Showing posts with label sci-fi TV movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sci-fi TV movies. Show all posts

Friday, February 28, 2020

Legion (1998 TV-movie) score: 2 (of 4)

** minor spoilers only **

Legion gets a nod in Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan by Fraser A. Sherman, so I braved a stuttery stream.  A modest Sci-Fi Channel production (not yet "Syfy" in 1998), the tale of future war is like a facetious episode of the contemporary Outer Limits.  It doesn't quite work, but with points of interest.

Terry Farrell in more familiar guise
Moonlighting from Deep Space 9, Terry Farrell is Major Agatha Doyle, who's tasked with leading a dirty-dozen military offenders against an enemy "fuel processing plant" in a civil war for the solar system.  Her platoon of "scum" all have the requisite vital specialties and tragic backstories, e.g., Parker Stevenson's an officer cashiered for desertion.  There are multiple psychopaths (one a needle addict), a saboteur fragger, and a colorful distaff column: a nympho traitor, a rape-revenge case, and a religious fanatic.

Farrell doesn't convince as a hard-bitten officer, but it's partly the script: Doyle is so one-note tough, I suspected she was an android.  An interesting cast also includes Rick Springfield and Trevor Goddard.  Corey Feldman may be cast to type, but he gives a lazy, selfish performance as a (brainy) con.

The team starts 10-strong, and as they split up for patrol, the viewer may conflate.  Most turn out to have been falsely accused and/or acting in self-defense, suggesting the script/movie might've started as a pilot.

These heart-of-gold badasses don't know just what they're fighting, except that it's big and bad and leaves piles of uniformed corpses behind.  Once revealed, the foe makes an impression (less so, for those who've glimpsed the box art), but Legion takes too long getting there.  Worse, there's little progressive learning, though the viewer may triangulate from the premise, title, and Troy Donahue's character.

In a mystery-thriller, half the fun is matching wits with the protagonists as they strategize.  Without intell, Farrell in particular is left hanging, as Doyle incongruously agonizes over her fitness to command.  The all-at-once ending seemed confusing -- or maybe I checked out.   

These flaws could have been fixed, rather easily; it may've been (self-) sabotage.  While the film superficially resembles Space: Above and Beyond,  the relatively gung ho Fox series, these Legion-aires are entirely victims of their own command.  This cheeseburger of a TV-movie dares portray an American military on imperial business (pointedly, the flag is unseen until a likely suicide errand).  Even when tongue-in-cheek, subversive content draws flak.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968) 3.5 of 4

** this review contains fairly mild spoilers **

First, this isn't spicy as the title suggests: it's a low-budget, British made-for-TV movie from 1968 (broadcast as part of Theatre 625).  If you're still reading, it's very good, like a low-budget Brave New World mixed with the anti-TV agitation of Network, Max Headroom, and Idiocracy.

It seems only a black-and-white copy survives, but the YouTube presentation was acceptable (the title is also listed on amazon).  The cast is excellent, including Leonard Rossiter (2001: A Space OdysseyThe Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin) and an impossibly young Brian Cox.  The standout, though, is Tony Vogel as Nat.  With his burning, bugged eyes and combination of curiosity and idiocy, Nat seems of a future dystopia.

Nat Mender (Tony Vogel) gets an idea
The script borders on brilliant, with intelligence and a good pace.  There's some quietly effective future-slang: "so" is used roughly equivalent to "aloha," "king-style" means good, "super-king style," even better.

The story is from the point-of-view of the TV-producing elite, which saves on sets.  What makes them elite?  Mostly young, they're "high-drive," anti-intellectual and proud of it.

Lasar Opie (Brian Cox)

They share contempt for the "low-drive" majority, the idle proles watching the programs, and seen in surveillance footage (for purposes of ratings monitoring).  Escapist television is essential to keep the masses passive: it's "apathy control," much preferred to the dreaded "tension," root of all evil.  (Thank God it's just a story.)

the low-drives
The Sex Olympics is event-viewing targeting overpopulation: "Sex is not to do.  Sex is to watch."  (The surveillance shots are similar to those in Star Trek's inferior overpopulation-episode of 1969, "Mark of Gideon.")  Viewers are fickle, though, and new ideas are welcome.  Nat's restless, and inspired by a friend's transgressive paintings ("I want tension") he offers to leave comfort behind and (with two others) live like old-days "savages," as it's broadcast as a series (not called Survivor).  Can any good come from going outside?

Inevitably, the film is dated in some aspects (some of the music), and may seem all too low-drive next to the overblown likes of The Hunger Games.  It works though, as written by Nigel Kneale, creator of the TV/film character Professor Quatermass.  The Year of the Sex Olympics remains disturbing, even as most of it has come true.