mark@utzoo.UUCP (mark bloore) (11/29/83)
short review: very dumb, very dull.
synopsis: boy meets girl. girl hears telepathic cry for help from
mysterious underground government installation. boy and girl break in,
and are captured by the army. it seems that the air force shot down a
ufo, found four bodies inside and proceeded to dissect one. girl
tells them that three remaining are alive. much consternation, no
remorse. people start dieing at ufo crash site and underground installation.
army decides to bury its mistakes. boy releases aliens from glass cases,
all five escape. (the aliens look like bald children in skin-colored
leotards). they flee to a church, then get ride to mohave desert,
where aliens spend night building a two-mile-diameter ship (off
camera, unfortunately) and take off, confounding ground and air forces
sent to shoot anything that moves.
longer review: a remarkably empty movie. no plot, no characters, no
message, no interest. the story line was entirely standard and rather
disjointed (eg in the opening, the boy smashes a guitar, and seems about
to attack a creditor. end of scene. there is no apparent relevence to
anything else). the initial boy-meets-girl seems to exist only because
one must have a girl, but a girl must not be able do anything more than
scream on her own initiative. very little is explained in the movie,
such as where the aliens came from, why they are here ("they're tourists",
period), what they think of all this, what their people will think of us.
the movie closes with a brief narration by the girl, saying she thinks
the aliens may return. character development (which, i am told, some
people hold in high esteem) is not present, but then anyone over 12 years
old knows all the characters used anyway. there is no sex and very little
violence (the aliens can kill or cure at a touch, of course). thrills and
suspence were tried for and missed. there is plenty of fantastic
foolishness, such as a cryptologist trying to decode the aliens' brain-
waves (the title, "wavelength", seems to refer to the inhuman length
of their brainwaves), and the aliens being perfectly humanoid but
photosynthesizing rather than eating.
most of the 1950's japanese monster movies were much more fun.
mARK bLOORE
univ of toronto
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!mark