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Reviews
Poor Things (2023)
Still not certain where this movie took me, but it was a great ride.
"The Alien Has Landed" + "Frankenstein" in a steampunk universe.
Still not certain where this movie took me. Guess I'll have to watch it again, or perhaps a couple more times.
However I am certain that it was a great ride. I am also absolutely certain that I'll enjoy the re-watch, and not just for the pornographic elements, which are many, varied and all quite tasty.
What is less certain is if I got the whole message. Actually I' m certain that I did not. Some dialog is spoken softly and some is in French. For that I will require a DVD with pause, rewind and subtitles. Again, I won't mind for the above reasons and more.
"Poor Things" drops you into a steampunk alternate reality, with physical and biological rules that are significantly bent from our own.
Once reality was severely bent, I had zero problems maintaining my suspension of disbelief (a sad FAIL in so many many other films). From me, that is high praise to the writers, editors, and director.
Elaborate glass plates depicting unreal landscapes were not jarring - we are in an alternate reality and we are quite busy with storytelling/storywatching.
Example: A supporting character notes that the protagonist's long luxurious hair grows very very quickly. Then it indeed gets longer and longer as the movie progresses. Nice touch!
Can't wait for the DVD. I suspect that some very strong story beats ended up on the cutting room floor. Hope they're included in either a directors cut, or a "deleted scenes" special feature.
Passengers (2016)
Flawed, but Beautiful.
Shoulda been a 9 or higher at IMDb and 90%+ at Rotten Tomatoes, but....
There was a handful of small flaws and an effing big one. This probably cost them 50-points at RT and cut box office by 80%.
I won't tell what that is. What I will do is warn you that it's there and suggest you forgive it ahead of time, so that you'll actually buy a ticket. I promise, you'll get your $12 worth, and probably rent it from RedBox to watch again.
This movie is everything they promise in the trailers.You already know that the scenery is awesome. Beyond the very scenic JLaw and CPratt, the big Space Cruise Liner is imagined and executed exactly as promised in the trailers. Which is to say beautifully.
JLaw and CPratt carry the whole film and they totally deliver. Better than you have any reason to expect, except that HEY! it's JLaw and CPratt!
Both characters look into the abyss at different times, and each makes fate-filled decisions that drive the movie.
The WTF of that big effing flaw is a mystery to me. Any kid who got a "C" in 8th grade science will spot it, which means at least 500 of the 1,000 or so folks who worked this movie would have mentioned it to the director Morton Tyldom. He left it in. I won't tell you what it sets up, which is kinda cool, but it does NOT drive the plot, and should have been cut for "Deleted Scenes" on the DVD release
SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF. Sci-fi asks us to suspend some disbelief, but the director never gets a blank check. Once a film creates a universe with its own rules, the director is responsible for maintaining those rules. Failure to do so, drops the viewer out of suspended disbelief, insulting our intelligence along the way. This is both wrong and expensive. It's painful to the audience, it's also painful to the movie's box-office earnings.
Sorry about the rant, I did like the movie and do recommend it. Wish I could give it a 9 or 10.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)
From the Book: The Taliban Shuffle
This movie is totally worth a prime-time ticket and a big popcorn. Then get the DVD to show it to friends. No scenery/FX worth a BluRay.
Some folks question changing the excellent title of the book on which it is based to: WHISKEY, TANGO, FOXTROT. That phrase may not be as well known as what it translates to ("What The Fsck,") but wondering-then-figuring-it-out does get attention. The sales cycle Attention/Interest/Desire/Action is thus well served.
I suspect that "Foxtrot/Fsck" in a movie title with Margot Robbie's character admitting she knows she's a "15" in AfPak and then "usin' it" in the trailers, sets an expectation that we'll see at least as much of her as we did in say, "The Big Short" or "Wolf of Wallstreet" and that sells tickets. Ms. Robbie has a lot of well deserved "body confidence," which by itself did not sell me a ticket - but it didn't hurt either.
Co-Producer Fey wants to tell tickets, yes, but she has told us a story and she wants us to see it. A 5-star business decision, say I.
The movie shows what happens when you mix a stone-age culture with modern weapons from the POV of a New York Girl/Journalist. Neither book or movie have suggestions on what to do about AfPac. It does however help us understand what "The Graveyard of Empires" is all about.
Ex Machina (2014)
Instant Classic
AI movies have been done. Often in fact. But never ever quite so well.
This is about a Turing Test with a twist (see: "The Imitation Game" about Alan Turing, featuring the test).
In pure form, the artificial intelligence being tested, is behind a curtain or in a different room. The tester is tasked with determining whether a conversation was a machine or a human. The interface could be text or voice, but usually imagined as text. Here the tester knows that he's communicating with, and looking at, a walking talking AI. You've seen the trailers. Using CGI to turn the arms, legs, neck and torso of an actress into something transparent like a clear-faced mechanical watch is a nice touch, but it doesn't really advance the plot enough to justify the trouble and expense. But I'm sure it sells tickets and draws award nominations.
The tester is tasked with determining if the AI is indeed sentient. "How?" Designing the test is part of the assignment of course. In posters and trailers you already know that 'Ava' the AI has "a great rack." This is not just movie marketing, it's actually part of the experiment and plot. Movie marketing wise, it works of course.
Alex Garland's first movie as director, brings to my mind George Lucas' first work: THX-1138. A lot. If we are seeing parallel career tracks, hold on to your socks folks. His next project could well hit the upper nine figures at the box-office then it's on to Billion-dollar grosses for a few decades. This work deserves a box office in the early 9 figures, and I sincerely hope he makes it. If not, Hollywood will see the talent, but there's nothing like a blockbuster to get a green light on your next five projects. I really want to see his next five projects.
Elements of this film are pure buddy flick complete with a LOT of beer. These buddies happen to be boy-prodigy hacker-smart, having conversations that Aaron Sorkin characters would aspire to.
One guy is a zillionaire who wrote the foundation app for a Google-type search engine at 13, the other guy is one of his many thousands of employees, born in my hometown of Portland Oregon, who entered college already a highly accomplished coder. They are NOT "Big Bang Theory" geeks. These are very-bright sensitive-new-age-guys who've done some therapy and it's stuck.
Forget the hot nekkid chicks and how well they fit the plot. This movie at its core is an exquisite dialog between very fine minds about the nature of sentience. The hot nekkid chicks are good marketing of course. And they fit the plot. Oh, I've said both points twice now.
Worthy of mention is that the zillionaire's mountain retreat is an architectural jewel. It is truly stunning, as are the mountain / waterfall / glacier exteriors used in a hiking scene. (Spoiler alert!) The house is not blown up in the final scene, suggesting that it is a real house somewhere rented for the project. I would like to think that it really does exist somewhere, even without the secret lab levels.
Production budget not released, but I'm guessing well under $25M even if they built the house as a set instead of renting an interesting home. For comps, the production budget for "Her" - another AI movie - was published as $23M including salaries for two established A-listers. Low, but you don't miss it on screen, there or here.
The zillionaire character has a great art collection at his mountain retreat home, including a huge Jackson Pollock painting worth hundreds of millions. It's worthy of mention, because there is dialog about the painting that connects nicely to the plot. And reinforces that he is VERY rich.
I recommend seeing it in first-run with a large popcorn and drink, then buy the BluRay. Most of the plot is fine for DVD, but the exterior scenes would be very very nice in hi-def.
Atlas Shrugged: Part III (2014)
Plan 9 from Battlefield Earth
I gave Part I four (of ten) stars and Part II, five stars. To part III I give three stars.
Part III may be a serious challenge to "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Battlefield Earth" as worst movie of all time. If that encourages you to go see it now rather than later... well that's OK, at least you know what you're buying.
The book needed to be a movie (or movies) and now it is. Done badly, sadly, but done.
Capitalism really is a very good idea. Too bad it seems to be so tough to make capitalist movie-heroes look, well heroic. Guess the millions of really good capitalists out there are already devoted to actually making a buck. Perhaps there's a difference between being able to do something well and talking/writing/filming about it well.
This movie suffers most from the lack of talent and experience of the writer and director James Manera, especially the script. It has moments that are very nice indeed, but the awful scenes dominate memory and overall rating.
Screen chemistry between the two leads is somewhere between Part I (yick) and Part II (acceptable). In all three movies I think the sex scenes would have advanced the plot better with a quick flash of nudity followed by the camera politely turning away. Given the competition, zero on-camera foreplay is way preferable to bad on-camera foreplay.
In Volume III the single sex scene would have been so much better if a door had simply closed on the camera/audience after the first kiss. The setting was a storage room off of a railroad tunnel (yes really), so if Manera had closed the door and edited in a half-second of a train rolling, it would have been way more erotic.
Next we see the protagonist, a modern mega-power babe, grinning foolishly after sex where others can see it. More believable would have been a private smile behind a closed door; then all steel-eyes before the public.
My biggest gripe is that some political messages of Aynn Rand were presented too literally and others updated unconvincingly. A beat where an Antagonist was making a speech against "the greedy rich" should have used modern propaganda terms like "The 1%" but did not.
One of many problems when a society gives any power at all to The State, is that this power is exercised by human beings. Since nobody is perfect and wisdom is rare, decisions made in the name of The State are as likely (if not more likely) to abuse that power than use it wisely. This is a combination of arrogance, greed and non- competence, but the movie failed to show anything but arrogance.
A major omission, if a goal of the movie was to show the non- competence of government, was not showing the connection between a bad decision and a direct unintended consequence. A perfect blown opportunity is the plotted failure of "The Taggert Bridge" shown as an important bit of national infrastructure. There was no back-story showing a State-empowered executive deciding to cut critical infrastructure maintenance leading to the catastrophic-for-everyone fail.
Someday this book will be "rebooted" and the film done well. Who knows, done this poorly, someone might get angry and do it in less than 10 years. Hope it's at least in my lifetime.
If you've watched the first two installments, you will want to see Part Three, just to complete the set. Whether to do so in a Theater where some of your ticket will flow to the producers or wait for Red Box is up to you.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Minor flaws, but 9.5 of 10 stars.
MAYBE 9.5 of 10 stars.
Expect it to gross a third to a half of a billion dollars.
Some will miss:
1) Foreshadowing Sulu's promotion to Starship captain (ST-VI & the books).
2) Klingon body piercing.
3) Lawrence Livermore Fusion Tokomak used for engine room scenes.
4) Kirk's a bit too outside-the-box for the chain of command. They tell him. He starts to listen.
5) "Death of the mentor" a standard scene. I really liked this character.
6) Uhura kicks ass. Spock's ass kicked verbally then Khan's kicked literally.
7) Scotty takes a stand. This makes making him available to save the day. Too convenient perhaps but it works.
8) Pavil Checkov, 17-year-old boy genius, shines. Then hits his limits.
9) Kirk admits Spock is better for command (right now).
10) Actual space images for exteriors.
11) Life-limiting diseases still a problem in 200+ years.
12) Architecture both beautiful and believable.
SEX: Bechdel Test of gender bias in fiction: FAIL (look it up).
Someone on Wired.com's payroll quibbled about "a totally gratuitous" flash of female hotness. Ah... NOT.
Attractive females in various portrayals and undress are 100% vital to all forms of drama. Not just SF. Vital to viewers both gay and straight.
The few who don't appreciate showing Alice Eve (Dr. Marcus) in her undies include certain graduates of University PC Conditioning Programs who haven't yet figured out how badly they've been cheated. Cheated of an education that includes something resembling a useful skill.
Said scene hits the humor point that this Kirk at this time is 100% Lothario, hustling every female he comes near. Kirk overnights with two lookers not necessarily of his own species and still he hustles.
Not PC, but funny and 100% in-character. Don't forget that W.J. Clinton and J.F. Kennedy shared this leadership aptitude and playboy appetite.
Early in the Klingon confrontation, camera POV is from Zoe Saldana (Uhura's) thigh-level showing inner-thigh gap and where they meet. Gratuitous? Absolutely. But in the darkened theater, alone with my fantasies, I liked it.
Nits (in the spirit of making the next movie better / stuff problematic for me):
1) UFP Starships don't go underwater. Shuttles maybe, but even a (second) shuttle need not be a part-time submarine. Just park it in low planetary orbit or fly racetracks high in the atmosphere. Same plot/mission accomplished without straining credibility too far (for my tastes).
2) A planetary extinction level event (ELE) volcano is possible in science. Needed for dramatic plotting? Meh. A culture (oddly resembling the humanoids from Prometheus) living on its slopes is in enough jeopardy. The science and drama of this part were twisted - as was the solution.
A device that can quiet a super-volcano is a tough sell to my formal / self-eduction. Red Matter from the prior movie is an instant black hole, not a heat transfer (refrigeration) unit. Such a refrigeration unit, even in the Rodenberry-verse, would probably be a lot bigger than a bowling ball. It would need to be capable of sucking up a few hundred megatons of thermal energy in a few seconds. Just saying.
A better plot solution with accepted Rodenberry tech could involve transporting the people their structures and the things that they make to a safer place Do it while most sleep. Such a move would certainly make an impact on their culture, but perhaps less than a Starship breaching the nearby sea. Survivors would have legends, but they would be of an awakening day not including a tribal artist drawing a very accurate picture of it.
3) Why use totally inadequate-looking dish thrusters to stop the Enterprise's crashing descent through Earth's atmosphere? Early in, we see anti-gravity well established and a no big deal tech. Full-ship Anitgravity, previously used in the opening scene and probably offline till the last possible second, could have been sufficiently dramatic and nicely visualized with disturbances in clouds and air. You could even get close to the Earth and smash a few square miles of trees Tunguska-style.
4) Abrams has Starships hit warp drive fairly close to space docks. We were previously told that this is a bad idea. Something about Newtonian actions and reactions was implied but not spelled out.
I do like the new visualization of warp energy wakes.
5) General Marcus having a Dr. Strangelove meets Al Haig messiah-complex is a rather tired plot angle. Too PC. I'd like to think there's a better fitting motivation for an antagonist, but I may be wrong.
6) High-level, high-value military men are having a regulation-driven meeting when they come under surprise attack. They can't beam out of the secure conference room instantly? Are you kidding me? If transporter tech were available today, no such meeting would take place without the bug-out coordinates wired to a panic button in each and every conference chair. You could still have the mentor fumbling with his cane and that taking too long leading to his death. Kirk on counter-attack could be similarly plotted. My second biggest nit.
7) Khan has "Magic Blood" with any number of wonderful properties. It saves a sick little girl and a 100% dead Tribble. McCoy wants some more of it, so he orders that Khan, be captured, not killed. Set phaser on stun. WHAT? Meanwhile Khan is rather busy causing all sorts of death, destruction and miscellaneous mayhem.
McCoy has forgotten that there are 72 Meat-Popsicles aboard the Enterprise, each with similar magic blood in their veins.
Another fan found these nits:
1) A re-animated Tribble doesn't move off the table where it was revived, despite the passing of time and the ship being shaken around with some vigor.
2) Artificial Gravity that fails under attack make sense. The portrayal here does not.
Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012)
Light-years better than Part I
Went to Opening Day of Atlas Shrugged-Part II then watched Part I on DVD when I got home. I admit that I wanted to like it. To me Part II is a much better movie than Part I.
Part II stands on its own as a solid, well-written and well-presented SciFi story.
You can see hints of that in the trailer. The movie delivers what the trailer promises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF9QT43uDQU
Part II departs from "canon" for the sake of storytelling in movie format, but without leaving the basic premise behind. It will work for SciFi fans who like tales of rebels fighting against the power of the government machine in a near-future dystopia.
Being a Rand tale, "The Machine" government here uses ultra-liberal left-wing rhetoric to explain government takings and nationalizations. This evil Government Machine is explicitly a Marxist/Leninist construct. That is the point of the book, and this movie. Of course that will cost the movie a lot of ticket sales.
If you buy into the risks of government unions funding only one party this works for you. If you think that environmental groups channel campaign funding to only one party plus use the courts to block every economic development project ever proposed, not for the stated environmental purpose but to block economic activity; again this movie will work for you. If not, not.
The concept of "Useful Idiot" is not played much here – all the players know that they're using "fairness" as a smokescreen to harm productive people and have non-competitive ideas and organizations get unearned shares of the pie.
The hero/rebels protagonists have the skills to take labor, material, and capital to produce value. On an industrial scale. They also compete on an industrial scale. And win. They want to be producers for their own reasons, but they also want what they see as just rewards. The antagonists use politics to eat into their success and/or kill them. Some say this is fantasy. Some say it mirrors real life.
"Fairness" and Redistribution = Good vs. Intelligence and Hard Work = Good. -- A battle for the ages.
The main characters are older, rougher and have MUCH better romantic chemistry even though you see much less of them in bed. The hugely flawed marital bedroom scene from Part I is not presented again, thankfully. To me, the role of Mrs. Hank Reardon was one of the best presented characters in Part I. New actor in Part II, equally strong performance, thought the role no longer dominates the movie. In both movies the character was very much a parasite, more into her role as the socialite wife of a billionaire than his partner-come-what-may. I don't recall that Rand wrote her that way, but in both films, an actor sells you that this person is "the hero in her own movie" - though not to us munching popcorn of course.
Computer FX is simply a storytelling tool here. There's no Michael Bey budget- busting FX expense. We get the storytelling point without any attempt to convince us that this is actual footage of say, the Eiffel Tower being eaten by little bitty machines. We know going in that this is a classic tale told for the first time on the big screen on a limited budget. That's my only nit worthy of typing.
The budget of Part I was $10-Million - and it looked it. Part II looks like 3x to 4x that money. I don't know if they actually got more money or if Part I annoyed enough actors, writers etc. to get it done right this time on the same budget. Point being, Part II is light-years better than Part I.
New actors, director, and photographic direction. Part I had a rookie feel. Part II has people who can ACT and a director who lets them ACT. That's ACT in all caps. The craft of the director is more subtle, but you'll feel it.
Part I you watched from a comfortable seat. Part II draws you INTO the story, thanks to better Direction, Acting, Screen writing and Photography. Cinematography was a huge upgrade. Writing/direction was a huge upgrade. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/ /// http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1985017/
Some wonderful cameo's including Raymond Joseph Teller - "Teller" of Penn & Teller in a super-rare speaking part.
10 of 10 pro reviewers give Part II thumbs down at Rotten Tomatoes - or 0%. Audiences give it 81% thumbs up. Remember the cult status of the books when comparing these numbers, but also ask your own feelings about whether the MSM press tilts left or right.
Part I was a must-see movie for true fans of Ayn Rand of course. The rest of SciFi fandom will enjoy Part II on its own.
With luck Part II will fund Part III. They might even redo Part I.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Insults your intelligence
Didn't love it.
Don't want my money back, I bought the LARGE popcorn so it averages out a little better. Don't want 3 hours of my life back, it's not THAT (Time Machine) bad. Just expected better.
Christopher Nolan - a director who usually doesn't mess up on this scale, seems to have phoned it in, starting with the shooting script.
Camera, makeup, sets, lighting, sound, music , action sequence choreographers - all delivered. Exceeded expectations in fact.
Anne Hathaway was ass-kicking eye candy - totally great. Christian Bale was perfection. Michael Caine underplayed it also to perfection.
Edit/Directorial FAILs include Oldman and Freeman who were only allowed to deliver workmanlike performances this outing. TWO towering talents - used as wallpaper. Sigh. Oldman sizzled in the first two movies. Here his character looked into the abyss and compromised, yet we barely see his pain until it's all over. Freeman's "Lucius Fox" had a lot to be proud of and then a lot to worry about. We don't really /need/ Freeman to give us "the look" that says "the asteroid is coming," but we kinda expect it. He does it so well in a single beat. Those three to five missed "beats" didn't hurt the story, but two mega-talents were already on set and already paid. Editing/direction failed to let them connect with the audience as only they can. Expectations *not* met.
My knowledge of the world and science is often bruised by movies, but this time I felt insulted. Usually this is just engineering stuff (a jet can't actually do "that") but this time we've added geographic impossibilities and more.
A twin turboprop at cruise flies 250-366 MPH. You're gonna put bad guys on ropes to snatch a scientist from inside it while it's flying? Not a chance in the world, but Hollywood does this kind of crap so much, we're used to it by now.
Minion's willing to die for their leader - the antagonist - in large quantities - sure. Wait, there's no Islamic type faith involved? ah, not so likely.
Photographing an English country estate for Wayne Mansion ... well OK, but there are a bunch of former robber baron mansions in Cape Cod that are public parks nowadays - they could REALLY use the location fees to help their maintenance budgets.
Taking VERY WELL KNOWN (and frequently photographed in NatGeo etc.) interiors and exteriors in India and suggest they're a few minutes outside of Pittsburgh - err Gotham; err, NYC; err... Sigh. Suspension of disbelief shattered past point of recovery.
Antagonist in a mask? Check. But why exactly? Constant drip of pain meds, don't ya know. Ah... No. That's not the way pain management works.
10,000 cops trapped in a tunnel for weeks/months fed by care packages? Ah... no. They wouldn't emerge from the tunnel after weeks/months all in starched uniforms and battle ready either.
Terrorist antagonist spouting "we are the 99%" type balderdash at New Yorkers or Pennsylvanians (err, Gothamites) well, OK. BUT A LOT OF THEM BUY INTO IT? Ah...
A 6-figure to 7-figure super car in the garage without Bruce Wayne knowing it is there? No. A Prius or a Suburban sure, but past about $50k, there's a lot of ego in car selection - even for the super rich. They do have a few grins with it though.
Bruce Wayne really needs a cane to walk, then decides to become Batman in a very few days? Only in Hollywierd.
Some Pitsburgh Steelers playing themselves on the gridiron - unless they worked for SEG scale, that's spraying money, not telling a story.
Bat-Transport cycle and 'copter are 100% impossible, but they did look good so that part I can forgive.
Bat-'copter dodging half a dozen surface-to-air missiles by flying between sky-scrapers? Ya know, that's been done so many times, I won't object, other than to simply yawn at what should have been a high tension scene.
Good ride. Lots of wonderful moments. As a whole, it fails to delight. Good opening weekend, if otherwise newsy; but I doubt it breaks $1Bn or even $600m.
Prometheus (2012)
3 Big Goofs
Give this one 4 of 10 stars for the very truly beautiful visuals, including opening sequences and imaginings of the interiors... stuff you all saw in the trailers. Plus one more star for casting of female leads.
Big Goof 1:
Dr Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) wakes up from a deep-space sleep wearing two ace-bandages functioning as a bikini (covering the usual bits). The Ace bandages are fastened by metal-and-plastic clips that are somewhat more fancy that what we use today, but still the same function and clearly part metal.
We soon see her wearing a button-up night-shirt as she prepares to have sex with her partner. It's significant in that she has had a change of clothes since waking up from deep sleep. Probably a shower too.
Later entering a medical scanner, she's wearing an identical ace-bandage bikini again. No explanation on why this is the right thing to wear instead of say a t-shirt or hospital gown or scrubs. She is asked to remove a metal crucifix, but not the metal clips holding her ace-bandage "bikini" together.
The ace-bandage bikini is a very important outfit to the movie. Rapace/Shaw is still wearing it in a reprise of Sigorney Weaver's panic-in-just-a-thin-t-shirt moment. This outfit make no sense in terms of fashion or function or thrill or continuity. Hetro guys (including me) would prefer a t-shirt or something even more revealing. Rapace has shown us her considerable charms (Girl with a Dragon Tattoo) so why not at least a sweaty t-shirt?
Big Goof 2:
The "big-bad-nasty" wants to plant her embryo in you, so baby can eat you from the inside, till ready to hatch. Your next role is "walking eggshell," a task you do not survive. VERY Scary, especially as filmed in Alien.
The big-bad-nasty will also eat you at the cellular level, then use the bowl of mush you quickly become to quickly build copies of itself. This could have been VERY frightening, if the cinematography showed the process correctly. Such attacks at the cellular level are common in our world. It's what happens with Ebola, HIV and Herpes: Virii invade your cells where they insert some "malicious" code into your regular DNA. Your cells then stop working to keep you happy and start working for the virus. Mostly this is very much against your best interests. Copies of the virus are made till the cell walls explode, releasing copies of the virus into the host (you) where they infect more of your cells. Lather, Rinse Repeat.
Prometheus could have presented a CGI of this process which would stand alone, educating and enlightening along with frightening all at the same time. Instead the CGI shows a victim's DNA being dissolved, then random atoms are re-assembled into a new string with a nasty new mission. As shown, this would require something more powerful than the strong nuclear force or the weak nuclear force; so suspension of disbelief is halted for a lot of us.
This is doubly sad, because the idea of latent malicious code in your "junk" DNA waiting to do something nasty when triggered is a very interesting idea. It's been developed in books (The Deus Machine) and is worthy of movie development. Imagine throwing just one ACTG "switch" that exists in every cell in every body which then launches a malicious program that causes normal DNA to "go postal." Sigh.
Big Goof 3:
Alien spacecraft - at least 100 meters across in the shape of a big "C" fails to complete launch and after colliding with another spacecraft crashes from at least 5,000 meters onto the surface of the 1-G alien planet. It flies flat like a Frisbee, but lands on it's thin side, 90-degrees from flight attitude. Rather than break into millions of pieces (or even two); it holds shape and further survives falling flat onto the tarmac.
Nothing on the periodic table of elements is that strong at that scale.
There's more, but time to stop. It would be so wonderful if just one person on a blockbuster movie's production team was actually capable of reading SciAm or ANY technical publication.