Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Canadian sci-fi film from 1979. That movie is "The Shape Of Things To Come".
Now I'm gonna tell you, guys, I know very little about this movie. For starters, I know that this film is based off a novel that was written by H.G. Wells. And from what I've heard, this movie has barely any connection with the novel that this thing is based off of. Which I know will turn off those who have an absolute obsession with movies not getting things that are based off the source material correctly, however, as I've stated before, I don't really do side by comparisons with the movie and book. In fact, I've never even read the book this thing is based off of before, so I can safely say that whatever this movie will do will either stand or fall on it's own standards.
Now the only other thing I know about this movie is that it was trying to cash in on the success of "Star Wars", since this movie came out a couple of years after the first "Star Wars" movie. Beyond that, I know almost nothing about it. I haven't seen any trailers or clips from the movie, so I'm going into this one completely blind here.
I am hoping for it to be decent, or perhaps even pretty good. I don't know if it will be though. The only way I'm gonna find out 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 "The Shape Of Things To Come".
1 minute later
OK, guys, I know you can't hear this for obvious reasons, but is it just me, or is the music sounding rather...disjointed? I thought it was just an issue only when it was on the DVD menu screen, but no, it's still the same, screwy music that's playing in the opening credits. I'm hoping that this won't become an issue later on with the rest of the movie, but I still find it really odd that the music's audio just sounds really off to me.
12 minutes later
Oh my god, are those spacesuits that they're wearing made of tinfoil?! I swear to god, guys, these two guys that are wearing these spacesuits look like they were made out of tin foil paper! Holy shit, I knew this movie was made on a low budget, but how cheap does your movie have to be where you can't even get proper-looking spacesuits for your actors to wear?! Good god...
8 minutes later
Wow...even the helmet that this guy is wearing looks cheap as shit. It almost looks like he's pulling down a grey colored trash bag over his head as he's putting it on. I swear, guys, the costuming in this movie is ridiculously cheap, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to handle anymore of this cheapness.
17 minutes later
All right, I think now I can safely say this. The acting from Nikki and Merric is fucking terrible. So far, most of the acting has been halfway decent, but these two actors in particular really fucking suck.
13 minutes later
So...it turns out that the people disguised as bushes are actually kids. And one of them may be infected with radiation. All right, that raises a lot of questions. Mainly, how long have these kids been on Earth, and how long have they been infected with radiation? I would assume that, you know, radiation would slowly kill a person. And if they *are* infected with radiation, then how come Kim and Jason haven't been infected by being near them in the first place? I have so many questions about this, guys, and I'm hoping that at least one of them will be explained sooner rather than later.
12 minutes later
I am gonna say this, guys, the only character in this movie, so far, who I actually kinda sorta like is Sparks the robot. Every other character has been really kinda bland, yet Sparks is the only one that's kinda saving this movie a little bit for me. Just thought I'd let you guys know.
5 minutes later
O...K...now the movie's decided to go on a trippy mood here as our characters are...well...not getting high, obviously, but I guess when they broke through the dimension, they ended up going through a weird, trippy scene. I really don't know how to describe what I'm seeing to you guys, it's just...really fucking odd.
13 minutes later
So, if radiation wasn't going to kill the good doctor, this loud noise that Omus made will. That's...kinda stupid. And underwhelming as well. But I guess it's at least effective.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "The Shape Of Things To Come". I'll go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Well...what to even say about this thing? I guess I should probably start by saying that this movie was a little bit disappointing. It doesn't truly suck, but I wouldn't say it's really good either. It falls on the range of being a rather bad movie. Now yes, I've seen and enjoyed a good chunk of bad movies that I have covered for this series. But this one...well, this one, unfortunately, falls short of being on the level of so bad it's good.
Let's just dive right into this thing by first discussing the writing. Now I will say that the story here had a lot of promise. I really think that this movie could've been better written, had it gone through another draft or two. Because what we have here for a story feels undeveloped at certain points. I'll get more into that in a second here, but I should also mention that this movie, not only tries to capitalize on the success of "Star Wars", but it's also trying to do that with "Star Trek" as well. And watching this movie, you can totally tell that this movie felt like a lost episode of the original "Star Trek" series. And there's nothing wrong with that obviously, but the problem here is that, like I said, parts of the story here feels undeveloped. And what we have here is a rather shallow, and kinda boring sci-film when all is said and done.
I wanna talk about the biggest plothole of the entire movie. So the entire setup of the movie is that there was this terrible war with robots that happened on Earth that caused so much damage that radiation began to take into effect. So most of the people of Earth was moved over to the Moon, where there's apparently a new city that they live under known as New Washington. And the only way for the humans to survive is with a drug that counters the effects of radiation called RADIC-Q-2. And it's here where I have to talk about the plothole involving radiation because this really bothered me throughout most of the entire movie.
So earlier, I mentioned these kids that were stranded on Earth, that also happened to be disguising themselves as bushes. So after Jason and Kim first discover that they're actually kids, Jason notices that one of the kids has been infected with radiation. Not only that, but these kids were one of the many survivors of the robot wars. So, I'm going to assume that maybe these kids were infected since they were babies. Which is whole-nother level of messed up when you actually stop and think about it for a moment. But anyway, the only help these kids have gotten, prior to Kim and Jason landing on Earth, was this old guy by the name of Charlie Montgomery, who was the doctor's friend. A little bit of a spoiler here, Charlie's dead, because he was infected with the same radiation that these kids also have. Which, again, begs the question on why our heroes weren't infected by them when they were close to these kids? You would assume that radiation is contagious and that it spreads like a virus to other people close by, so why weren't our heroes ever infected by this same radiation is something that is never explained.
Another thing that bothered me about the kids being infected with radiation is when Kim tells the children that they will be back with a full supply of RADIC-Q-2, because it's obvious that they couldn't take the children with them on their journey, due to them being infected and all. That part kinda makes sense, but here's the thing: We *never* see these kids again after our heroes leave Earth. So you're left wondering if the kids ever got treated or if they were just left to die on their own. Which is something that, I believe, should not be ignored! Why the fuck would you introduce these children if we're never gonna see them again?! That makes almost no sense whatsoever.
Our characters here are mostly dull and shallow, save for 2 of them. One of them is Sparks the robot. And that's mainly because Sparks has something resembling a personality, unlike the rest of our heroes who, again, are pretty dull and shallow. The only other character who was kinda sorta memorable is Omus, our main of the villain of the movie. He's more or less a shallow dictator, but what makes him stand out is the actor playing him, which is Jack Palance. I'll get a little more into him later once I cover acting, but I will say that both Sparks and Omus are the only two characters I can say that kind of saves this movie from being completely hollow.
One other thing that I will comment on that is sort of a problem is the pacing. This movie does feel a little bit slow at times. The best example I can think of is that weird trippy scene I mentioned earlier when our heroes broke through some sort of dimension portal, and there's this 5 minute scene where it looks like they're getting high off this entire scene. I have no idea why it takes *this* long for them to go through all that, but it really could've been trimmed down to a couple of minutes or just completely cut from the movie entirely. There was no reason for that scene to be 5 minutes long, and all it really served was to pad the film out unnecessarily.
So yeah, guys, the writing here isn't very good. Like I said before, it could've gone through at least a couple of more drafts with it's script, and there's a possibility that it could've been better. But as it is, the story here feels kinda empty and rushed, and ultimately is a rather bland sci-fi movie. With that said, let's get into the acting here. Now for the most part, the acting here is halfway decent. Even though most of our main cast didn't get a whole lot to work with, they certainly tried with what they were given. Especially Jack Palance. He was easily the best actor in this entire movie. The parts where he has to shout leans on him overacting, but it's still charming enough to where you could possibly garner a smile out of it. The same can't be said, however, for the other two actors in this movie playing Niki and Merrick. Both of these actors sound really stilted and don't know how to convey emotions properly. Especially for Merrick's actor, since he sounds the worse of the two. He literally has no range to his voice and, slight spoiler here, he dies a little bit in the beginning of the third act of the movie. And I was kinda happy he was gone then because I didn't have to deal with anymore of his shitty acting. Otherwise, guys, the acting here is halfway decent at best.
Let's get into the costuming next. Oh boy, where do I even begin with this one...? Well, for starters, I mentioned the astronauts suits that looked to be made of tin foil. And I would not surprised if that really was the case, because no matter how you look at it, they look like dogshit. Now I also mentioned the kids from earlier and how they were suppose to be infected with radiation. Well, while we only get to see one example of this from one of the kids, some of them also have white hair which is really just obvious-looking wigs. Why the others also didn't get white hair is either because the radiation couldn't affect their hair changing color, or there wasn't enough for the kids to wear is something that I don't know of.
But the most polarizing costuming has to go to Omus's robots, who are essentially just dudes in obvious robot suits. Which is funny, because the only robot in the movie that looks like an actual robot is Sparks, since he's the only one that doesn't look like some guy was dressing up as a robot. Now I say Omus's robots are polarizing, because it's either something that you're gonna get use to or it's gonna throw you off completely. Myself, personally speaking, it was something that I got eventually use to, though that might not be the case for anyone else who might have an interest in watching this movie.
But yeah, costuming here is mostly terrible. Special effects are also pretty standard, at least in terms of it being a low budget movie. The visual effects, the blood, all of that looks OK at best. And also, you don't really get to see much blood in this movie anyway, since it only happens to two people that are killed in the movie. But still, the special effects are nothing to really write home about. Camerawork here is fine. The lighting here is also OK for low budget standards. Sound-mixing is also fine. The music, apart from the screwed up opening song, is also kinda decent. It's not great by any means, but at least it kinda serves it's purpose here.
So yeah, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Shape Of Things To Come"? Um...probably not. What holds me back from recommending it is that the writing just feels rather unfinished. I believe if this thing had gotten a much tighter script, it could've been slightly better. Granted, it probably wouldn't have saved the terrible costuming or its special effects, but at least the story could've been fleshed out a bit more. But as is, it's just not very good at all. Add on to the fact that the movie's also kinda boring, too. So yeah, unfortunately, I'm not able to recommend this thing to you guys, unless if you have some morbid curiosity for it. But otherwise, you can probably find some other low budget sci-fi movie to watch, or I guess any other sci-fi movie for that matter. And speaking of, I think I'm kinda in the mood to watch "Starship Troopers" again. So, I'm gonna go and watch that next once I get done with this review.
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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