Scanners
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Canada
Movie Reviews of Scanners
Movie Review: not true about the none europe can see it
Summary: 4 Stars
My sister just bought the dvd and we live in europe so its not only in canada and usa u can buy this .We bought it and there was loads of it really chep about 6 us dollars but only 1 and 2 was there not 3 :/ .
Movie Review: classic
Summary: 4 Stars
classic movie most have seen, one of my favorites if you never have seen this check it out,has one of the best head explosion scenes.Movie Review: I Honestly Expected More
Summary: 3 Stars
In my own personal experience, Scanners was one of those movies that everybody around you had seen and told you how great it was but you still hadn't gotten around to it. I did finally get around to watching the film and I have to be honest, I expected a lot more from my experience. It was good don't get me wrong, but personally from my enjoyment of classic cheesy 80s horror-esque type movies, this didn't fit the bill. The acting was wooden and the story quite boring, sure it's a film about people who can read minds, but when you have your main character, a man who didn't originally know he was a Scanner all of a sudden become the most powerful Scanner, I felt the whole thing was rushed.
The tag line for this movie was "There are 4 billion people on earth. 237 are Scanners. They have the most terrifying powers ever created... and they are winning." Sounds like a good premise for a movie no? It's a great idea that could have made a great movie and although Scanners had its moments I just found the whole thing boring. The main character Cameron Vale played by Stephen Lack wasn't as interesting as I think Cronenberg expected him to be. He had the creepy look about him and he could pull the serious Scanner face as if he was constipated and trying to push one out, but that was about the only thing he had going for him.
The bloody bits were quite cool and very graphic as they were in those days. The infamous head exploding scene in particular grabbed my attention and disturbed me a little. Michael Ironside who plays the apparently very evil underground Scanner lord Darryl Revok is one of the best parts of the film and comes across as quite intimidating at times.
The story of the film is relatively simple, as the tag line implies there are 237 Scanners in the world and they're winning. Winning what exactly? well that's the war against normal humanity I think, let's be honest if they can read minds and we can't that makes them the enemy. Well a weaponry company known as ConSec and they manage to recruit and 'convert' a very powerful Scanner known as Cameron Vale. Dr. Paul Ruth head of ConSec's Scanner section trains Vale and sends him to find and stop Revok, with some surprising results.
OK, the movie is a bit more complicated than that but my point still stands about it not being as good and as special as people would have you believe. It's not the worst film I've ever seen and there are genuinely entertaining parts, however, there were points in which I found the film quite tedius and a bit predictable. I would recommend this as it's a worthy waste of your time, but I would say to not expect much.
Movie Review: He came, he saw, he mumbled, he went for a scan
Summary: 3 Stars
Perenial cult favourite that's like The Man From Uncle, only without the jokes. It does have it's own Mr Waverley though, in the form of Patrick McGoohan who wastes no time in getting down to some serious slow method mumbling. Pretension and McGoohan are old friends. He mumbled nonsense throughout 'The Prisoner'. He directed the most pretentious episode of 'Columbo' ever which featured a giggling, existential sea captain (yes, they exist) and last, but not least, acted in the queen of pretentious movies 'Kings and Desperate Men' (the king of pretentious movies abdicated after seeing 'Scanners'). McGoohan complained that on most days there was no script. It shows. A black assassin seemingly killed next to a giant head turns up in another scene at a Scanner refuge. Despite his wacky ideas, Cronenberg's film making style is thuddingly traditional and there are a lot of lazy howlers too. After the conference fiasco, the doctor so blatantly injects his own hand instead of Revok's that the guards would have needed to be blind not to have spotted it. A long shot of the conference hall after the exploding head shows no body and a clean desk. Revok sets out to protect his brother by having a van his brothers sitting in get shot full of holes by about fifty shotguns. Vale and Revok are meant to be older than the other Scanners but Pierce looks ancient and there are a few old duffers at the Scanner refuge too. Kim's no teenager either, she looks the same age as Vale. As for the science, oh dear. Why didn't vale read Ruth's mind in the first place and get all the facts? I would. How can a drug that creates Scanners, calm them down? It should make them climb the walls. The traditional ending of good conquering evil also defeats the whole ethos of mind altering drugs espoused during the film's running time. Drugs are neutral, so morality should not have been an advantage in gaining the upper hand.
I Like the whole cold wave feel though. Everyone speaking as if reading from a telephone directory. Corporations fighting each other with the police not even getting a look in. Just like where I live, only without an accessible corner shop.
Movie Review: Try not to think about it
Summary: 3 Stars
As is the case of most of Cronenberg's work, the plot of Scanners begins in a straight line, becomes murky, and then almost nonsensical, The Fly remake being the exception, but barely. That's not to say that Scanners wasn't enjoyable. The special effects really are what make the movie; the exploding head in the beginning has since become one of horror's greatest movie moments-it's that priceless. The acting, with the exception of Patrick McGoohan, is non-plussed and wooden, oftentimes just downright uninspired. Steven Lack has to be one of the most ironic and appropriate names for an actor that ever existed. At it's heart, Scanners is an action movie, there are plenty of scenes of tension that move the story forward; at no point will you feel very bogged down by exposition until you get to the ending, and then you will have whiplash from having had the whole story laid on you so fast. Many Cronenberg elements can be seen in this film: excessive violence, fatalistic outlooks from many of the characters, and Cronenberg's own patented pessimism, which seems to hover over every one of his films like a specter. Cronenberg is a marginal director, by that I mean that he doesn't take the easy road to get his message across to you. Many of his films are a lesson in hubris coupled with excessive power. Just don't try to take any of this with you when you watch Crash. There just was no excuse for that one. Enjoy.