Logan's Run (USA, 1976)
Directed by Michael Anderson
Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Peter Ustinov

Ever since Star Trek first arrived on our screens, it's been almost fashionable to dismiss science fiction as little more than enjoyable pantomime hogwash. Whatever interesting ideas the series tried to raise, more often than not the ideas would take a back seat to silly fighting, hammy acting and increasingly bizarre costumes. Coming a year before Star Wars rewrote the sci-fi rulebook, Logan's Run is a kindred spirit to the original Star Trek: campy, silly and utterly escapist, yet still passingly entertaining.One of the initial disappointments of Logan's Run is how little of the original novel survives in the screenplay. The novel, written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, used the counter-culture and youth movements of the mid-1960s as a platform for a story about eugenics and social engineering, predicting a society where the power of youth was so great that ageing beyond 21 was forbidden. But in the screenplay for Logan's Run, written by Straw Dogs scribe David Zelag Goodman, this fascinating premise is compressed into an old-fashioned action-adventure story, with most of the political undercurrents being taken out.

Logan's Run still has an interesting premise in spite of this - people can only live to 30 before they are elaborately executed - but in both its execution and its place within the sci-fi canon, it is much more old-fashioned than its source material. The film is directed by Michael Anderson, who had reached his peak in the 1950s with The Dambusters and the Oscar-winning Around the World in Eighty Days. He approaches Logan's Run in the same way as his classic work: as a star vehicle with a lot of locations and fun-packed action, and not much room for the darker, more political aspects of science fiction.Logan's Run contains many references to other sci-fi works, some classic, some contemporary. The idea of a totalitarian society in which people live only for pleasure can be traced back to Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's extraordinary novel which predicted (amongst other things) anti-depressants, test tube babies, and interactive media with the 'feelies', where you could see, hear and touch what was happening on screen. The Carrousel scenes are like more elaborate versions of the funeral from Soylent Green, while the general camp tone nods towards Planet of the Apes and its sequels.In light of Anderson's track record, the film to which Logan's Run most closely aspires is The Time Machine, directed by The War of the Worlds producer George Pal. The whole of Logan's Run is comparable to the final act of The Time Machine, in which a docile, hedonistic and ignorant society are held captive by evil forces - respectively morlocks and time itself. But in its overly frequent use of model shots and strange collection of weapons, Logan's Run is much less George Pal than Gerry Anderson. The wide shots of the domed city are closely reminiscent of Thunderbirds or Stingray, while the costumes are akin to Anderson's contemporary venture, Space: 1999.Logan's Run is clearly a product of its time, particularly where sets and costumes are concerned. While the men get to wear full-length uniforms or jumpsuits, the women are paraded around in a series of dresses and skirts which leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. When we first meet Jenny Agutter, she doesn't appear to be wearing any underwear - something which is confirmed on no less than two separate occasions. Despite having a budget of $9m (around the same as Star Wars), the film looks like it was made on the cheap and in a hurry. Whole sections of the domed city look like the inside of a shopping mall (which it is), with seemingly little time being spent on set-dressing.For most of its running time, Logan's Run is a very silly film. We quickly forget that Logan 5 is infiltrating the runners with the intention of finding and destroying Sanctuary - we forget, in other words, that he is a government puppet whose lifeclock has been artificially accelerated. After Logan initially defeats Francis, the plot descends into a series of set-pieces in increasingly elaborate sets until Peter Ustinov turns up to help us get a grip.The tone of these set-pieces is generally light-hearted, with our heroes surviving seemingly implausible scenarios while managing to maintain their perfect hair and make-up. But in the midst of this frivolity there are little pockets of creepiness, such as their encounter with Box. He trundles into shot like a bargain basement Dalek and starts spouting off about plankton and sea greens, all of which seems completely harmless. But then he leads Logan and Jessica to a corridor of runners frozen in ice: Box implies that they are now being used for food, pulls out two guns and laughs wickedly. While still silly at heart, it's as though we had accidentally wandered into Soylent Green.The silly, campy tone of Logan's Run is consolidated by the acting. Michael York manages to keep his dignity for the most part: his unique voice gives him an air of authority while keeping his more sensitive moments believable. Jenny Agutter makes the very best of a duff role: she spends a lot of her opening scenes wandering around open-mouthed in next to nothing, but she eventually gets into her stride. But aside from the leads the acting is very wooden, and while no-one comes close to the 'quality' of Charlton Heston or William Shatner, it's difficult not to snigger at how straight-laced everything is. The film lacks the knowing deftness of Flash Gordon, with only a small fraction of the cast being in on the joke.But in spite of its copious flaws, Logan's Run eventually emerges as a passingly enjoyable slice of science fiction. The irony is that once we have given up trying to take it seriously, the film begins to get off the ground and say the things that it really wants to say. The later sections of the film, while still a little ridiculous, make up for the loose, baggy opening act and do raise a couple of interesting issues around the central theme.A big part of this transition is down to Peter Ustinov. Gene Siskel, who once called this the worst film he'd ever seen, wrote that Ustinov's cameo was unduly extended because he was the only decent thing in the whole film. While few would share Siskel's view, his performance is by far and away the best, and his character is the most interesting. He plays a seemingly senile old man who is found by Logan and Jessica wandering around the ruined House of Representatives. The film never states exactly why he is still alive; perhaps, like J. F. Sebastian in Blade Runner, he was too old to leave the old ways behind.Like Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov has immense screen presence. He is able to take the most ridiculous or stupid line, and deliver it in such a way that it gains great weight or feels deeply important. He might be rambling on about cats having three different names, but his mannerisms feel more developed than the other characters, and his dithering manner works as a means of reaction to Logan and Jessica, who have no concept of age or decay.In its later sections, Logan's Run also takes on a Biblical quality, with undertones emerging in the attitude and development of the characters. Logan and Jessica's escape from the domed city is akin to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden - although, in line with the conspiracy element of the film, Eden is too good to be true in the first place. The ending of the film is also rooted in the Old Testament, with Ustinov emerging like a nervous Moses, ready (unexpectedly) to lead his people out of Egypt.

The film is also prophetic in predicting the increased social role for cosmetic surgery. In an age where breast implants, tummy tucks and facelifts have become both cheap and fashionable, it isn't too far-fetched to believe that, in the near-future, you could change your entire appearance through just a few quick flicks of a laser. The fight between Logan and the doctor (played by Michael Anderson Jr.) is one of the better action scenes, taking the laser sequence in Goldfinger to its natural conclusion.There is much about Logan's Run which would be good cause to dismiss it. Its production values have dated badly, the ideas are compromised by a generic adventure story, and both its plot and execution are preposterous. But it just about manages to pass muster in the end, being consistently entertaining and getting a grip on things in the final act. It succeeds where so many of the Star Trek movies failed, and while it never reaches the heights of Flash Gordon, it passes the time rather nicely.

Rating:
Verdict: Preposterous but perfectly passable

Batman and Robin (USA, 1997)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Chris O'Donnell

Most of us grow up believing that Batman and Robin is the worst film of all time, a position reinforced by countless polls in magazines. It's only as our understanding of film grows that we come to realise that Joel Schumacher's Razzie-nominated magnum opus is not so much an abomination as a case of colossal misjudgement. Make no mistake, it's utter rubbish, but it's not the worst film ever made by quite some distance.As with its processor, the best way to understand Batman and Robin is through the extent of Tim Burton's involvement. With Batman Forever, Burton stayed on as a producer; he still held some sway over the end result, in least in terms of ensuring some form of continuity between his vision and that of his replacement. But with this instalment Burton and his sense of direction are completely absent. The hefty box office of Forever, which surpassed that of Batman Returns, gave Schumacher a free rein with full studio backing - and he made a total pig's ear of it.One of the arguments used to defend Batman and Robin is that the film was made too quickly. Warner Brothers wanted a rapid follow-up to Forever, hiring Schumacher in August 1996 and telling him to have the finished film ready to release in ten months. But Schumacher was used to shooting so quickly, averaging a film a year between 1993 and 1997. This is proved by his decision to film A Time to Kill instead of waiting on Warner Brothers, and by production on Batman and Robin wrapping two weeks early. Finally, though screenwriter Akiva Goldsman was officially hired in August, he and Schumacher had already worked out the story on the set of A Time to Kill.The script of Batman and Robin is not so much a script as a list of awful one-liners. Amidst his inexplicable Oscar win for A Beautiful Mind, Goldsman has scripted such utter disasters as Lost in Space and The Da Vinci Code. There is one good line in the whole screenplay: it occurs in the museum when the guards and gassed, and one of them is heard to shout "Oh my lungs!".The rest of the time the script is lazy, shoddy and devoid of any character development. The story itself is incredibly derivative, borrowing from action movie clichés as it sees fit. The final showdown involving satellites, lasers and sunlight is a straight lift from Diamonds are Forever or Goldeneye (sticking with the Bond theme, it could almost be called the inspiration for Die Another Day). The designs of Mr. Freeze's vehicles are a total rip-off of Mad Max, and there are passing nods to A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner which will make every seasoned film buff's blood boil.Schumacher has always been a director concerned with style above everything else, often to the point that he has forgotten how to tell a story. John Glover, who plays the mad scientist, recalled that Schumacher would shout: "Remember, everyone, this is a cartoon" before every take, and Chris O'Donnell commented that the film resembled a toy commercial. If Batman Forever was like a dark nightclub that had been turned into a disco, Batman and Robin is like a night at Studio 54 populated by characters from The Care Bears or Barney the Dinosaur.The problem with Schumacher's approach is not a problem with being light or camp in itself. There are many great action films within the camp style which still hold up - Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, even Mad Max to some extent. The problem is that this approach is force-fed to the audience, with every scene and action being played so far over-the-top that there is no room left for the ideas to be presented intelligently. This is reflected in the film's homoeroticism, present in everything from the bat-nipples and rubber asses to Poison Ivy's lair being in a Turkish bath. The problem is not homoeroticism in and of itself - it's that we are so repeatedly told to believe that Batman is gay that we never have a chance to think about what else might be going on.The only times when Batman and Robin even slightly works are the conversations between Bruce and Alfred about the purpose of Batman. This is in itself an indictment of the film: the villains are so boring and obnoxious that the only character we care about is the butler. Michael Gough gamely trudges his way through lines about cancelling pizza and housekeeping, and actually manages, unlike the other actors, to have more than one facial expression. If nothing else, his efforts make for welcome if mawkish diversion from an unnecessary deluge of special effects.Throughout the Batman saga, the films have always been at their weakest whenever the effects were allowed to dominate - think of the opening set-piece of Forever, the spinning Batmobile from Returns, even the chase scenes from the first film. But all of these niggles pale in comparison with Batman and Robin, which is all about the effects. From its opening set-pieces to its final scenes involving satellites directing sunlight, there is a reliance on CGI and digital trickery to such an extent that the characters become completely secondary.This feeling of superfluity is reinforced by Schumacher's direction. It's all very well constructing ten-minute action scenes with a beginning, middle and end, but the editing has to complement the action to justify the length. Schumacher's editing is terrible - there is no sense or pacing, and his angles are constantly shifting so that you can't really see what's going on. Seeing Freeze and Batman surf down to Gotham might have worked had it been done in one take, but with a cut every few seconds it feels completely devoid of energy.As far as the acting goes, it makes the characters in Rocky Horror look understated. Uma Thurman is so bad that she makes William Shatner seems naturalistic, while the gormless Alicia Silverstone thoroughly deserved her Razzie nomination. The problem with casting such seemingly glamorous women is that we only believe in them when they put the spandex on. Before their real self becomes the cover story, there's no way we can believe that Thurman is a bookish scientist, or Silverstone is a schoolgirl.The male performers fare no better. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have been the king of one-liners in his day, but even his best lines are repetitive, cheesy and can be seen coming a mile off. Every possible pun involving ice, snow or cold is used, to the point where the character has become a parody of itself. George Clooney, who has since disowned the film, walks around with air of a man who things staring into middle distance will somehow maintain his dignity. And Chris O'Donnell remains. unconvincing and spends most of his lines whinging.When Sucker Punch was released, Mark Kermode observed that getting angry about the film's sexual politics was doing it a greater service than it deserved - the biggest reaction being sheer boredom above all else. In the case of Batman and Robin, there is so much to get angry about in terms of plot holes (why would Mr. Freeze hide in an ice-cream pub? Why would people not die from focussed sunlight? How come Bane can be defeated so easily? Etc.). But to get in a huff about these things, valid overlooks the most important and cynical aspect of the film.The reason Batman and Robin's story is so terribly weak is that the film exists mostly if not wholly to sell merchandise. There is no reason for Batman, Robin and Batgirl to change costumes: it is only in the film so that kids have to buy two action figures rather than one. The same goes for all of Freeze's gadgets, Poison Ivy's hairstyles, and the infamous Bat credit card, which takes jumping the shark to a whole new level.Batman and Robin is the point where bad movies end and terrible movies begin. It's easily the worst film of the Burton-Schumacher era, ignoring all that was right about Burton's efforts and extrapolating all that was wrong with Batman Forever. Its reputation as one of the worst films of all time is such that to kick it when it so far down feels almost cruel. But suffice to say, the franchise needed a good eight years to recover before the arrival of a dark knight in shining armour.

Rating:
Verdict: Where bad movies end and terrible ones begin

Batman Forever (USA, 1995)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Chris O'Donnell

Changing the director in the middle of a franchise can create seismic differences in the quality of the respective instalments. Sometimes this is for the better: Alfonso Cuaron lifted the Harry Potter series with Prisoner of Azkaban, bringing a real sense of magic and wonder where Chris Columbus had failed on both counts. On other occasions, such as this one, the franchise does not benefit, resulting in a film with none of the weight of Tim Burton's instalments and which is nothing more nor less than a little bit boring.The key to understanding Batman Forever lies in the relationship between Tim Burton and his replacement Joel Schumacher. Despite having left the director's chair after the mixed reception of Batman Returns, Burton stayed on to produce the third instalment at the behest of Warner Brothers. While this did not give him anything resembling creative control, it did give him a certain amount of power on the set, so that he could always step in if he felt that things were going too far off the rails.As a result of Burton's presence there is some degree of continuity between the universe of Returns and Forever. Despite its gaudier design and campier style, it doesn't feel entirely like you've switched over to the TV series right after watching the second film. Certain sections, such as the death of Bruce's parents, have been reshot so that they retain their existing composition but with the new colour scheme and editing style. By making the head of Arkham Asylum a goofy-haired man called Dr. Burton, the series tips its hat to his style and sensibility, acknowledging that without him we would never have got this far.But while we are ostensibly in the same Gotham City, the emphasis has been shifted away from expressionist architecture and dark anti-heroes, and onto something a lot more frivolous. Where Burton uses style as a means of expressing deeper themes or character traits, Schumacher is all about style for its own sake, and never mind the story. This reflects their respective beginnings as filmmakers: Burton cut his teeth in animation, creating drawings which had to speak a thousand words, while Schumacher started out designing costumes for Woody Allen's Sleeper.What we end up with is a film which is lit to within an inch of its life, but scripted to a bare minimum. Like the TV series, there is a central plot which is relatively thin and largely implausible, around which action set-pieces can be positioned and stretched out for as long as is necessary. There are big references to Schumacher's back catalogue throughout - the street gang with fluorescent make-up are a re-tuning of the vampires from The Lost Boys, while the scenes with Nicole Kidman's psychiatrist tread very close to the dialogue in Flatliners.Batman Forever is often cited as the point when the Batman series shifted from being about the comics to being about the merchandise. Many fans have cited Val Kilmer's opening lines about "getting drive-through" as the moment at which the franchise jumped the shark. There is a large amount of truth in this: the shift towards brighter colours, sillier villains and the increased hardware available to Batman points towards a desire to sell action figures and lunchboxes rather than something more grown-up.

But while there is a market-driven edge to this Batman instalment, it is not as crass or as cynical as it could have been. The plot is at best ironic and at worst duplicitous - creating an evil weapon which warps people's minds through television, when whole sections of the film resemble a commercial, at least in the way that they are lit. But it doesn't force the merchandise down the viewer's throat like Batman and Robin did, and compared to the work of Michael Bay it's totally harmless.For its first 45 minutes, the predominant reaction to Batman Forever is not betrayal or disgust but boredom. The opening set-piece, involving Two Face's elaborate heist and a safe full of acid, feels dragged out and is played for laughs way too obviously. The stunts become increasingly preposterous and the supporting characters have less personality than in the Burton films.

Whereas in Batman Returns there was a sense of all the villains and some of the bystanders having minds of their own, the security guard in the bank is confined to whining "Oh no!" with increasing desperation. There is less of a role for Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, and Michael Gough is increasingly sidelined. During the set-pieces Schumacher's love of aesthetics becomes frequently overbearing. In the sequence on the rocks near the Riddler's lair, there is so much green on the screen that you can't see what's going on. It's like watching Flash Gordon without the wit or directorial vision.The performances reflect this sense frustration. Val Kilmer is a plank as Bruce Wayne, and has an off-putting, haughty quality which conveys that Kilmer thought he was above the role. When he's in the bat-suit, he unwittingly pouts in almost every scene, as though he saw wearing the mask as an excuse to stop acting, at least with his face. Jim Carrey does an awful lot of gurning as Edward Nigma, and he only stops being annoying when he's being reined in by Tommy Lee Jones, who genuinely gets the character and seems to be having fun.Nicole Kidman, whose character was written specifically for the film, spends an awful lot of her screen time doing nothing but wandering around in a little black dress. Like Kim Basinger in the first film, whatever attempt is made to build her character up as intelligent is eventually undone; she ends up as a damsel in distress, accompanied by a gratuitous upskirt shot as she falls out of the tube. And Chris O'Donnell never entirely convinces either as Dick Grayson or as Robin. When he pretends to be Batman while facing the street gang, we're laughing at him as much as with him.However, after we have cantered through the Riddler's backstory and drunk our fill of pouting, whinging, gurning and flirting, Batman Forever finally kicks into gear and starts to have a plot which feels like it has something to say. It stops being an overgrown kid playing with toys and becomes a film about repression of childhood memories.Where the previous two films dealt with Batman as an outsider, who may be no better than the villains he is fighting, Batman Forever asks the question of whether Bruce Wayne can ever live with himself, as Batman and as a fractured human being. There is continuity from Batman Returns in the role of women; Chase makes a passing reference to Catwoman on the rooftop, and she proves instrumental in helping Bruce come to terms with himself.The point seems to be that the central dilemma of Batman is always the same - where does the man end and the bat begin, both in terms of personality and in terms of authorit. The various villains or sideshows which Batman encounters are just different ways of asking the same questions, whether through violence (Two-Face), riddles (The Riddler) or seduction (Chase). Considering what happened with the sequel, one could argue that this is just a ploy to have infinite new villains turn up in infinite new films, but at least the film has the guts to raise one of the central issues of the comics, even if it handles it with kid gloves.Batman Forever is a noisy, incoherent and often dull third instalment of a franchise which was already showing signs of fatigue. For all its good intentions and attempts to grapple with several ideas, it never follows through enough with any of them to cut the mustard, resorting to special effects to disguise Schumacher's shortcomings as a storyteller. But despite this, it's passingly entertaining, with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey eventually coming through with the goods as a double act. It's a consistent and inoffensive disappointment; if only the same could be said for the sequel.

Rating:
Verdict: An inoffensive disappointment

The Boys from Brazil (USA, 1978)
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
Starring Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Jeremy Black

From the sadistic Amon Goeth in Schindler's List to the pantomime Gestapo in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nazis have consistently proven themselves to be Hollywood's most reliable villains. The costumes, accents and mannerisms are so easy to recognise and replicate that a wide range of characters can be created. Nazis on film can be cold, ruthless and heartless, or scenery-chewing cannon fodder - the enemies of democracy, or something more playful and harmless.Coming three years before Raiders, The Boys from Brazil attempts to have the best of both worlds. It attempts to explore serious ideas about history repeating itself and the dangers of scientific progress, within the confines of a pulpy plot and a great deal of hammy acting. In the end it does veer sharply towards the silly end of things, but even if it can't compete with Steven Spielberg, there is still much to cherish and enjoy.Considering the context in which it was made, it's fair to assume that The Boys from Brazil carried a great deal more weight than would appear immediately obvious. Coming only 16 years after the capture of Adolf Eichmann, it was still faintly credible to believe that there were dozens of ex-Nazis hiding out in South America, harbouring bitterness and plotting to 'put things right'. Likewise this was nearly 20 years before Dolly the Sheep was created; cloning was still the stuff of science fiction, and the lack of palpable examples in nature made the prospect of a Fourth Reich all the more terrifying.This feeling of weight is compounded by the talent on both sides of the camera. The film is based on a novel by Ira Levin, whose previous works, Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives, had captivated the public both in print and on the big screen. Franklin J. Schaffner had demonstrated his ability to combine politics and populist entertainment in both the original version of Planet of the Apes and the Oscar-winning Patton. And then we have the two male leads, one a beloved Hollywood veteran, the other hailed as the greatest actor ever to grace the English stage.With the bar set so high, you could be forgiven for reacting badly to the finished film. There is a conflict between the serious talent involved and the essentially pulpy, trashy nature of the story, which means the film has neither has the grace or poise to be a truly 'serious' work, nor the knowingness needed to take it into Flash Gordon territory. Some of the sillier moments of the film may produce the same belly-laughs and face-splitting grins that Mike Hodges achieved, but for the most part it is sadly unintentional.Part of this silliness, as has been mentioned, comes from innate contrivances in the plot. While there is great potential in the idea of old Nazis cloning Hitler to bring back their great empire and enslave the world all over again, the idea falters when the actual technology is examined. We are asked to believe that the cloning technology we see on screen is both cutting-edge - according to Bruno Ganz - and would have been available some 25 years ago, so that Gregory Peck's Dr. Mengele could have come up with such a scheme in the first place.If you manage to get beyond this initial trifle, there are various other contrivances and plot holes surrounding the mystery element of the film. Even if Ezra Lieberman were the most highly-skilled Nazi hunter in the world, it seems unfeasible that he could pick up the trail so quickly simply by sorting through newspaper clippings of civil servants. Furthermore, if Mengele's plan is to condition the young Hitler clones, why does said conditioning start with the fathers being murdered? Surely to be properly effective, the boys would have to be encouraged to be artistic rather than just assuming that they would be genetically? Finally, there is the small matter of the money - for all the stories about Nazi gold hidden in Swiss bank accounts, it's hard to imagine James Mason and his associates living quite so lavishly without detection.Then there are the performances to consider. Peck had recently returned to public prominence through his role in The Omen, which avoided becoming preposterous by the gravity and subtly of his performance. In this, however, he is hamming it for all his worth, scowling at the camera, chewing the scenery and spitting out his lines in a German accent which, to be kind, comes and goes. Laurence Olivier is equally ripe, although his accent is more ridiculous and wanders more obviously. The fact that he was Oscar-nominated for his performance is proof that the film, and perhaps the Academy, had gotten sillier with age.

In a way, though, the performances hold the key to enjoying or understanding the film. Once you accept the hammy tone both Peck and Olivier are going for, your opinion slowly adjusts from one of mild disappointment to embracing the film as a piece of trashy fun. From this point of view the two leads are enjoying themselves, and in their final confrontation much of that enjoyment rubs off on us. Considering that both actors were well over 60 (and Olivier was recovering from kidney surgery), it's a thrill that they could actually do the fight scene, let alone do it so well.If the fight scene is a case of 'spot the stunt double', then the supporting cast is one of 'spot the famous face'. One of the murdered fathers is played by Michael Gough (Batman's butler), and his wife is Prunella Scales, best known for playing Sybil in Fawlty Towers. Walter Gotell, famous for his role as a Soviet agent in the Bond films, makes an appearance as one of Mengele's oldest allies. He gets one of the funniest lines in the film early on, when he remarks: "And by killing this old mailman I will be fulfilling the destiny of the Aryan race?".

Bruno Ganz, who would ironically play Hitler in Downfall years later, shows up later on as a professor specialising in cloning. He makes the most of what is essentially the Basil Exposition role: his job is to explain how cloning works so we and Olivier can join the dots and unleash the twist. There is also a very good performance by Jeremy Black, who goes through a multitude of accents and one very bad haircut to convincingly play all the different clones of Hitler.The film also has its fair share of B-movie special effects which somehow make it more endearing. Aside from fairly standard acts, like a dummy being thrown off a dam and Bobby's dad falling strangely after being shot, we have the sequence of Peck being mauled to death by several Alsatians. Here we get false arms dangling off Peck's body, obvious make-up (with scars that are raised up off his forehead) and bucketloads of giallo-red blood.Within these final scenes The Boys from Brazil attempts - and partially succeeds - to touch on the serious issue at the heart of its story. It explores the danger of fascism or other tyranny returning if people forget about it; Mengele's experiment is possible because even those charged with bringing Nazis to justice have lost faith in their cause. There is also an argument about pre-emptive justice, i.e. should the clones be killed for what they may become, or should they be left to develop and choose their own destinies. The film does well in showing both sides of the argument; Lieberman destroys the list of the 94 boys, but then in a classic Levin twist, we see Bobby Wheelock in his dark room, staring with a morbid fascination at Mengele being ripped to shreds...The Boys from Brazil is an interesting and enjoyable if completely silly film, which brings several interesting issues to the fore while providing ample in the way of entertainment. It's not as successful as Rosemary's Baby or The Stepford Wives, either as an adaptation of Levin's work or as a deeply disconcerting piece of filmmaking. But once we have embraced its hammy exterior, and forgiven its more obvious shortcomings, it emerges as something with bombast, brio, and just a little bite.

Rating:
Verdict: Suspenseful but silly