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Review: Impostor
Before I get started, it should be pointed out that managing expectations is very important when going to see a movie. If you go into this movie expecting a "Blade Runner" or an "Alien" you probably won't be so happy. If you go into this expecting a "Screamers" or "Pitch Black" however, then you'll probably enjoy the hell out of it.
"Imposter" stars Gary Sinise as an Oppenheimer-like weapons researcher named Spencer Olham. He's working on creating a superweapon to unleash upon an alien menace originating from Alpha Centauri. Frankly, watching the movie, we're getting our asses kicked, with human society devolving into a fascist state huddled under energy domes for protection.
The aliens, however, really aren't the focus of the film, which is neither good nor bad, as they aren't really central to the plot. Sinise's character Olham is picked up by the government as he is suspected of being an alien replicant instead of the real Olham, with the additional feature of a bomb in his chest designed to go off when he meets with the Chancellor of Earth. After being picked up and taken to an ominous interrogation center to be killed, he manages to escape to the dead zone between city-domes, a dystopic scene of poverty and the overlooked. Within the zone, Spencer convinces the streetwise Cale to sneak him back into the city to meet up with his wife, Maya.
I don't want to go much further into the actual plot of the film, as it doesn't really matter that much. It's fairly predictable but enjoyable. The IMDB entry for "Impostor" notes that this was originally one part of a three-part movie that was expanded to fill the full length of this film. There does seem to be a bit of padding going on, like the exploration of Cale's motivation for helping Olham sneak back into the city where Olham's wife Maya (played by Madeline Stowe) works. In the end you don't mind because the padding is well done and entertaining.
The effects are enjoyable in a "look it's a cool city with ships flying around all over it" way and the cast is much stronger than you'd expect in this kind of movie, but not too much. I did feel that Vincent D'Onofrio was probably not very well cast in his role as Major Hathaway. Mr. D'Onofrio is the kind of actor that when he has the right role really shines (his work on Law and Order, for instance). But still, even ill-placed, he's enjoyable to watch.
To wrap up, "Impostor" is a decent flick worth your $5.75 matinee price while elongating your lunch hour and definitely worth taking the time to watch on cable, although the effects would not be as enjoyable.
A movie review thats not JonKatz!
Don't knock pitch black, that's really up there as far as SCI FI goes. Like Supernova and Event Horizon.
It's a sad world indeed if we expect everything to be high caliber, like LOTR and Star Wars. (hah!)
As for imposter, I swear I saw a trailer for this on some VHS movie I rented for $0.99 two years ago.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Worst movie ever. Be sure I was on the net within minutes expressing my dissatisfaction.
IMDB has a good overview of the general feeling from the major newspapers from across the country. Basically... not all that great, but could be a lot worse worse. I still need to see Ali personally, and I think I'll be renting this one if I were to end up seeing it.
forma3
I distinctly remember seeing a trailer for it two years ago and thinking "Wow, that looks good." About a year later I went to the video store, but I could not find Imposter (little did I know that the film never made it to the theater).
The next trailer I saw was just last month, and it said the movie was "Coming Christmas Day".
Christmas Day came and past, and I never saw any theaters with it. Then I saw the trailer on Tuesday that said it was "Coming January 4th".
Well, after pushing back the release date 3 times it is good to see they finally got it in theaters. I can't wait to watch it.
I remember reading the short story when I was in high school and thought to myself when I read it that it could make a cool movie. I felt the same excitement all over again when I saw a preview on a rented movie several years ago. Every once in a while I wondered if I'd missed it(college life can do that to you)... it's nice to see it finally make it to the screen! I know I'll go out to see it when it reaches the theaters here.
I'd rather be flying
Not to be pedantic here...but aren't most films enjoyable, as long as you don't expect much from it?
The Curse, and Python notwithstanding, obviously.
I've always liked Sinise and he was a producer for this, but it just doesn't compare to Blade Runner or Total Recall.
That being said I liked the ending. It twisted more than normal and it wasn't the usual ending. It was padded and no secondary characters were developed. I did enjoy Sinise's performance as well as D'Onofrio's. Sinise was unrelenting in his desparation and D'Onofrio was unforgiving in his tracking.
Unfortunately, I just saw Beautiful Mind last night and it just blew me away. As a result I can't say this was a good movie.
I hafta say that I just finished watching Strange Brew and I enjoyed just as much if not more. It's held up well.:)
IMHO, as per
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Every review except this one seems to agree with me (unfortunately, I didn't read them before going to see it.) I don't expect every sci-fi movie I see to have mind-blowing computer effects, but this movie reeks of the mid-80s. Perhaps it would have been better recieved by the critics if it had been released now. As it is, it looks rather dated and I found the plot being pushed to the back in favor of explosions and hollywood flash. In short, if you HAVE to see this movie, take some funny friends, so at least you can be entertained by their MST3K like comments. Otherwise, go see LOTR again.
Okay, I'm done now.
Carousel is a lie!
AFAIK, if you have a -1 assigned to a certain class of comments (foe, too short, etc.) and the comment is rated -1, it will be demoted to -2, and therefore be invisible.
Enigma
There are some amazing run on setences in that review. It's been a while since I've seen the English language mangled so badly.
Frankly, watching the movie, we're getting our asses kicked, with human society devolving into a fascistic state huddled under energy domes for protection.
While watching the movie chrisd got his ass kicked with a society that is fascist and hudled under domes. Exactly how do you assault someone with a society?
The aliens, however, really aren't the focus of the film, which is neither good nor bad, as they aren't really central to the plot.
That sentence, by lack of a strategically placed period, is telling us that the movie is neither good nor bad. I doubt that is what the reviewer had in mind. Since I've been told that the movie is so-so, why should I continue to read the review?
Sinise's character Olham is picked up by the government as he is suspected of being an alien replicant instead of the real Olham with the additional feature of a bomb in his chest designed to go off when he meets with the Chancellor of Earth.
If the real Olham has the additonal feature of a bomb in his chest what is the purpose of the replicant? Why is his chest designed to go off when he meets the chancellor? Is the chancellor going to be hurt by flying pectoral muscles? Maybe this is how you assault someone with a society?
Punctuation would solve so many problems with that atrocity of a thought chrisd wrote.
The effects are enjoyable in a "look it's a cool city with ships flying around all over it" way and the cast is much stronger than you'd expect in this kind of movie, but not too much.
The improperly used "and" ties two disparate thoughts together in new and interesting ways. If you're talking about the effects, talk about the effects. If you're talking about the cast, talk about the cast. Periods and capital letters were invented for a purpose.
To wrap up, "Impostor" is a decent flick worth your $5.75 matinee price while elongating your lunch hour and definitely worth taking the time to watch on cable, although the effects would not be as enjoyable.
So, the movie is decent and worth our $5.75, but only if we watch it during lunch and then alsotake time to watch it on cable. If I just watch it in the theater will it not be worth the $5.75? Taking the time to also watch it on cable will lessen the effects, though. Is this a "if the tree falls in the woods" type of philosophical discussion? If I actually watch the movie on cable the effects will be lessened. Ergo, if I never watch it on cable the effects will be mind-blowing.
I just saw the trailer for Minority Report which looks like a better bet for Philip K Dick fans, despite the presence of both Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. Is it just coincidence that both of these are coming out at the same time?
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
Was that lightly promoted thing a joke? I have seen commercials for this movie hundreds of times for weeks before it was even released. And it looked stupid. Even Star Wars episode 1, the most overhyped movie ever, didn't have this many commercials.
Hmmm.... Maybe it would be better if slashdot had a movie review policy that specified that movie reviews must be written in the most fluent language of the reviewer - like Perl or C++ instead of english.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
While watching the movie chrisd got his ass kicked with a society that is fascist and hudled under domes. Exactly how do you assault someone with a society? See Horton Hears a Who or Men in Black for details.
class Impostor extends Thread implements Flim
{
public static final void main(String argv, int argc)
{
new Impostor();
}
Imposter(){
super();
while(playing) sleep();
};
}
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
alsotake :)
You missed a space
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Seen this movie and it was average. I didn't hate the movie but I didn't like it much either.
:).
:). I mean why strap him into one chair.. wake him up, then place him over into a second device. Silly.
Visual FX wise, I was disapointed with the recycled starship troopers FEDNET footage during the begining half of the movie and that most of the government troopers were using starship troopers uniforms. LAMEO... I guess they had to cut corners on the budget seeing its released under the Dimension Films banner instead of New Line
The other effects ranged from piss poor to above average.I'm guessing Netter Digital did alot of the space sequences which looks a bit cheesy.
Some of the city shots/buildings looked good.. but the space/airship design and animation was odd except for mayable one or two scenes.
I'm still trying to figure out ILM's contribution to the film.
The editing was poor. The sequence with the implant removal was jaring timing wise. Alot of action sequences were not clear.. as the action was heavy post processed with lots of moving camera work with shots that were often out of focus or where the action was slightly off camera.
And Plot holes...
Well, if the government agents simply just did the "operation" while Olham was sedated there wouldn't be a movie
Also the idea that the government told Olham that they knew the Centauri ship landed in the forest. Why didn't they search the ship?
These guys had technology to allow their troops to see through whole buildings but yet they couldn't find what Mr. And Mrs. Olham found by running through the woods in pitch darkness.
Oh boy.
Oh well it could have been worse.. I guess.
The short story is good but it looked like it didn't provide enough material for a feature.. so basically most of the moive is a chase sequence which really added nothing to the overall story.
But overall I'm glad... good or bad I'm glad theres more sci fi stuff out there. With a bit more work this movie would have been better.
> Every review except this one seems to agree
> with me (unfortunately, I didn't read them
> before going to see it.)
I went to see this movie about three weeks ago with a friend who had advance tickets. It was probably the first movie i had seen in years without knowing ANYTHING about it(i didn't know it was a sci-fi movie until i saw the space ships). I had absolutely no expectations of the movie and was surprised by how much i liked it. A couple of the characters are a bit cliched(okay, all of the characters are a bit cliched), but still, it's a good story. I really liked the way the protagonist had done nothing wrong so you sympathize with him, but still the audience is left totally in the dark as to his status and doesn't know whether or not to secretly root for the bad guys.
i don't really have anything bad to say about this movie.
lysergically yours
Other than a massive airtime buy on SciFi (which, given that 80% of their commericials are for their own shows, probably cost about $1.89) and a few other minor cable channels, real-world promotion of this film has been zilch.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
sucked. Too many plot holes. I felt as if the whole story was fairly easy to guess. Especially the last part.
If the aliens were able to get through the shields, then why bother implanting bombs in clones and just drop bombs into the city. The whole explination of why tests weren't done on the guy to check if he was an imposter was stupid. Their check was to drill his heart out. They could of done the test he was trying to do in the first place. Not only that, but the stupidity of some people in the movie is astounding. The major could just be will farrel doing a skit the whole time as a retard.
That being said, the idea of not expecting much from a movie is... what? Paying 8.75$ to see a movie and the cost goes to... where? Not even just the cost to see a movie but i agree that this is a movie i'm going to see a lot 10 years down the road on the sci-fi channel because of it's sci-fi cheese plot.
The call to the no-arg super constructor is implicit, you know. I never see why people put those in...
pooptruck
main(String[] args).
Event Horizon and Supernova are two of the worst movies I've ever seen.
The set was huge, and pretty amazing. They built the entire subway inside two sound stages, along with some sci-fi buildings (the hospital).
Apparently they had distribution problems which prevented its release. We also worked on Evolution, which started filming several months AFTER Impostor finished, but obviously was released a while ago.
Why shouldn't we expect what we pay for to be high-calibre?
Actually, you have just described how it works at the Other Site - a comment gets a -2 and gets moderated to oblivion. Not at Slashdot though. No comment will go below -1. Try it. Set all your modifiers to -6 and see how many comments show up. This assumes your threshold is set to -1.
.sig wanted: Must be concise, funny, and display my cleverness.
nt
eak, someones head has been perverted with that evil C stuff.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
This is simply a bad film. If it weren't for the special effects, that incidentally only show up primarily in the beginning of the film, this would be a "B" grade film. All of the running around in the so-called Dead Zone did nothing to further the plot made thin by the obvious padding. This could have been a good short subject if it were limited to the elements essential to the plot. Sadly, Sinise (one of the Producers of the film) saw fit to expand it into a bomb. Don't bother renting it, as it will likely be rendered to tape and DVD quite soon.
Offtopic! Moderate down legitimate criticism!
Come on. Slashdot has done nothing to make its product more professional from a journalistic standpoint, yet they became a corporate entity
and have even discussed taking our money. This
is a bunch of crap. Even the new twit lists or
whatever dont work properly.
Weird, I just got home from seeing this thing. Luckily I got in for free. When I heard about this movie like two years ago I expected a Blade Runner with ten times the quality of special effects and acting on par to BR because you won't want your new movie to suck ass compared to a movie based on a story by the same author. Then this piece of crap came out.
No the special effects aren't cool, I was more impressed watching the Babylon 5 pilot in terms of CG shots. Fancy fly overs of a city to give a sense of scale only work if the city is believable. Now why would a society protecting itself with dome shields build skyscrapers, and fancy ass ones at that? It was sort of sad some effects shots looked good (the medical print outs) while the news broadcasts and interface for the scanner thingie were just sad.
The outdoor shots were sort of cool to watch because I've been to alot of those buildings. A good number of exterior shots were filmed at CS Pomona in or on the CompSci building. The building with the weird looking triangular points is said building, the stairs they first walk up I broke my ankle on. You'll notice this is the same building in Gattaca. Same with the "walls of the city" which you'll notice is the same place Ethan Hawke's character in Gattaca watched rockets launching.
The acting was pretty decent but the screenwriters sure did add alot of stuff from the like four page short story originally written.
*SPOILER*
I guess I missed in the movie where the mention the passphrase for the bomb. I was waiting for somebody to bring it up considering it is a major plot device in the story. Am I the only one who missed it or did anybody else sort of fail to catch the single line in the whole movie making reference to it?
*END SPOILER*
With Gary Sinise I you don't know what to expect. He does such a damn good job in some good movies and then pulls of a stinker like Reindeer Games and the Imposter. Overall I rate it pretty low and I'm glad I didn't pay to see it. Like the original review says, people ecpecting Blade Runner will be disappointed. Maybe next time I'll go see A Beautiful Mind: Romper Stomper 2.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
"Supertoys last all summer long" is a fine story, and it really has little to do with android boy trying to be human. It is about his confusion about his mother, why doesn't she love her, why isn't she happy when he is around? The remaining supertoys stories were written with a movie script in mind, and they sucked. Aldiss himself states that "supertoys last all sumer long" was a story that could not be expanded, and he tried very hard to write sequels for it as there were not enough full length movie material in it. Kubrick was a genius but he misjudged story's potential. And after 30 years, two sequels and a director change AI is what we got.
BTW an adult film inspired by PKD sounds OK to me; although not graphical, PKD novels include a lot of sex. Someone, please shoot movies of "the man in the high castle" or "a scanner darkly"; I asssure you that they would make fine movies.
An "Ubik" would be a perfect geek movie, what do you think?
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
While I'm too lazy to go look it up, it should also be noted that this story was also adapted to a 1 hour episode of the Outer Limits.
It was thoroughly enjoyable and was extremely well done. Quite frankly, I was rather skeptical about the chances of it making it as a full-on in-theatre movie.
$0.02 (CDN)
I notice that Blade runner was mentioned alongside aliens as reference to "good" Sci Fi. Blade runner was adapted from another P K Dick story "Do androids dream of electric sheep" When I say adapted I mean that Hollywood removed any meaningful content and replaced it with breasts and explosions. Compared to the painfully detailed social commentary and legendary character depth that the book contains, the movie is the worst pile of crap ever to grace the screen.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
During those lame ads on TV, you keep hearing Idiot A saying to Various Idiots: He's a genetic cyborg with a BOMB in his chest....
... funny.
GENETIC CYBORG!?!?! WTF!? Did an 8 year old write this?
And wouldn't a simple X-ray at the clinic solve this in about 2 minutes? Unless he's wearing GENETIC LEAD UNDERWEAR.
Also, Gary Sinise is an improbable lead in a movie, he looks
All right, mod me down.
Thank you.
Klerck,
I know you read all your replies, so I just wanted to comment.
I love the number crapflooding, but since the number of whiny slashfaggot replies has gone down recently, I think it's time to spice things up.
Pick something that you want to get rid of, that probably isn't worth selling, but is something that someone else might want. Like an old Playstation or a 1st generation PalmPilot or something.
Then, turn the crapflooding into a contest! Say you are going to give the (item you want to throw away) to the first person who can collect all the random number crapfloods, combine them, and rot13 them to find the secret message. Or, ask for the 3rd number from the 5th crapflood on this day, times the 5th number from the 2nd crapflood after noon on that other day.
People love contests.
Then, when somebody wins the contest, have them email their home address to you. Then, you go to that address and FUCK THEM IN THE ASS. If the address is a PO Box or a Mailboxes etc., wait there for them to pickup their mail and then FUCK THEM IN THE ASS.
It'll be great!
Man, htose things are seeing a lot of action around Hollywood. Every time I turn a corner, there is someone running down a long hallway with those helmets on... I was flipping through and saw them in a kids show (I think it was some Power Rangers Thingee) and thought, man, the costume company is cleaning up.
Anyway, we need to start an internet list on all of the costumes and props (especially Scifi) that have been waaaaaay overused.
My first vote is for the neo-futuristic bank of lights (it is used to make a place look cool, hah!) that appear randomly in houses of action movies and last-season scifi shows. Usually seen in the background when some thug lieutenant says, "Sir! He's still alive!"
Big Bad Guy with scars:
"Still alive? Impossible!!! Find him and kill him!!!" (Note to viewers, that shiny Christmas lights box in the background is a computer, or somehting, anyway, its winking behind the badguy)
Second vote is for the "V" costumes and helmets. Man, if that ain't overused.
Hmmm.... Maybe it would be better if slashdot had a movie review policy that specified that movie reviews must be written in the most fluent language of the reviewer - like Perl or C++ instead of english.
Coming soon: a review of the software used to create the special-effects for the movie "Imposter"...
your post is about the same level as someone ranting about the cockney accents that are pervading BBC. people talk how they want, and i understand chrisd precisely. i can also choose to write english consistent with standard journalism, or with good literature. in this post i dont. and i dont care what you write in response.
Heh... Hey what can I say? I'm a computer animator not a film reviewer.
At least my post didn't get moderated down to zero.
Seeing the grammar on the news postings here are you any less surprised?
So pooh pooh to you...
Dick worked with Ridley Scott on this film, but died shortly after filming was completed. It's not exactly "Do androids..." but it is certainly a Dick story in the end.
Speaking of "V". Did you ever notice that the doomsday device that the aliens try to activate near the end of the movie was actually Kitt, from Knight Rider. Spotting that was nearly as funny as when they used the star trek bridge equipment noises for the machine that the guy making the forged ID badges was using.
IF I see one more movie review by John Katz I'm going to go postal!
Erm... wait a miute......
You worked on TWO movies that sucked ass! Please name some other shitty films to which you have contributed!
Paycheck: a man takes a job which is so secret, they erase his memory when it is done. He goes to get his money and gets a piece of string, a bus ticket, and other miscellaneous junk. This could be a great movie
The Unteleported Man: There are two ways to get to the stars, the long way and a teleporting device. The 'porters are all owned by a corporation who may be lying about what actually happens. One man decides to go the long way and, well, stuff happens.
The Variable Man: a handyman from the 20th century gets shifted into the future and messes up the predictions of how events should unfold. Sort of an anti-Foundation.
I would also like to see anyone make something out of Maze of Death, Ubik, and, especially, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. These would be challenging.
You pedantic fuck.
Go jerk off some more. Nobody's watching.