within the first 15 minutes or so, throws at us a terrorist plot to assassinate the President, a Secret Service mole, blackmail, a ruined friendship, a rookie agent, a frame up, and not one but two extramarital affairs. The result, not surprisingly, is a shallow, unexciting "thriller" that plays like a season of 24 crammed into less than two hours. Johnson's bare bones direction doesn't help. Based on the novel by Gerald Petievich. **** Imperfect yet superior thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill as a married couple who take to the sea to heal after the death of their only child, finding their own lives threatened when they take aboard the sole survivor (Billy Zane) from a derelict schooner. Sort of the big-budget Hollywood version of Roman Polanski's low-key Knife in the Water and, in its own way, just as good. Expertly directed, with a few nicely evocative moments amid all the suspenseful action, and well acted by all. Does, however, include a regrettable denouement. Based on the book by Charles Williams. ** Giant prehistoric shark — a 60-foot, 20-ton megalodon — inadvertently lured from its feeding grounds deep in the Mariana Trench, eats innocents and idiots alike, while a small band of marine lovers try to capture it. One teenage boy, after witnessing the gruesome death of a rival surfer, asks a suddenly available beach bunny for a date. An Author’s Note assures us of considerable research, then recommends a single book, on great whites. Superficial and largely puerile. *** Early thriller, breezily written, about a fairly ordinary man, Richard Hannay, whose neighbor reveals to him the existence of a conspiracy to start a war (World War I, as it happens). The neighbor is murdered, leaving behind his cryptic notebook and, of course, the murderers, who naturally believe that Hannay knows too much and must be silenced. Wanted also by the police, who suspect him in the neighbor's murder, Hannay is forced to run for his life. What follows is an episodic cat-and-mouse game that isn't quite fair since Hannay gets one lucky break after another. It's a book that is probably best read one chapter at a time in an approximation of how it first appeared, as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine. It's light stuff: amusing at times, exciting at others, and Hannay himself is a pleasant everyman, more given to action than self-reflection. In most chapters he meets a Scottish local -- the "literary innkeeper," the "spectacled roadman," the "bald archaeologist" -- who either wants to help him or kill him. The "radical candidate" wants him to make a speech! Unfortunately, it all builds toward a rather disappointing climax. But Buchan doesn't take any of it too seriously, so if you don't either, you likely will be entertained. The basis for the Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of 1935, The 39 Steps, which is, in fact, much better. ** Seven years after pissing off a high-ranking official at the FBI (The Silence of the Lambs), Clarice Starling is relegated to phone taps and drug busts with no prospects for advancement. Meanwhile, Hannibal Lecter, double-digit murderer and cannibal, is living it up in Italy. Bringing them together again is the function of grotesquely disfigured Mason Verger, one of Lecter's few surviving victims, who is plotting to capture Lecter and torture him for his own amusement. Take the tongue out of Thomas Harris' cheek and this is an unremittingly unpleasant story of ugly people doing ugly things; put it back in, and it's a tale that mocks the very readers who made Harris a bestselling author: that is, it's difficult to understand this book other than as an attempt to answer the question, How much will these fools stand for? Harris goes out of his way to position Lecter as the hero here -- he's like a mobster who only kills other mobsters, one with a strict code of conduct, with Harris at one point going so far as to botch one attempt on him from a woman so that Lecter can later kill a man for the same crime. Slick, but sickening. Made into an equally unpleasant film in 2001. ** Well-made but unsatisfying thriller, based on both John D. MacDonald's novel The Executioners and James R. Webb's screenplay for the original 1962 adaptation, also called Cape Fear. In a fit of just-to-be-different-ness, screenwriter Wesley Strick turns MacDonald's cohesive family unit into a dysfunctional one, presenting them with a life or worse-than-death scenario in which the husband (Nick Nolte) is a weak, wishy-washy cheater, the wife (Jessica Lange) a castrating bitch, and the teenage daughter (Juliette Lewis) a rebellious moron (not to put too fine a point on it). Psychopathic menace couldn't have happened to a more deserving family. Robert De Niro plays the psycho -- he wants revenge on the lawyer who suppressed evidence that might have saved him from a 14-year prison term -- and he's very good, if equally hard to believe: by the time he gets out of prison, this self-taught man could have been a lawyer, a teacher, a priest, or a professional wrestler -- if he just weren't wildly insane. Scorsese makes it all look very slick, though. Also with Joe Don Baker, as well as Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, both of whom starred in the original film. ** Nice refutation of the idea that movies should closely mirror the books on which they are based. Stanley Mann's dull screenplay sticks too close to its source material (Stephen King's book of the same name), inevitably reproducing the worst parts of the novel rather than emphasizing its strengths. Add to that Lester's slack direction (the movie begins with a father and daughter running from bad guys in New York City in a sequence that produces only yawns), and a prominent role that was beyond young Drew Barrymore, and you get...well, you get a fairly typical Stephen King adaptation. (The good ones have been by directors smart enough to use the books as starting points rather than blueprints.) This one is about a young girl and her father (David Keith), each with psychokinetic powers, who must fight for their freedom from an evil government agency. Martin Sheen is good as the head of the agency, but George C. Scott is miscast as the heavy, a hitman with a meaningless fixation on the little girl. Followed by the TV miniseries Firestarter 2: Rekindled (2002). ** Another interminable Bond film, this one gummed up with specious Star Wars-style backstory ("I am your father"). At this point, whoever 007 is, he isn't James Bond. With his crime-fighting team of M, Moneypenny, and Q, he has more in common with Jack Bauer of TV's 24. This time around Bond follows up on a lead from the previous M (Judi Dench) and gradually uncovers a nefarious international crime organization known as Spectre. Fans of the Daniel Craig films may enjoy the interconnections with earlier films, while fans of Ian's Fleming's creation will find themselves constantly cringing. Not that the latter is anything new, but the assault is at its most insidious here. One fight sequence ends with an odd (and irrelevant) Jaws-inspired flourish. Still, the photography is nice, and Léa Seydoux is particularly appealing (if too much the "powerful" woman) as a psychologist Bond has sworn to protect. Based on absolutely nothing. ** Flawed, sporadically exciting thriller by the author of Jaws about a marine biologist who encounters a deadly creature in the waters off the coast of Connecticut, the mutated fruit of decades-old Nazi experimentation. Begins with fine air of mystery and adventure, then refuses to give up the mystery until late in the book, by which time it has become merely confusing. The obligatory woman (a scientist herself, doing whale research using cameras mounted on sea lions) fits nicely into the story, but Benchley can't quite figure out how to handle the obligatory kid: he begins as a long-delayed experiment in fatherhood, then, at 12 years old, develops a life of his own, complete with deaf girlfriend. Manages, however, to end reasonably well. Worth reading, once, for those who like this sort of thing. |
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