Michael-Douglas Movie Reviews

Both of these episodes begin with an interesting premise but disappoint with their endings. "Moloch" is particularly disappointing and rates two stars at best. One noteworthy point in this episode is that some of Servalan's Federation soldiers finally turn the tables on her. In "Death Watch," author Chris Boucher returns to his disappointing ways. Boucher often comes up with interesting plots, but is sometimes unable to come up with a satisfying ending. Plus, for some reason Boucher is determined to develop some sort of sexual tension between Avon and Servalan and the scene with the two of them together is almost laughable. The principle plot focuses on Tarrant's brother who represents his people as "First Champion" in a duel to the death that will determine the outcome of a war. Of course, Servalan figures out a way to meddle in this event to her advantage and the crew of the Liberator works to foil her plot. (Is this beginning to sound familiar? Seeing less of Servalan makes her a more menacing, mysterious figure. She has been incredibly overused in Season Three, much to the show's detriment.)

The next vol. of Blake's 7 entitled MOLOCH and DEATH-WATCH

In the epsidoe entitled Moloch
Servalan has recived a transmission from the planet Sardos. A planet that is on the outer fingess of the universe. Avon has tapped that tranmission as well and wonders why she is going so far out into space. Avon begins to wonder if Servalan has some other plans for that planet? Servalan herself wonders why Federation soldiers are still on this planet and are acting like they control the Federation?
In the next epsidoe entitled DEATH-WATCH
The United Planets of Teal and the Vandor Confederacy are at war. Two champions will settle this war in a special enviromental dome. A panel of arbiters from each side will watch and judge with a third neutral party. Avon and the others are overjoyed that a war has started. They can relax and watch the duel and not worry about the Federation. What they don't know is that Tarrant brother is the champion of Teal and even worse the neutral judge is no other then Servalan. Will Avon figure out why Servalan is here and can Tarrant brother win for Teal as cahmpion? Or could this war end with only one lost?

"Moloch" the crew of the Liberator secretly follows their archenemy Servalan to the outer rim of known space, to a planet where Servalan has powerful friends, or so she thinks. Watch Tarrant, Avon, and Servalan fight for their lives.

In "Death-Watch" come with Avon and crew on vacation to a war between two planets, a war fought by only two champions in dual to the death. Don't worry each of the warring parties will protect you even from the evil Federation. But watch out, the warring parties have pick Servalan to act as referee over the dual, the fools.

Predictable, slow film about a young man who waits for Cupid (Hmm!) to bring him true love, in the meantime a psycho is on the run and murders all the women who don't make the grade. Zach Galligan plays the obsessed with the myth of Cupid character, Mary Crosy plays his mentally disturbed sister & poor Ashley Laurence is the vulnerable girl who gets caught in this jumble of confusion...
Disturbing, perverse at times but plays mostly as a T.V mystery series.

when I saw this movie it was the most predictable movie ever, not to mention twisted. you could tell what was going to happen two minutes before it ever happened. I thought it was really funny. it's like a movie of one of those weird serial killer stories on TV. it's full of incest for the sick minded and gives off a "I've read too many greek myths" vibe. watch it only for the pleasure of mocking it because if you take it seriously it will definatly lower your standing on the food chain

If you are looking for a scary movie this movie is the one to get. I have been a fan of Zach every since he started in movies. This movie is about a guy who is obsessed with cupid. To the point that he thinks he is cupid. He is out to look for his pices or "his goddess of love." He finds the perfect girl knowing that she is the one. He starts to kill everyone she knows off so that he and she will be happy forever. But she gets smart and she rejects him, and deadly measures start to happen. If you like great suspense and horror you'll love this movie. I give this movie two thumbs UP!

The whole film, "It's my Turn", from beginning to end, is jive.

The characters portrayed in this film seem about as real as the two-dimensional cardboard likenesses of film stars that one might see in the lobby of a theatre. In contrast, Sesame Street's Bert and Ernie do a better job of appealing to greater intellect and provide more entertainment value, for sure.

The whole concept behind the movie is laughable. It's full of campy 70's feminist rhetoric, and about as deep as Barbie and Ken. Not much to think about here.

The dialogue sounds more like a set of mindless jokes. Did people really talk like that back in 1979?

Charles Grodin and Mike Douglas portray a couple of Archie and Jughead-types on the make. Jill Clayburg's performance is particularly laughable as a seventies version of everywoman who struggles with the mundane problems of life in Chicago and New York. A meaningless sub plot: Her father fails to comply with her beatific ideas of perfection!

I saw this film at the local cineplex over twenty years ago, and since then, I've never forgotten my feelings upon the conclusion of the film: I had just wasted two hours of my life on this piece of drivel.

At the time, I seriously considered breaking into the projection room, and taking the film from the projector outside to the parking lot, where I could then pour gasoline over it and burn it!

Watching this film was a truly hateful experience.

This is an engaging, thoughtful, funny film. Jill Clayburgh seems at ease with being ill-at-ease and it's fun to watch her struggle as the Michael Douglas character enters her life. Douglas, as usual, adds his own brand of male energy as the baseball star whose injuries have forced his retirement. Also, Charles Grodin is wonderful as the rejected lover.

Jill Clayburgh is this film. It has a wonderful clamness to it and you can sit down and really enjoy watching it. Michael Douglas is great as the love interest. Those who are Yankee fans will love the shots of Yankee Stadium.

I've seen better JQ episodes before, but this is okay, not bad, NOT goo

this video is great! this has the best close-up jessie bannon, in questworld, shots of all the shows. ^_^ i suggest any fan of jonny quest to buy this video. get your copy TODAY!!

I LOOOOVVVEEEE it. It's a great Quest

This should be a satisfying film for fans of the genre, especially those who enjoyed the historical Carry on's such as "Don't Lose Your Head". There is more smut than in earlier entries, but this 1974 film contains the last Carry On performances of Sid James (brilliant as "Reverend Flasher"), Hattie Jaques and Barbara Windsor and should be seen for them. There is admirable attention to creating the story's period and plenty of blue humour.

One of the last triumphs of the long running British comedy series. Many critics said that the Carry On series always scored best when re-working a piece of history into comedy. They could well be right!

The notorious highway man Dick Turpin is cleverly disguised as the Reverend of a church in a quiet village. However the Bow Street Runners led by captain Desmond Fancy (KENNETH WILLIAMS) are dertermined to bring his reign to an end.

Less action than there is normally but the scripts hold a considreable amount of laughs despite yet again being stuffed full of double entrendres. The cast are all looking a bit older now but are all as loveable than ever and all play there parts professionally with particularly good players being SID JAMES, BARBARA WINDSOR, KENNETH WILLIAMS and PETER BUTTERWORTH. JOAN SIMS is of good value too as the saucy Madame Desiree who's delightfully plummy French accent slides occasionally into a broad cockney accent. Great stuff! HATTIE JAQUES is very good too as is BERNARD BRESSLAW but JAQUES, SIMS and BRESSLAW are given very limited screen time yet their essential contibutions are effective,regardless!

This was a sad end of a golden era - many would say this was the end of the Carry On series as this was SID JAMES', BARBARA WINDSORS' and HATTIE JAQUES' final appearance in a Carry On film and the series went into rapid decline afterwards even though the series managed one more notworthy entry - CARRY ON BEHIND (1975) - even though this bombed badly at the Box Ofice charts. After that the series was nothing but a shadow of its former self and the momentum was lost and was then deemed as too old fashioned to simply carry on anymore. Sadly SID JAMES died in 1976 of a heart attack whilst on stage (just over a year of this Carry On) and then HATTIE JAQUES in 1980, thus leaving a gap in the series that could not and never will be filled! So if your looking for a good Carry On then this is defintley one of those and incidentallywas one of the most financially succesful entries in the series. Recommended!

Fans of Rod Taylor have had to sit through some fairly awful movies over the years and this is one of them. It's hard to say why this goes so wrong, but nothing really works or suspends disbelief. It certainly has an outstanding supporting cast, including (Sir) John Mills, Ernest Borgnine, James Whitmore, Luciana Paluzzi, Michael Cole, even old Louis Hayward (in a particularly improbable bit of casting).

Taylor (Australian), Mills (British), and Paluzzi (Italian) all seem as lost and incongruous in a western as Connery and Bardot did in "Shalako". Borgnine and Whitmore do what they can with sketchy sub-characters. And the mini-Fort Apache most of the drama plays out on feels like a set on a sound stage from beginning to end.

As always, Taylor has some fine moments, and Mills gets to make an interesting acting choice as the crumbling commander, and Paluzzi gets through it with beauty and dignity. But it's all to very little purpose in this clunky, derivative cowboys and indians melodrama.

As in so many Rod Taylor films, you wish they all could have got back together in a better movie.

RVC

This is one of the better westerns around. The cast is fantastic. The story is very entertaining and action packed. I don't see how anyone could give it 2 stars. The Indians win and the army loses, maybe that's why. But in any event the story line is intriging. Rod Taylor is at his finest as a hired gun with ethics and a deep appreciation for the Arapahoe Indians plight. John Mills, Ernest Borgnine, Luciana Paluzzi, Louis Hayword, James Whitmore et. al. are all excellent in this 1967 western. By the way the fight scene between Rod and Ernie is the greatest fist fight ever seen on film. The Indian attack on the fort is spectacular and the spear scene with Rod Taylor will stun your senses. The ending is special, so don't miss it.

This is one of the worst films of its time. I cannot believe Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, and Charlize Theron have this stinker on their resumes.... it must be an embarrassment for all three of them. The plot is completely implausible from the word go, Affleck's character has about a billion things he could do to escape that we're supposed to believe just never cross his mind, the plot twists are NOT clever (just stupid), there are gun mistakes in the film (guy firing with Uzi, the scene cuts away from him for a second, then cuts back to him and now he has a Mac-10, crap like that), and if you actually make it all the way to the end of the film (I wish to God I hadn't), the ending is so stupid you're like "I cannot believe I suffered through this entire piece of crap for THAT." Skip it...... trust me.

Despite the film's flaws, I found it visually stunning. The opening sequence with the dead Santa Clauses from an aerial view is orignial; and the film then rewinds in flashback. The snow-filled scenes of December are well-shot. Ben Affleck as Rudy Duncan is a well scrubbed prisoner who seems neither worldly nor criminal. When he tells Ashley, "I had better sex in prison," one sees neither the experience nor the emotional scars. I saw the film in theatrical release and was firmly convinced that the movie starred Ashley Judd. I was about 45 minutes into the picture when I said to my wife, "That's not Ashley Judd; that's the woman from 'Sweet November.'" Charlize Theron is beautiful. Her ability to deceive only comes clear as the plot unfolds; we don't really sense the a deep mysterious layer; so it doesn't all hang together, for me. But I loved the moment when Rudy is on his knees in the snow, about to be shot, and he tells her how Nick (prison mate) loved her. She looks at him knowingly and says something like, "Who wouldn't?" It's at that moment that we can hate her. The problem, of course, is who do we like? James Frain as Nick is sensitive and seems also out-of-place in the prison, plus hard to believe in the ending. It was nice to see Mod Squad's tv show Clarence Williams III as a bank robber. Gary Sinise was good as the bumbling villain. Dennis Farina as Jack Bangs the casino owner has great moments laying bloodied on the table keeps repeating, "I can't go back to Vegas." The fact that he's been beaten, laying on a table at gunpoint, and still worried about his job security is humorous at an unlikely moment. Ehren Kruger's script is so full of plot twists and turns that it is like a roller coaster ride in that you're never sure what's coming next; however, the roller coaster does seem to get off track a bit. While not classic, this is visually well shot with great pacing. Enjoy!

I didn't think Reindeer Games was anywhere near as mediocre as the critics thought it was. As a matter of fact, I loved the film, and it's certainly much better than that other much overrated plot twisting thriller Wild Things (a mostly suspenseless which might hold some sort of cinematic record for most plot twists ever).

The film is about a car thief named Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck). His best friend, Nick, who has a pen pal named he plans on meeting after he's released-which is also the same day Rudy will be let out-is killed during a food fight. Rudy, in a very tough decision, decides to pretend he's Nick and meets the beautiful Ashley, Nick's pen pal. At first, everything seems to be going right for him for the first time, until Ashley's brother Gabriel arrives and demands Rudy, whom he thinks is Nick, to help him and his band of cronies rob a casino since Nick used to work as a security guard there. Now, Rudy has to try to pretend he's Nick and convince Gabriel he knows how to get in the casino.

Reindeer Games is an exhilarating thriller, with plenty of action and humor. There are some exciting moments and the film is very suspenseful. Affleck's initial guise as Nick is quite funny, along with the moments thoughout the film that he has to convince Sinise he's who he says he is, be that Rudy Duncan or Nick Cassidy.

The film features Ben Affleck in a great performance as the hero who we all root for. Gary Sinise chews the scenery as the villain and makes up for the travesty that was Snake Eyes though he still has to do another work to atone for Mission to Mars (he should have also had the lieutenant Dan look in Mission, at least that would have solidified that film's camp value, but no, the Lt. Dan look had to go to Don Cheadle). Charlize Theron is fairly good as the love interest for Affleck.

This is one of those films that really keeps you guessing, with plot twists that are surprising, especially a big twist at the end that nobody seemed to have ever been able to have guessed correctly. You can never really tell what's going to happen next, or who's going to come out on top in the end. Will Affleck get out of the whole situation alive? Can he keep pretending he's somebody he's not? And what is the twist in the finale? Watch the film and find out.

I grew up a child of the 80's and a borderline obssessive Madonna fanatic. I've seen every movie she's made and bought every album the day released. But, boy is this movie lousy. Don't fault Madonna for everything - the writing is so bad I thought for a moment I had switched on some made for ...t.v. flick. The direction is absolutely hopeless (did this guy actually win awards at one time?)There are endless subplots that have no impact on the story, ridiculously offensive stereotypes (the rich old queens, the young AIDS victim) and no characters worth caring one iota about.

Poor Madonna. After making strides forward with "Evita" she regressed into this tense, insecure, self-conscious actress. But how could anyone be sure of themselves in this debacle? Interestingly, the only moments of truth are found in the scenes with her young son. She is completely relaxed with the kid and shows some naturally beautiful maternal instincts.

There is a profound movie waiting to be made about gay fathers, gay/straight friendships and alternative family units. This, unfortunately, is not it.

With all the star power behind this movie, it should have been executed skillfully, pulling the viewer into the lives of nice people, exploring the novel living arrangements and lifestyles of the main characters, even highlighting what should have been a key, dramatic moment in the movie. Instead, the movie drags on for nearly an hour before we have an inkling of what this movie is really about, and as it drags itself forcefully along we have great difficulty identifying with the characters or their plight.

Abbie Reynolds (Madonna) is a woman who hears her biological clock ticking. She wants to meet a nice guy and have one or more children. Failing meeting Mr. Right, she would at least like to have a child. After breaking up with yet another boyfriend, Madonna commiserates with a homosexual friend, Robert Whittaker (Ruppert Everett), and the two end up (good heavens!) doing something sexual together. Soon after, Madonna reveals she is pregnant. Robert decides he wants to be fully involved as Sam's (Malcolm Stumpf) father.

Well, time flies and Ben Cooper, excellently played by Benjamin Bratt, enters the picture, quickly falling in love with Abbie. Ben behaves just as we would like or hope he would, and adjusts his life to suit Abbie, Robert and Sam's as much, if not more, than is reasonable. Unfortunately for poor Sam, the relatively immature conflict between Abbie and Sam washes aside all Ben's good deeds and flexibility, and a nasty court battle ensues. I'll not give away the ending or any other details in the event you wish to try the movie yourself.

In addition to the star horsepower already mentioned, Lynn Redgrave, Neil Patrick Harris, and Joseph Sommer, all with extensive acting credentials, appear. The director and producer add even more horsepower. The problem is that all this horsepower didn't help me to understand the plot, or empathize with the characters. This movie presented a wonderful opportunity to help explore having a homosexual as a parent, and deal more in depth with the issues of homosexuality and stereotypes surrounding homosexuality. Instead, the movie pays only brief lip service to those issues and some cases opens the door to the issue, and then sweeps it under the rug. In one example, Sam asks Robert about a inappropriate word he heard associated with homosexuals, and what the word meant. Instead of dealing with the issue, the answer was more akin to "babies come from the cabbage patch." If the movie did not want to deal with sensitive issues, it should not have brought them up in the first place.

After forcing myself to watch this movie for an hour or more in the hope that it would really take off and make a statement, it devolves into legal bickering between Abbie and Robert, with all sorts of uninteresting confusion thrown in by Ben and an old boyfriend of Abbie's. Instead of a grand statement regarding homosexuals as parents, the movie became just another couple bickering over child custody and I became extremely disappointed with the plot development.

Even in the final moments of the movie, the opportunity to do more than have a trite and cliché ending was passed by. There is little more I can say about the ending.

The movie is not a total loss. Benjamin Bratt and Malcolm Stumpf have good chemistry during their interactions with others in the movie. Had Benjamin and Malcolm been absent, this movie would have been a total loss. As it is, I rate this movie three stars largely on the basis of the performance of these two actors and what they brought to the movie.

It is good that the director John Schlesinger will not be judged by this movie alone since he gave us so many fine movies-- SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, MARATHON MAN, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, COLD COMFORT FARM, to name a few. Sadly THE NEXT BEST THING does not make the list. So many things are wrong here. For starters, both Madonna and Rubert Everett are terribly miscast, and the screenplay should be rewritten.

I have seen the movie three times now, hoping against hope that I can find new things to like in this movie. By far the best thing-- about the only good thing in the movie is the younster who plays Everett and Madonna's child. He's quite wonderful but alone cannot save this movie. For the most part, the lines are trite, the characters are wooden, the older gay men are hopeless stereotypes. Somebody should have told someone, the director, the producer, the actors, that this movie doesn't succeed on any level. Apparently no one was honest enough to say that.

Near the end of the movie, Madonna-- well, her name is Abbie, but I'm convinced she is playing herself-- meets up with Everett and says, "We really messed up this time; didn't we?"

At last she finally got something right.

I grew up a child of the 80's and a borderline obssessive Madonna fanatic. I've seen every movie she's made and bought every album the day released. But, boy is this movie lousy. Don't fault Madonna for everything - the writing is so bad I thought for a moment I had switched on some made for ...t.v. flick. The direction is absolutely hopeless (did this guy actually win awards at one time?)There are endless subplots that have no impact on the story, ridiculously offensive stereotypes (the rich old queens, the young AIDS victim) and no characters worth caring one iota about.

Poor Madonna. After making strides forward with "Evita" she regressed into this tense, insecure, self-conscious actress. But how could anyone be sure of themselves in this debacle? Interestingly, the only moments of truth are found in the scenes with her young son. She is completely relaxed with the kid and shows some naturally beautiful maternal instincts.

There is a profound movie waiting to be made about gay fathers, gay/straight friendships and alternative family units. This, unfortunately, is not it.

With all the star power behind this movie, it should have been executed skillfully, pulling the viewer into the lives of nice people, exploring the novel living arrangements and lifestyles of the main characters, even highlighting what should have been a key, dramatic moment in the movie. Instead, the movie drags on for nearly an hour before we have an inkling of what this movie is really about, and as it drags itself forcefully along we have great difficulty identifying with the characters or their plight.

Abbie Reynolds (Madonna) is a woman who hears her biological clock ticking. She wants to meet a nice guy and have one or more children. Failing meeting Mr. Right, she would at least like to have a child. After breaking up with yet another boyfriend, Madonna commiserates with a homosexual friend, Robert Whittaker (Ruppert Everett), and the two end up (good heavens!) doing something sexual together. Soon after, Madonna reveals she is pregnant. Robert decides he wants to be fully involved as Sam's (Malcolm Stumpf) father.

Well, time flies and Ben Cooper, excellently played by Benjamin Bratt, enters the picture, quickly falling in love with Abbie. Ben behaves just as we would like or hope he would, and adjusts his life to suit Abbie, Robert and Sam's as much, if not more, than is reasonable. Unfortunately for poor Sam, the relatively immature conflict between Abbie and Sam washes aside all Ben's good deeds and flexibility, and a nasty court battle ensues. I'll not give away the ending or any other details in the event you wish to try the movie yourself.

In addition to the star horsepower already mentioned, Lynn Redgrave, Neil Patrick Harris, and Joseph Sommer, all with extensive acting credentials, appear. The director and producer add even more horsepower. The problem is that all this horsepower didn't help me to understand the plot, or empathize with the characters. This movie presented a wonderful opportunity to help explore having a homosexual as a parent, and deal more in depth with the issues of homosexuality and stereotypes surrounding homosexuality. Instead, the movie pays only brief lip service to those issues and some cases opens the door to the issue, and then sweeps it under the rug. In one example, Sam asks Robert about a inappropriate word he heard associated with homosexuals, and what the word meant. Instead of dealing with the issue, the answer was more akin to "babies come from the cabbage patch." If the movie did not want to deal with sensitive issues, it should not have brought them up in the first place.

After forcing myself to watch this movie for an hour or more in the hope that it would really take off and make a statement, it devolves into legal bickering between Abbie and Robert, with all sorts of uninteresting confusion thrown in by Ben and an old boyfriend of Abbie's. Instead of a grand statement regarding homosexuals as parents, the movie became just another couple bickering over child custody and I became extremely disappointed with the plot development.

Even in the final moments of the movie, the opportunity to do more than have a trite and cliché ending was passed by. There is little more I can say about the ending.

The movie is not a total loss. Benjamin Bratt and Malcolm Stumpf have good chemistry during their interactions with others in the movie. Had Benjamin and Malcolm been absent, this movie would have been a total loss. As it is, I rate this movie three stars largely on the basis of the performance of these two actors and what they brought to the movie.

It is good that the director John Schlesinger will not be judged by this movie alone since he gave us so many fine movies-- SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, MARATHON MAN, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, COLD COMFORT FARM, to name a few. Sadly THE NEXT BEST THING does not make the list. So many things are wrong here. For starters, both Madonna and Rubert Everett are terribly miscast, and the screenplay should be rewritten.

I have seen the movie three times now, hoping against hope that I can find new things to like in this movie. By far the best thing-- about the only good thing in the movie is the younster who plays Everett and Madonna's child. He's quite wonderful but alone cannot save this movie. For the most part, the lines are trite, the characters are wooden, the older gay men are hopeless stereotypes. Somebody should have told someone, the director, the producer, the actors, that this movie doesn't succeed on any level. Apparently no one was honest enough to say that.

Near the end of the movie, Madonna-- well, her name is Abbie, but I'm convinced she is playing herself-- meets up with Everett and says, "We really messed up this time; didn't we?"

At last she finally got something right.

I grew up a child of the 80's and a borderline obssessive Madonna fanatic. I've seen every movie she's made and bought every album the day released. But, boy is this movie lousy. Don't fault Madonna for everything - the writing is so bad I thought for a moment I had switched on some made for ...t.v. flick. The direction is absolutely hopeless (did this guy actually win awards at one time?)There are endless subplots that have no impact on the story, ridiculously offensive stereotypes (the rich old queens, the young AIDS victim) and no characters worth caring one iota about.

Poor Madonna. After making strides forward with "Evita" she regressed into this tense, insecure, self-conscious actress. But how could anyone be sure of themselves in this debacle? Interestingly, the only moments of truth are found in the scenes with her young son. She is completely relaxed with the kid and shows some naturally beautiful maternal instincts.

There is a profound movie waiting to be made about gay fathers, gay/straight friendships and alternative family units. This, unfortunately, is not it.

With all the star power behind this movie, it should have been executed skillfully, pulling the viewer into the lives of nice people, exploring the novel living arrangements and lifestyles of the main characters, even highlighting what should have been a key, dramatic moment in the movie. Instead, the movie drags on for nearly an hour before we have an inkling of what this movie is really about, and as it drags itself forcefully along we have great difficulty identifying with the characters or their plight.

Abbie Reynolds (Madonna) is a woman who hears her biological clock ticking. She wants to meet a nice guy and have one or more children. Failing meeting Mr. Right, she would at least like to have a child. After breaking up with yet another boyfriend, Madonna commiserates with a homosexual friend, Robert Whittaker (Ruppert Everett), and the two end up (good heavens!) doing something sexual together. Soon after, Madonna reveals she is pregnant. Robert decides he wants to be fully involved as Sam's (Malcolm Stumpf) father.

Well, time flies and Ben Cooper, excellently played by Benjamin Bratt, enters the picture, quickly falling in love with Abbie. Ben behaves just as we would like or hope he would, and adjusts his life to suit Abbie, Robert and Sam's as much, if not more, than is reasonable. Unfortunately for poor Sam, the relatively immature conflict between Abbie and Sam washes aside all Ben's good deeds and flexibility, and a nasty court battle ensues. I'll not give away the ending or any other details in the event you wish to try the movie yourself.

In addition to the star horsepower already mentioned, Lynn Redgrave, Neil Patrick Harris, and Joseph Sommer, all with extensive acting credentials, appear. The director and producer add even more horsepower. The problem is that all this horsepower didn't help me to understand the plot, or empathize with the characters. This movie presented a wonderful opportunity to help explore having a homosexual as a parent, and deal more in depth with the issues of homosexuality and stereotypes surrounding homosexuality. Instead, the movie pays only brief lip service to those issues and some cases opens the door to the issue, and then sweeps it under the rug. In one example, Sam asks Robert about a inappropriate word he heard associated with homosexuals, and what the word meant. Instead of dealing with the issue, the answer was more akin to "babies come from the cabbage patch." If the movie did not want to deal with sensitive issues, it should not have brought them up in the first place.

After forcing myself to watch this movie for an hour or more in the hope that it would really take off and make a statement, it devolves into legal bickering between Abbie and Robert, with all sorts of uninteresting confusion thrown in by Ben and an old boyfriend of Abbie's. Instead of a grand statement regarding homosexuals as parents, the movie became just another couple bickering over child custody and I became extremely disappointed with the plot development.

Even in the final moments of the movie, the opportunity to do more than have a trite and cliché ending was passed by. There is little more I can say about the ending.

The movie is not a total loss. Benjamin Bratt and Malcolm Stumpf have good chemistry during their interactions with others in the movie. Had Benjamin and Malcolm been absent, this movie would have been a total loss. As it is, I rate this movie three stars largely on the basis of the performance of these two actors and what they brought to the movie.

It is good that the director John Schlesinger will not be judged by this movie alone since he gave us so many fine movies-- SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, MARATHON MAN, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, COLD COMFORT FARM, to name a few. Sadly THE NEXT BEST THING does not make the list. So many things are wrong here. For starters, both Madonna and Rubert Everett are terribly miscast, and the screenplay should be rewritten.

I have seen the movie three times now, hoping against hope that I can find new things to like in this movie. By far the best thing-- about the only good thing in the movie is the younster who plays Everett and Madonna's child. He's quite wonderful but alone cannot save this movie. For the most part, the lines are trite, the characters are wooden, the older gay men are hopeless stereotypes. Somebody should have told someone, the director, the producer, the actors, that this movie doesn't succeed on any level. Apparently no one was honest enough to say that.

Near the end of the movie, Madonna-- well, her name is Abbie, but I'm convinced she is playing herself-- meets up with Everett and says, "We really messed up this time; didn't we?"

At last she finally got something right.