Customer Reviews:
SLIGHTLY DISAPPOINTING.......2007-10-29
Vacationing in Europe, Government Agent Peter Sandza, (Kirk Douglas) and his son Robin, (Andrew Stevens) are attacked by a swarm of terrorists, and Robin is eventually taken away. His captor, Childress, (John Cassavetes) who knows of Robin's special powers. After spending a year looking for Robin, he finds Gillian Bellaver, (Amy Irving) has the same sort of powers as Robin, and breaking her out of the Psychic Research Institute run by her mother Hester, (Carrie Snodgrass) they track down Childress and Robin, who has become a murderous psychopath under his control.
The Good News: There's a surprising amount of decent stuff in here. The thriller elements found in the plot allow the film to continue forward at a fairly nice pace, especially during the numerous action sequences. The chase through the foggy streets is a real highlight, being an action-packed sequence with plenty of atmospheric ideas, creative concepts and a real explosive out-come. The multitude of gunfights don't hurt matters, as the particularly stunning opening massacre ably demonstrates. It really opens up with a great bang, and sets a nice tone to the rest of the film. There's some nice gore in here as well, which does mostly come from bullet wounds, but there's some nice juicy kills as well. One is drained of blood psychically from the fingers, ears, eyes and mouth, another is hit by a car into a windshield of a parked car, several fall over a roof edge and land on the pavement below, and then there's the classic ending that's one of the more ingenious and mind-blowing conclusions ever. It has to be seen to be believed, but it's certainly worth it. All in all, a highly decent film.
The Bad News: There is a couple of really big distractions to this film. One of the biggest is in fact the overly-stylish direction. The slow motion escape from the Paragon Institute is the prime example. It goes on so long that the scene starts to slip into self-parody rather than having only a small portion of it be done in that manner. The fact that there's lots and lots of scenes that go on for far too long are another big distraction, and the best example of this is the opening walk through the beach. It goes on way longer than was necessary and comes off as a padded scene. There's tons of scenes spread throughout that are much closer to this, including the various conversations in the hospital and the parts in the old folk's home. With a confusing storyline that adds together different elements that don't really add up at all, it becomes a jumbled mess of a movie.
The Final Verdict: A rather decent film hurt mostly by being a little too long for it's own good, but there's some other minor problems which keep this below the greatness level. It's certainly worthy of a look, there's worse ones out there that cover the same material, but there's bound to be some frustrating moments in there as well.
Action thriller turns horror!!!!!!!.......2006-06-14
What starts off as a very run of the mill action thriller, becomes quite an original blood thirsty horror. Kirk Douglas is in fine form, portraying humour (see the scene with grannie in the appartment), grit, emotion, and pure anger. If only the rest of the cast (inc Andrew Stevens and Carrie Snodgress) showed the same passion.
Well worth watching, very unique, and grabs your attention within the first two minutes. Might not be the best film ever made, but at 5/6 pounds, well worth buying, as it will give you 2 hours of edge of your seat thrills. Forget his son, give the true Mr Douglas a go.
Great film that doesn't truly work!.......2001-10-15
After watching this film you begin to realise that David Cronenberg's 'Scanners' is a highly unoriginal piece of rubbish. 'The Fury' is let down by the last 15 minutes, where it gets laughably silly - the story and acting in this section are just not believable enough. However it is still a great way to spend two hours and it comes highly recommended!!
Carrie re-visited.......2001-03-01
The Fury is a deliberate attempt by director Brian dePalma to capitalize on the unexpected success of Carrie (released the previous year). All the usual elements found in many supernatural thrillers of the 70's are here in force, with blood-letting a-plenty - even by todays strandards it's gore quota is high - and stirrings of demonic conspiracy. Kirk Douglas spends most of the film in an agonizing search for his (kidnapped by those who wish to exploit his kinetic powers) and brings his customary grit and panache to the role. The brilliant John Cassavetes also does all that is required as the villain of the piece, but was probably just raising cash for his own next movie project! Amy Irving who survived the highschool apocalypse of Carrie, returns to the dePalma stable and is suitably maniacal. Brian dePalma turns in a movie which is slick, professional and not without menace, but the film just lies there, lacking that extra spark that would, by now, have elevated it to classic status.
UK DVD:
- Elevator to the Gallows [1957] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Embrace of the Vampire [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Empire [2002]
- Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theater: The Blackheath Poisonings [1992] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Fast, Cheap & Out of Control [1997] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Fawlty Towers : Complete BBC Series 1 & 2 Box Set [1975]
- Frankenstein's Daughter [1958] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Get Carter [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Gone in 60 Seconds [1974] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Hitchcock 14 Disc Box Set - Vertigo/ The Birds/ Rear WIndow/ Marnie/ Frenzy/ Topaz/ The Trouble With Harry/ Torn Curtain/ Psycho/ Family Plot/ Saboteur/ Shadow Of A Doubt/Man Who Knew Too Much/ Rope
UK DVD List
UK DVD