My name is Martin Scholes. I like writing reviews on Ciao. I am married, we have a cockatiel and a c...
My name is Martin Scholes. I like writing reviews on Ciao. I am married, we have a cockatiel and a cat. And a growing African Grey. Who orders the cat around!
Member since:06.12.2003
Reviews:334
Members who trust:65
If you happen to have 85 minutes to kill, then Final Mission could well be a film you might want to watch. Or then again, it might not. It is basically Top Gun with added science fiction nonsense.
The creators of the film decided to use Virtual Reality, adding it to the tried and tested Top Gun format. But seemed, sadly, totally unaware of what Virtual Reality actually is.
Virtual Reality is a computer generated method of providing an artificial simulated environment to enable people to pretend to be in an environment or a situation that they cannot be in real life. Either it would be too dangerous or otherwise impracticable for them to be in the real environment.
Lawnmower Man or any episode of Star Trek voyager shows what Virtual Reality is. Although the use of Holographic imagery and force fields in Star Trek voyager is several steps beyond the technology available for the foreseeable future.
The Virtual Reality scenes in the film are laughable. Why? Because they are so painfully pathetic that it beggars belief that they were allowed out into a finished film. It seemed little better than the computer generated images of the much earlier film Tron (1982) for goodness sake!
The producers of the film seem to have confused the concept of Virtual Reality with one of a sort of enhanced viewing system, or "Hyper Reality" as it is called in the film. How providing a pilot with poor quality images to replace the real images that he can see with his own eyes is intended to help the pilot was never adequately explained in the film.
Another problem with the film is that the plot is filled with holes. Pilots are not murdered by their superior officers whilst their fighter jet planes are blown up or smashed to pieces. Why? Because both are far too expensive for that.
And the conspiracy theories (yes, theories plural, as there seem to be more than one group plotting and scheming for a variety of nefarious reasons) seem overblown and unnecessarily complicated.
The pilots are programmed with numerical codes to shoot themselves with their USAAF issue Colt .45 automatics, should things go wrong. Yeah, right...
The film leaves much unanswered. If Caitlin Cole really is part of the conspiracy and is willing to even at least think about killing her boyfriend, Captain Frank 'Outlaw' Waters, the hero of the film, how come he doesn't tell her to take a hike and seems willing to spend the rest of his life with her?
However, the flying scenes are well-directed and filmed and the film is OK, if you do not expect more than a nice bit of eye candy.
This was another on my Poundland finds. For details of Poundland, please check out my Poundland Review.
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
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Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
![Final Mission [DVD] [1993]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78548387.jpg "Final Mission [DVD] [1993]")
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