V

Darth Buzz

SCORE: 5

I had read several positive reviews on the net about how good this show was and had positive memories from my youth so I ran to my nearest Best Buy and picked up my own personal copy of V on DVD. Upon arriving at home I wanted to get a look at it right away so I popped it into my DVD player on my computer (where I do most of my DVD watching, I live in an apartment) and watched the first scene. I thought cool this is MUCH better than I remember, decent action in widescreen with some sound FX that had some good thump to it. I happily pulled out the DVD to view later when I had more time, this is 196 minutes after all.

Well that later finally came and I watched past that first good action sequence and then from that point on the show plummeted into a cheesy hell of really bad acting and a goofy WW II Nazi Lizards from space story. Of course the WW II comparison is super obvious and the show even had a Jewish family to remind us (like we need it) that the lizards are Nazis and the scientists of Earth are the new Jews. The lizards even use some of the same propaganda that the Nazis used. It's so obvious that it's like their trying to beat you over the head with it.

In regards to that bad acting I was talking about, just imagine the cast of Pitch Black asked to do Schindler's List (yeah it's that bad). There are times in the show where Marc Singer (genius that he is) is grinning like an idiot and he is supposed to be delivering serious lines. He is by no means the only actor to deliver horrible acting performances in this film. There is plenty of bad acting to go around for just about the whole cast. (some worse than others)

The FX in V is a mixed bag. There are shots of the mothership that look very good, but any shots of the shuttles in flight look like cardboard cutouts flying across the screen. Some of the props like the guns look really cheap too. It's a bad sign when Star Trek the old series is kicking your ass on props.  Overall it looks like what it is, a TV movie.

Unfortunately this is one of those many cases of, "it was good when I was a dumb kid but now it sucks syndrome." So now that I have watched V on DVD, the first thought that comes to my mind is how fast I can sell this turd.