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This was directed by Tobe Hooper who had just "wowed" us with Poltergeist a few years prior. I'll just flat out say,
this movie missed the boat on one thing. It's hard to care
about the people. We have no idea where they come from to
begin with. All attitudes remain relatively consistent
leaving some of the actors with barely 2 dimensional roles,
even with their gusto. I really don't like to rag on
a movie, because I'm aware they are such hard work, but I
work my ass off all week, and on my free time when I pay
money, invest time to relax and escape in a movie….oh,
nevermind, you know the story. Lifeforce honestly has so
much going for it. With an obviously HUGE budget, all the
sets and attention to detail, most every frame of the film
looks specifically balanced (thankfully shown in it's
original 2.35:1 aspect ration). Special effects are kinda
bold, kinda predictable, and a regular movie/ comic book
plot, yet it loses you…er, uhh, it lost me. I didn't care
about anyone; I lost everyone's name. I remember thinking at
the end, "why don't they just kill off the protagonist and
try to make it a scoche more interesting…." Ironic. It's
just disappointing that it had so much going for it and ended
up being so director possessed.
This director also made the famous Texas Chainsaw Massaccre, which wasn't that gruesome, but had a strong sense of horror, and not one I particularly want to see at this stage in my life. (Pay to watch torture?) And even though I saw that probably about 15 years ago, if I remember correctly, we at least got to know the kids a little at in the beginning. Zip in "Lifeforce." Lifeforce is about a research crew in space that sees another space craft floating around. They check it out then awaken and bring "vampires" to earth, (London) who don't bite necks but suck your life out of your mouth - kinda like electricity. You're left a bloodless corpse that can move around a little and you try to grab someone to suck the lifeforce from (ie spreading the system),or you blow up - of course! Bunny trail….oddly enough, our eyeballs are filled with blood--that's why they're plump, and even though these corpses are obviously drained and dry of blood, their eyes are bulging…. There is a leader in this and it's the introduction of some woman. I forget the name and don't care. She's 'perfect' looking and naked throughout. But they have her so 1 dimensional that she honestly comes across as a naked manequin. So we got a guy that thinks he can stop her - because of a bond they shared when he rescued their ship and brought them back to earth to kill us…. before she takes over the earth, blah, blah, blah. Who cares? Anyway, the DVD really shines. MGM stored and transferred this film pretty well. It's not remastered but the picture looks pretty terrific. Little artifacts and video noise. I saw some chroma noise a few times, but this disc looks very clean. The shots in this film look very well laid out. This reminds me of director Tom Holland's work a bit for that reason. It's very perfectionist looking. There is slight panning similar to Poltergeist. Lighting is smooth and deliberate. Fleshtones look natural. Blacks were consistently deep, but a few scenes had lighter blacks. I'd never seen this movie before either. The space ships looked great and the special effects looked like hard work and were pretty ok. CGI would've helped with the corpse's animation, but they were still pretty believeable looking. This DVD lacks 16x9 enhancement, which would have even added more clearity to this well photographed film. I read over and over that the remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound was pretty terrific on this DVD. No joke. It was great! Surrounds were used agressively and often split, the score though gooey was orchestrated and warm. Special effects swirled and pumped the bass woofer pretty good! ;) Overall, not a bad movie. Obviously this movie looks like it took a lot of hard work. It's too bad that they didn't develop hardly any characters or let us get to know them to begin with. A few were developed, but just because they ended up dying. It didn't 'take me' at all, but I can see why some people really like it. The movie works hard for you. (Where's Ridley Scott when you need him {or his bro}?) |
