ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Three VERY enjoyable movies which are are also VERY different from each other.

The first one is a delightful comedy about a scientists who turns his child into The Amazing Colossal Toddler!

The second one is the best action / time travel movie ever made — and even though it doesn’t have much competition for the honor, it would still be the greatest even if it did!

The third one is the greatest jungle adventure / science fiction / mutated gorilla movie ever made. I’m pretty sure there will never be another one THOSE!
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Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992)



Not a bad sequel to the 1989 Disney hit sci-fi comedy, but definitely not equal to it. The principal problem was that the film makers decided the story needed a villain, so John Shea (who played Lex Luthor in Lois and Clark) is an egotistical, insensitive scientist who takes potentially harmful steps to deal with the enlarged toddler.

The first movie didn't need a villain, and neither did this one -- especially the way this one was handled.

During its initial release the movie was accompanied by a Disney animated short called "Off His Rockers", which was included with the 1993 laserdisk version, but not with the current DVD -- which is full screen, a shameful thing for Disney to do in this widescreen age of HD televisions.

Surprisingly, the short is available on Youtube, despite Disney's diligent efforts to prevent any of their properties from being shared in this manner.

The short film is noteworthy for being a prototype for "Toy Story" (release three years later), involving a young boy lured away from his video game by his beloved rocking horse.

Stylistically, it should be noted that the backgrounds and the rocking horse are clearly CGI, while the little boy is hand-drawn animation. But the two media blend perfectly.

Enjoy!

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Timecop (1994)



Not many time travel movies have exciting gun battles and skilled martial arts fighting.

In fact, only one does, and this is it.

It's also a very good time travel movie, delving into some interesting aspects of the whole temporal paradox and the cause-and-effect-reversal concept that each movie seems to deal with in its own way.

The time traveling hardware is unique, too. It's a kind of rocket sled that races towards a concrete barrier and then -- well, they don't actually show the and-then, but one of the characters makes a veiled reference to some smears on the concrete barrier that are the residue of unsuccessful time jumps.

But the rocket sled doesn't go back with the time traveler, he just appears at the destination (a very imaginative special effect), and he comes back by activating a small device he carries with him.

Like any good time travel story, the twists and turns in the plot (and the time line) will challenge your brain and stimulate the growth new dendrites.

Not every movie can claim to do that!
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Congo (1995)

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What if they made a movie that involved a new communications satellite, a powerful new laser rifle that uses a big diamond, an African adventure, the site of the legendary King Solomon's Mines, and a few dozen bred-for-savagery, trained killer gorillas.

Sounds fun, eh?

And it is.

From Mr. Jurassic Park himself -- Michael Crichton -- and the man who directed the film version of that little yarn -- Frank Marshall -- comes a spirited tale of adventure, romance, and ugly monkeys that would scare King Kong.

We also get a adolescent gorilla who wears a device on her arm that enunciates words the ape signals with hand gestures. As an animal sidekick on a grand adventure, she certainly has advantages over Gertrude the duck from "Journey to the Center of the Earth".

The film did okay at the box office, but the critics didn't like it, except for Siskel and Ebert. Wikipedia says that audiences didn't care for the men-in-gorilla-suits (even though they look awesome) because they were spoiled by the CGI in "Jurassic Park".

Ain't life funny. Now folks bitch about those "fake looking" CGI special effects.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)