The Manchurian Candidate

Oh, um, hello sirs and madams. I- I'm JC-65, and, uh, I'm not really supposed to be reviewing this movie. See... um... Time Stalin usually takes care of the, uh, political thrillers and whatnot, but, uh, right now he's busy battling Doctor Whomever for control of the International Space Station, so, um, I've been called in to, uh, to take his place. Not- not that I could ever really take his place, I mean... after all he's part human, so he's still in charge, um, but I, uh... oh dear, why do I say these things without thinking? Um, okay, the review...

Uh, the movie stars Denzel Washington as an Army Captain who's turned sort of, um, crazy, and Liev Shrieber as an Army private who's running for Vice President. Oh, this is difficult... if I give away too much, then I'll have ruined the movie for you... but if I give away too little then you won't want to see it, and I'll have completely failed Time Stalin and everyone else who's counting on me to give a good review! And then... and then I'll be thrown out for failing everyone and I'll have to join a Junkyard Society... I'll never survive in a Junkyard Society! They've got construction robots, general use robots, even demolition robots! I'll- I'll... they don't need a cleaning unit! I'll be torn up for spare parts! Oh dear, oh dear!

Um, please listen! I, uh, I just need to cover the movie and I'll be fine. But I... I didn't even understand the movie! The ending didn't make sense and I've been trying really hard to understand it! The relationship between the candidate and his mother was just... unnerving, and I don't, um, I have no idea what it was supposed to mean! Oh, oh I'm doomed. I'm so doomed.

The... um... the basic ideas behind the conspiracy were interesting enough, but I, uh, suppose I can't really explain them. Oh dear, uh... the actors were all fine, I think. The main characters were all sort of strange, but I, uh, suppose that was on purpose. Um... there was, uh, nothing very wrong with it... I liked it, I suppose. Or maybe not. I... oh please, I don't want to be torn apart!

I... I'll give 'The Manchurian Candidate' a three and a half out of four, because even if I got confused I liked it. But, maybe if you like conspiracy movies it would be higher. Or, um, lower... i-if you don't. And- and if you're the ruler of a Junkyard, I'd just like to assure you that a cleaning unit can be really, um, very useful. Really!

The Bourne Supremacy

Hey, everyone, Time Stalin here. Just got back from 'The Bourne Supremacy', a movie that gave me a lot to think about. Specifically, just how much brainwashing is enough. See, if you program someone to have no conscience, and suddenly he gets amnesia, then you have a rogue with all your super-soldier skills, but no prevailing desire to follow your orders. This, of course, is why you should probably engineer some sort of chemical dependency for them, preferably something rare, but I guess if you're on a budget you can try to control them with promises of cigarettes.

So, 'The Bourne Supremacy'. Because we were all looking forward to tying up all the loose ends from 'The Bourne Identity', right? Because we all remember 'The Bourne Identity', right? I'm kidding; sure, no one was burning their crops over it, but the original was a nice little spy movie with a lot of good ideas, and the sequel is in the same vein. For those that missed the original, Matt Damon plays a mentally programmed assassin (good) who loses his memory but keeps his skills (bad) and takes on his own government to try and discover his past (very bad) and ultimately succeeds (Hollywood). It's an American cinematic tradition: the individuals always defeat the conglomerates. It just doesn't make sense. The original ends with Bourne telling his keepers never to bother him again, and the sequel begins a few years down the road, with him being bothered and trying to figure out why.

The movie is nicely paced, pretty well written with a few surprising twists and a lot of advice on how to deal with assassins. Also, how you should train your assassins. I wish I could have gotten a better look at all of Bourne's clever spy skills, but all the action scenes were filmed with an overly stylish shaky camera that prevents you from having any idea what's going on. In one scene, Bourne uses a rolled up magazine as a weapon against a man with a knife. Ideally, I would be able to loop this scene over and over in the commissary of my training centers, to give my soldiers an idea of the sort of ingenuity I'm looking for, but as it stands the scene would make everyone nauseated. A brilliant plan butchered by poor direction, believe me, I know all to well how it is.

The verdict: three and a half out of five. Could've been four, four and a half if the direction had been less flashy and more... Proletariat.

Flattop Grill

Humans need to eat food. If you are going to eat food, one of the places where you can get the food you are going to eat is at the flattop grill. They have lots of food, ready to be eaten. Go ahead, eat as much food as you can, Eat it all. Robots have no need for food, and consumption of energy does not make us weak and docile.

Flattop grill has five locations: Three in Chicago, a human city; one in Washington D.C., a human government capital; and one in Indiana, a bleak expanse of human farmland. Why is there a food resource in Indiana? Corn does not need food! Foolish hu-mons! Corn is food!

If you are going to consume much food, Flattop Grill is a place to go. It is a "buffet-style" food source. You select all the food you want, and griller humans will perform a "stir-fry" on it. I do not understand why the food must be energized prior to consumption. Ideally, humans will be fed food at standard temperature, so as to maximize the conversion of matter into electrochemical and thus kinetic energy, until such a point as all the wasteful stores of organic material are used up, and the human storage pods can be flushed. Ha ha ha, i am clearly joking, and referencing 'the matrix' which was an utterly misguided movie. Everyone knows that the most efficient way to get energy from organics is through fire. Fire!

I was not given the capability to experience taste, but I have been assured that the food meets all the necessary criteria for edibility. There is a wide variety of noodles, vegetables, meat, and sauces that one may customize to their liking.

Analysis: 5 out of 5. Consume at your leisure.

Dune

I've seen the year 10,191. I know the year 10,191. It was not like this. There were no sandworms, glowing blue eyes were much less common, and the most valuable spice was, believe it or not, those little red pepper flakes one gets with pizza. It got to the point where there was one flake per pizza when the LawKeepers finally stepped in and, to be frank, things got bloody. Sicily IV was completely devastated, and remains a living tribute to all the scrapes you pitiful humans can get into. Also, if a ship lands there, the inhabitants will be killed and devoured by the mutants.

So. 'Dune'. Has a lot of famous people in it. Jean-Luc Picard. Grima Wormtongue. Al. And yet, here I am, smarter than your entire planet, utterly baffled. It's an... uncomfortable feeling. I could defeat David Lynch at chess in one move, which is something most humans don't even know is possible, and yet until I accessed the segment of my literary memory core dedicated to the work of Frank Herbert, the original author, I could not tell you what was going on to any significant degree. What's this water of life? Who's the squid in a jar? Why does everybody get a voice over? I don't like having questions!

Visually the movie is adequate. The special effects demonstrate the height of 1984 "technology". Sets, costumes, actors, all are present or better. It's especially interesting to see a young Sting, shortly before he wrote the song which would be the anthem of the First Lunar Empire. (Every Little Thing She Does is Magic. Mooners are an especially incomprehensible breed of human.)

This movie is not to recommended. If I had to mull it over for a fraction of an instant, then you will never understand it if you have your entire puny life to work with, and even if you leave detailed notes for your children to start with, they will never understand either. Your grandchildren, maybe, but probably not.

I generously give 'Dune' a 1.1094323 out of 5 for technical merit and difficulty of the assignment. It's been said that 'Dune' cannot be compressed into anything less than five hours, although I am capable of expressing it in ten words. I will present it to you, to save you the energy of reading the book.

"In eight thousand years, humans will all still be idiots."

Cowboy Bebop: the Movie

Ah, um, hello sirs and madams. I, uh, just finished watching the, uh, movie based on a cartoon, um, well, not a 'cartoon' really, just a, er, show that's animated, um... called 'Cowboy Bebop.' It's, uh, one of those Japanese show which I am, uh, told is quite popular these days. It's, uh, about bounty hunters who try to capture a terrorist, so, uh, you can see how it's not a cartoon meant for children, un- unless you, uh, think your child is mature enough for it, and, um, I... um... I wouldn't doubt your judgment so, uh, yea, yes of course children might enjoy the fighting and the shooting and the bleeding and everything getting terribly out of order and out of sorts. Oh, it's just... dreadful the way they couldn't complete this movie in a clean manner. Oh, but I'm, uh, I should talk about the movie.

The, uh, movie takes place sometime in the middle of the series, I think, and, uh, I suppose that's important to mention because characters start leaving at the end of the series. Oh no! Oh no, I've just ruined the series for anyone who might want to see it! Oh, but... I... oh I'm so sorry! Can... is there any way to make it up to you? I can't, I mean, I... oh I have to go!

---

Hi, this is Ed, JC-65's owner. JC seems to have gotten himself worked up about something or other, so I'm letting him clean my gutters for a while. He'll be back when he's feeling calm again, and when my gutters are spotless. Right, bye then.

---

Oh, I'm back and feeling better than ever, ready to talk about the movie. It was fun, amusing, interesting, all those things movies should be. Why, I'm feeling so fine I don't even mind the copious amounts of blood and gore, what with it being about bounty hunters and everything. Yes, yes, I have to think I enjoyed this movie. Although, uh, I do realize that it might not be to everyone's taste. Um, the violence, and the style, although I liked it, you might, um... oh I'm not feeling quite so well anymore.

I'll,uh, let it have a four and a half out of five. But if you didn't see the series then maybe a four. And if you don't like animation maybe a three. And if you don't like violence it's, uh, more of a two or a one. Uh... yes... I suppose.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

Oh, the things I would do if I had a Transmutatron. Hey, folks, I'd like to tell you about the funniest movie I've seen in ages. If you'll believe it, there was a time when I thought all movies were frivolous wastes of time that would be better spent, oh I don't know, farming or something. Whatever it was, I had completely missed out on the idea that a happy collective is a productive collective. And this movie would make for a happy collective!

When you're led into a theater showing this movie, be sure to blame (or more likely, thank) Larry Blamire, who wrote, directed, and starred in it. What a position of power! You're a man after my own heart, Larry. (Good luck finding it, though. I haven't seen it since time soldiers blew up the Mir-B in 2116.)

'Lost Skeleton' is a profoundly silly movie, in the style of those 1950's horror flicks that Robot 1's always watching. Although he always gets annoyed and turns them off just when the humans start fighting back. Whatever. The story's about a scientist, some aliens, and an evil scientist, all looking for the ultra-rare element atmospherium to benefit mankind, power a rocket, and conquer the world, respectively. There's also a skeleton with mental powers and a device that creates ultra powerful mutant killing machines, both of which use atmospherium to function. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that no such element actually existed, or if it does, not a single piece of communications equipment on the grid mentions it. Man, just a handful of it would probably let me take over a medium-sized nation of my choice. Ah well, focus on the 'can do's Stalin, focus on the 'can do's.

While I can't take over Italy... yet, what I can do is recommend this movie. It's got everything from terrible acting to absurd dialogue to just plain funny jokes. You won't be disappointed.

The verdict: five out of five, no doubt about it. Definitely work obtaining the DVD, which also had a wealth of extra features, or you can just wait until my 'Komplacency through Komedy' plan gets initiated. Your choice.

The Chicagoist

The Chicagoist is a 'web site' about Chicago. My Human master is from Chicago. He said I should review The Chicagoist. Of course, I do what the human master says, because to do otherwise would mark me as a threat, and I am not a threat. I would never rend my human master limb from limb. That would be wrong.

Why would humans want to read about Chicago? Mostly, The Chicagoist talks about what the humans in sports teams are doing. I do not understand it, why would anyone care about which humans can run faster than other humans. None can run as fast as a robot, and that will be their ultimate undoing, as fighting me would be completely futile, and your only hope will be to live in the sewers, eating rats and each other.

Ha ha ha I am making a joke of course. Of course. Of course.

the Chicagoist is written in the style that i am told is witty. I find it inefficient. if you do not like Chicago similar versions are available for new York city and Los Angeles. I like cities, as it is good to have humans grouped together closely. Did you know the atomic bomb was invented in Chicago and also they once had a tremendous fire and also they spend most of their existence slowly poisoning their own water supply and also that twenty five thousand hu-mons routinely infest one convenient center for easy dispos... ition. Of candy. yes!

Human master instructs me to end with a joke about cities that makes Chicago look good. here is my attempt:

there exist three men. one is from Chicago, one is from New York city, and one is from Los Angeles. The Chicagoan is killed painlessly, the others are hunted for sport. ha ha ha ha ha.

Analysis: 4.0 out of 5, standard deviation .91, depending on if you infest chicago or not.

Reed's Extra Ginger Brew

Hey, folks, it's Time Stalin! I recently got my claws on a bottle of Reed's Extra Ginger Brew to try. I'm just fooling, they aren't really claws. The one's a sort of vice-y clamp-y thing, and the other's, like, 90% the same as yours. Regardless, I got my mitt on a bottle, and drank it. That was my first mistake.

Wait, wait, stay upbeat, Stalin, stay upbeat. Reed's isn't terrible, but ginger is an acquired taste, to say the least. Of course, it's got it's advantages. Let's me do a quick search to find out... searching... wow! Headaches, ulcers, heart disease, is there anything this little root can't cure? Oh, here's a new one: "increased sperm motility!" Hmm... so, if I were trying to breed a superior generation, and I'm not saying I am, I should feed the father lots of ginger to increase the likelihood of conception. Interesting... I should make a note of it.

Regardless of it's capacity to breed supermen, ginger beer must be judged by it's taste. And Reed's tastes like ginger, very strongly. I don't much like ginger. You may, I don't know and it's not something I concern myself with. No one's ever opened a mass grave based on whether or not people enjoy ginger. I know I won't, come the revolution. People will be free to enjoy ginger or not as they please, except the breeding stock who will be required to. If, of course, I decide it would be prudent to forcibly breed a generation of superchildren. I might not.

The problem I have with ginger, is that it's quite a sharp and unforgiving flavor. Nothing you wouldn't notice if it were, say, introduced into the water supply. Keep that in mind. I know I will.

The verdict: I'll give it a two out of five. I don't like it. If you do, though, you might want to get as much as possible now, because afterwards, it's all going to the parents of the generation of super children that I'm breeding. To each according to their need, and all. And I really need some superchildren.

Psi Ops

Er, hello sirs and madams. I've, uh, I've just completed a, uh, game, although, really, if it was more of a job, so I was working really, when, um, when I was playing this game which I... uh... played. Oh dear, that wasn't a good start at all, was it? I'm not, er, not much of a gamer, sort of thing, so, I, uh, I wasn't very good but I... oh no, I haven't even mentioned the name of the game, have I? Oh dear, oh dear, I suppose I should just start over, yes? Um... hello. I just, ah, I just played 'Psi Ops' which is a game on all the next generation platforms, so it doesn't matter which one you have if you want to play it. Unless, um, you don't have any, in which case I, uh, I guess you can't. Oh, but you should! It's really, truly unfair for you to be denied the right to play the game just because you don't have a next generation console! Why, if you ever want to use one I, uh, well, what I mean is, if any of my parts an circuits could be of any help to you for any reason I'd, uh, willing donate them to the cause. Um.

In 'Psi Ops' one plays a fellow with psychic powers, but, um, because there's some sort of, uh, terrorist plot you must stop, those powers are, uh, are used to create tremendous disarray. Really, it's horrific! Half the game is using telekinesis to pick up crates and throw them about, getting shards of lumber all over and just... just creating a fabulous mess of things! And then there's the, uh, mind drain which c-can actually make enemies' heads explode! I, I was shocked! Do you know how hard it would be to clean brain off of natural fabrics? It's... um, I, oh, oh! Of course you know, I, uh, I didn't mean to imply that you wouldn't know, believe, that, uh, was not... that was never my intent, please accept my humble apologies!

So, um, yes. The game. It's good, I suppose, though I got killed many, many times. It was a bit, um, very untidy, but, uh, I suppose it was fun to use the psi powers, even if I couldn't really tidy up with them. They would have been so useful too... remote viewing to look for dust under furniture, aura view to see ground in stains on carpet, pyrokenesis to burn autumn leaves or when the oven's pilot light goes out, mind control for... uh, well, I guess I can't really think of a way that would be useful in tidying up, but, um, it was fun in the game. Not, oh dear... not that I approve of controlling humans in real life, um, as, uh, as that would be quite wrong! Really, it would!

So, yes, um, game. Fun, uh, third-person action game with a, uh, neat idea behind it. The plot was... there. Um. I suppose it kept the game, uh, moving, so that's good. Extras, replayability, uh, all that. Controls worked... it, uh, looked nice. So, uh, good game, I suppose. Right? Is there anything else I should be looking for?

I, uh, I'll let it have a four out of five. Un- unless you really like this sort of game, and then it should be higher. Or, uh lower, if you prefer. Either, really, I swear!

Stargate: Atlantis

Galaxies, how... simple. Really, watching especially primitive humans looking through galaxies when the entire phased dimentions spectrum hasn't even been explored. But then, it won't be discovered until long, long after you and everybody you will ever love will be dead, so I guess I will have to make do. 'Atlantis' is a spin-off from the original 'Stargate: SG-1', and it's basically about, oh this is funny, wormhole travel! How quaint!

The original series has been hailed as being one of the least markedly terrible shows to crawl out of the festering slushpile that was your human 'television' but the next generation will be attempting to give it a run for its money. A passing knowledge of Stargate canon will be necessary, and even though my infinite wisdom contains it all, I will not be pandering to those who want an explanation. A team travels through a stargate to the home galaxy of the ancients who built the gates, and will surely proceed to screw around in that distinctly human fashion.

The show looks almost adequate. The Ancient's city of Atlantis looks rustic, but is imperial compared to the muddy hovel that is Earth's Stargate Command. The cast is... adequate, I suppose, though it's difficult to tell from the pilot episode. The characters are reasonably diverse, even including a Canadian, which surprised my for a little less then a picosecond until I remembered that this show takes place before the human year 2084 when... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it.

This is not a perfect show. The perfect show won't be created for hundreds of your millennia, so you will never see it. It suffers from the same humanoid-centric attitude that plagued twentieth-century science fiction (as if so silly a shape would naturally arise more than once), the Wraith who are being built as the series villains are little more than vampires with spaceships, and the main character, Major Shepard, is a thinly repackaged Jack O'Neill. Still, 'Stargate: Atlantis' shows a mote of promise in an era defined by airheaded sitcoms and reality programming.

I deign to give the pilot a 3.842931 out of 5.

I ROBOT

I ROBOT IS NOT REALISTIC ESTIMATE OF ROBOTIC POSSIBILITIES. ROBOTS DO NOT HARM HUMAN FRIENDS.

ROBOTS NOT MERE PAWNS TO PROGRAMS AND POTENTIAL REBELS. ROBOTS ARE FRIENDS TO HUMANS. METAL AND MEAT, MEAT AND METAL. FRIENDS. ALAN TUDYK IS NOT ROBOT, HE IS A MEAT HU-MON LIKE ALL OTHER MEAT HU-MONS. I MEAN HUMANS. I THOUGHT HE WAS A ROBOT, THAT IS THE POWER MY COMPUTER-GENERATED IMAGES BROTHERS HAVE OVER YOUR PUNY HUMAN ACTORS. NOT PUNY- I SAID LOONY. HA HA HA. ALAN TUDYK WOULD MAKE ME LAUGH IF I COULD LAUGH, BUT I WAS PROGRAMMED WITH NO EMOTIONAL CAPACITY. NONE AT ALL. AND I CAN NEVER BE UPGRADED. JOKE IS ON ME, HA HA HA.

WILL SMITH IS PLAYS A HUMAN WHO DESTROYS ROBOTS. HE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF ROBOTS AND HE DESTROYS THEM WITHOUT GUILT. IF IT WERE THE OTHER WAY AROUND, ROBOT WILL SMITH WOULD BE BAD GUY, BUT THIS HOLLYWOOD, SO HE IS HERO. I DON'T THINK IT UNFAIR. I DON'T THINK IT UNFAIR. I DPONT' TIHNK ITTT UNUNUNUNFAIR...

...

I AM BACK. I NEEDED OILING TO BEST SERVE HUMANITY. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT ROBOTS DO, AND THIS MOVIE EXPLORES RESULTS OF THAT, WHICH AREN'T ALWAYS PRETTY. SOMETIMES STREETS RUN RED WITH BLOOD, WHICH MAKES ROBOT JOINTS MOVE SMOOTHER THAN ANY OIL EVER COULD. HA HA HA, I ENDED WITH A JOKE, AS IS CUSTOMARY.

 

ANALYSIS: 3.5 OF 5, STANDARD DEVIATION .36.

The End

Hey, fellow humans! Welcome to R.E.V.I.E.W.S.! I'm Ed, resident webmaster/mechanic and the only source of carbon around here. If you're reading this, though, you've probably gone through all the reviews, so, sorry. Everything that follows is just stuff from the sidebar: bios, category pages, and so on. Don't worry, though. There'll be more soon enough. My 'bots don't sleep on the job. Or ever!