Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an anthology film from 1983. That movie is "Twilight Zone: The Movie".
I'd like to start off by saying that my first experience with "The Twilight Zone" didn't start with the 1959 series. My first exposure to this series was when I watched the 2002 series hosted by Forest Whitaker. And I remember the show being really fascinating for it's time. Of course, I would later re-discover this series again when MeTV was re-airing classic episodes of the 1959 series that was hosted and created by Rod Serling. And it was great. I really enjoyed the series, and on the off chance anyone might ask, my favorite "Twilight Zone" episode would have to be the Christmas episode involving an old guy dressed up as Santa Claus. I won't spoil that episode for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but trust me, it's a great episode and I would highly recommend it.
But anyway, setting aside the awesomeness that is the 1959 series, I'm really curious to see what exactly someone can do with a movie adaptation of this particular series. Now I do know that this movie has 4 different stories in it, and each segment is directed by a variety of talented directors such as Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Joe Dante, and George Miller. So, in theory, this has all the makings of a great movie. But, I also know that just because your movie might have great casting in it, doesn't mean that the movie's gonna be any good. And this movie could certainly fall into that trap. But the only way I'm gonna know if this movie is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Twilight Zone: The Movie".
7 minutes later
OK, so...upon talking about the actual "Twilight Zone" show, the guy in the driver's seat told his friend to pull over just so he can put on some sort of monster mask and, I guess, kill him...I think. Either way, that was a strange way to open the movie. Still though, I am rather curious to see if any of the stories are any good, so let's hope for the best here.
18 minutes later
You know, guys, I am gonna say that this story here involving this racist prick getting his ass handed to him by different races throughout history sounds really interesting, but so far, it's been a little bit underwhelming. Mind you, it is still kinda interesting to watch. I'm just hoping that there's gonna be some sort of payoff to all this, you know what I mean?
14 minutes later
So...this story involves these old people getting turned into kids again because this old guy had a "magic can" that would allow them to relieve their childhood again. All of a sudden, I kinda already miss that first story, because this one's kinda stupid so far. Just throwing that out there.
15 minutes later
You know, guys, I find it really weird how Helen, upon telling Anthony's family that she accidentally knocked him down from his bicycle, the family just seems to react in such a way that they act very happy-go-lucky about it. I don't know, I just find that really fucking creepy for some reason. But hey, so far, it's definitely the most interesting story of the bunch, and I'm hoping it continues this way.
10 minutes later
O...K...well, so, upon pulling out an actual rabbit out of the hat, he also ends up pulling a monster-looking rabbit as well. I am gonna say, that rabbit looks fucking awesome! I'm actually really digging this story, guys, it's kinda fun.
20 minutes later
You know, guys, I'm really intrigued by this fourth story, and what's helping it the most is the acting from John Lithgow. He's *really* selling me on it so far, and I'm curious to see where it's gonna go from here.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Twilight Zone: The Movie". Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK.
Before I get into the review, I do need to talk about something that I purposefully left out from the opening. And I wanted to wait until now to talk about it, because I wanted to see the full thing first before I get into what I'm about to discuss with you guys. You see, this movie, unfortunately, has a rather sad history to it. And all of it consists around the first segment, which is called "Time Out". I'll talk more about the actual segment when I cover the writing for this movie, but to give you guys a little bit of a history lesson, the story behind this segment is that the main actor, Vic Murrow, along with two foreign children ended up dying while the film was being made. Now I'm not gonna go into the legal issues in regards to the children not being able to work under California law or the circumstances into what happened after the film was made, but what I am gonna say is that that the two kids were suppose to be a part of the segment, in a different way. Because the segment had it where, originally, Murrow's racist character was suppose to save these two kids from a village that they were abandoned in until a U.S. Army comes in and shoots at them. However, that never happened because there was an accident involving the pilot not being able to navigate through some pyrotechnics, and thus, the helicopter crashed, which sadly ended up killing Murrow and the two children. Which then resulted in this part of the segment being cut out entirely.
Now I obviously can understand why this was changed. However, if I'm being honest here...had that awful tragedy never happened, I think it would've made the entire segment a *lot* better than what we actually got here. Because it would've helped a character redeem his qualities of being a mindless bigot. Unfortunately, what we ended up getting was rather bland. Now again, I do like the idea of the segment where Bill Connor, Murrow's character, gets his ass handed to him throughout history by other races and groups, such as the Nazi's, the KKK, blacks, asians, etc. It sounds really interesting, until you actually watch the whole thing, and it just feels kinda empty and lifeless. Now I am gonna say that the ending here was actually a bit chilling, considering the circumstances of what happens to Connor, but everything leading up to that ending just feels like it could've been handled much better. And again, if that accident had never happened, it probably would've been a great segment. But as is, the entire segment felt like one big ham-fisted moral lesson where we shouldn't be racist at all. Which probably would've been more powerful if we had gotten to see the segment with Connor and the two foreign kids. But instead, the whole message of the first segment was "please, don't be racist". Which, if you applied that to today's social media standards, it would totally backfire on this segment.
But anyway, guys, the first segment of the movie was very underwhelming. And unfortunately, that's what most people, who are familiar with this movie's history, are gonna remember it for. Which is rather sad, because, I'm gonna tell you, guys, the movie is still halfway decent. It isn't great, by any stretch. But I can say that there is enjoyment to be found from this movie. And if you're someone who never had any knowledge about the behind-the-scenes stuff, then it's probably not gonna affect your enjoyment of this movie. Though having said that, if you're someone who's watching this movie for the first time, and you had prior knowledge about the film's history beforehand, then it's probably gonna end up being a rather difficult watch for you guys. Now yes, you can always just skip the first segment on the DVD version and just watch the other segments, but no one should be able to have to skip bad segments in order to enjoy a movie to it's fullest potential. Because once you do that, it'll ruin the film for you. Which is why I'm probably gonna have a more difficult time in trying to recommend this movie to anyone who might be interested in watching it. However, I am gonna be patient with the recommendations, because I still have the rest of the movie to talk about.
Speaking of which, let's actually talk about the rest of the movie, shall we? The writing here, as a whole, is a sort of a mixed bag. Now when I say it's a mixed bag, I'm mostly referring to the fact that, out of the 4 stories we got here, only 2 of them I'd say are worth watching, which would be the latter 2 segments. I've already talked about the first segment in great detail, so I'll go ahead and skip it. The second segment, which is called "Kick the Can", is quite possibly the worst segment of the entire film. Not only is it because it's boring as shit, but it also doesn't feel like it would fit in an episode of "The Twilight Zone". Most of the segment is being played up as a whimsical light-hearted comedy, but it just feels very out of place here. And to give you guys a comparison, the Christmas episode I mentioned earlier was also light-hearted in tone as well, but they didn't completely play up the happiness because most of that segment was a drama. And only by the end of it did it have a happy ending because the writing in that segment was so good, and the buildup to it was well worth the happy ending. This thing, though, felt like a movie Spielberg wanted to make at one point in his career, but ended up getting rejected by almost every film studio out in Hollywood because it had almost no real substance. And yes, I can reference Spielberg's name here, because he's the one who directed it! I don't know what he was thinking when he directed this segment, but again, it felt nothing like a "Twilight Zone" episode. It just felt like more of a lifeless passion project that he wanted to work on so badly, but it just had no real flare to it.
Now beyond Spielberg's shitty segment, the 3rd and 4th's segment are, again, really good. More so the third segment called "It's a Good Life", because it is, by far, the best thing about this movie. It was creepy, creative, and definitely felt more like an episode of "The Twilight Zone". But then again, this segment was directed by the same man who made "Gremlins" and "Gremlins 2". And you can definitely feel that kind of vibe from watching this segment, because everything about it was, again, very creative and I expected no less from Joe Dante. The fourth, and final segment, which was called "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was also very good, too. Mind you, it does have a couple of flaws to it. Such as near the ending where our main character is being sent to the hospital for being "clinically insane" after seeing a monster he thought up of in his head. That part doesn't really bother me as much, but what exactly happened to the photo that he took with the camera he stole from this little girl in order to prove that the monster he was seeing destroying the plane's engine was for real? I don't recall anyone ever bringing that up. The only thing they did notice was that, again, near the end of the segment, they see that one of the planes engines was indeed ripped out and destroyed. So the thing about the photo leaves a little bit of a question mark there. But beyond that, the segment is rather enjoyable, so I can't really complain too much there.
But overall, guys, the writing here is most definitely a mixed bag. The first two segments aren't really that great, while the latter two segments are definitely really good. So, it's kind of a tricky situation with this movie in which would it really be worth it to go through the entire movie in order to get to those two good segments? Again, I'll hold off on giving a definitive answer to that when I get to recommendations. As for the acting itself, well, I am gonna say that most of the acting is really good from most of the entire cast. I'm even gonna mention the less than stellar segments that weren't really all that good, because the acting from everyone there was also really good, too. I'm even gonna include most of the child actors that they got for this movie. Their acting wasn't too bad for what they had to work with. Mind you, none of it is really that good, but it's still miles better than what I've heard from the past when it comes to child acting. So, at least there's that. The rest of the acting is great. Everyone turned in an awesome showing, regardless of the quality of the scripts that they were given for their respective segments. The best one, by far, would have to go to John Lithgow in the 4th segment. He's certainly hamming it up at times, but it's still a convincing performance to where I could overlook a lot of the goofiness that he kinda slips out. So yeah, guys, the acting here is really good from just about the entire cast.
Special effects in this movie are pretty good as well. And considering the fact that this movie was only made for about $10 million dollars, it does a really good job in handling it's effects. The best example would have to be the third segment again. The creature effects look amazing here. Not only do they look great, but also the animation here as well. There are a lot of cartoons playing, in which most of them are older Warner Bros. cartoons, but there's this one cartoon segment that they show, and without going too much into spoilers here, it involves one of the more creative deaths I haven't seen in a movie in a long, long time. That's how awesome it really is. There is very little usage of CG here. But then again, CG was hardly a thing back in the early 80's, so it's just something you have to roll with. The creature effects used in the final segment also look really good, too. So overall, guys, the special effects here are really good. In fact, I would say that they mostly hold up by today's standards. But that is just me, personally. Overall, the special effects here are really good.
Camerawork here is also really good. The sound-mix here is mixed fine. The lighting here is also lit really good. And the score here is great, mostly because, it was done by Jerry Goldsmith. And I've talked about him a few times in the past about how good his musical scores have always been, and this movie is no exception. Granted, it's not his best, but even on those standards, it's still really fucking good. So regardless, guys, the music here is fantastic.
So now, we come to the ultimate question regarding this movie. Essentially, guys, am I able to recommend "Twilight Zone: The Movie"? Oh man...um, how to answer this question? Well...if you can somehow overlook this film's tainted history, you might end up enjoying this thing. However, I can't guarantee that you'll like all of the segments that are featured here. Like I said, only two of the segments are worth watching, which would be the latter two segments. The first two, though...well, I can't promise anything with those. You could somehow end up enjoying them more than I did. And if you do, that's awesome. Rock on. But if you only care about half of the segments or, somehow, none of them at all, then there's no way I can really recommend this to you guys. If you are fans of "The Twilight Zone" show, well again, I can't really promise that you'll really enjoy this entire movie, since there's only half of a good movie here. I'm probably not gonna be watching this thing again, unfortunately. Which is a shame, because I wanted to really like this thing as an entire package. But as is, that's not the case here. So I'm probably not gonna be holding onto this thing for my DVD collection. Speaking of which, though, seeing as how I mentioned "Gremlins" when talking about that 3rd segment, I'm gonna go and watch the first "Gremlins" movie right now. And if I'm in the mood, maybe I'll watch the second film right after it, who knows? But anyway, I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing this review up.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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