The Soul Hunters are back, and they're not happy

Babylon 5: River of Souls Starring Martin Sheen, Ian McShane, Tracy Scoggins, Jerry Doyle TNT Premieres Nov. 8 8 p.m. ET

n the galaxy's most fractious space station, Babylon 5, it's been a while since President Sheridan left with his wife Delenn for Minbar, and things have gotten pretty quiet. That is, until an archeologist named Dr. Bryson (McShane) shows up bearing a mysterious orb that he's found on a distant planet. Michael Garibaldi (Doyle), meanwhile, has returned to B5 from Mars, where he married his longtime paramour. He's on the station tracking down some business questions that, coincidentally, involve Bryson.

All of this concerns B5's captain, Elizabeth Lochley (Scoggins), who is juggling these troublesome arrivals with a problem of her own, a "holo brothel" operating without authorization below decks. (One of the more popular holographic hookers looks like a certain Earth Force captain.)

Garibaldi wants to know what Bryson's been up to for the last three years, since whatever he's been doing has been at the expense of the company that hired Garibaldi. Bryson, it turns out, has been on a quest for immortal life. What he doesn't tell Garibaldi is that he's found something significant in the orb, which appears to be a repository of the souls of the dead. The more Bryson probes the orb, the more its spectral contents issue ominous warnings and vent their anger. But at whom?

The answer comes in the form of a Soul Hunter (Sheen), who collects the souls of the dead at the moment of their demise. The orb belongs to the Soul Hunters, and they want it back. But while the crew argues about the propriety of this (and the true nature of death and the afterlife), the souls in question have an agenda of their own...revenge.

The Soul Hunter is eventually joined by his fellows, who arrive with an armada intent on reclaiming the orb. But the souls get loose, and things start to go wrong.

Dead on arrival

The third television movie based on the long-running SF series Babylon 5, River of Souls is a departure from the usual B5 routine in several ways. Based on a script by series creator J. Michael Straczynski, the film has no Narn, no Centauri, no Minbari, no Sheridan, no Delenn and no telepaths. What it does have is lengthy conversations about life, death, the nature of the soul, the afterlife and heaven and hell.

But though the film is ambitious in its themes, it shares many of the faults that made B5, for all its virtues, one of the most maddening experiments in television SF. Chief among these are too many scenes that are basically inert, consisting of two people in a room talking. These scenes are not helped by the same cheesy sets that the series has used since its beginning five years ago, nor by the valiant attempts by director Janet Greek to enliven them with meals and extras.

A word about the humor: it's pretty lame, particularly the sniggering jokiness about hookers. And while there are many fans who no doubt would take issue with this, Straczynski's slangy dialogue is often jarring enough to take viewers out of the story. There are also precious few special effects--mainly establishing shots, perhaps a sign of the film's reported $3 million budget, which is not much more than is allocated for two hours of the series itself.

And given the dialogue-heavy script, it's a shame the actors didn't bring more to their performances. Sheen, especially, seems lost in his makeup, delivering his lines in an odd, clipped cadence that is devoid of emotion. Scoggins also seems overmatched by the emotional demands of her part.

To be fair, there are a few fascinating moments. The first appearances of the spectral beings are truly chilling. And a sequence in which a main character dies briefly recalls some of the more imaginative sequences of B5's five-year run.

As much as I wanted to like River of Souls, the few good moments were not enough to keep it from feeling 10,000 years long. -- P.L.

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Call for reinforcements

Soldier Rated R Starring Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Connie Nielsen, Gary Busey Directed by Paul Anderson 98 Minutes

alk about a few good men. The armed forces of the future, not content to wait around for volunteers, recruit their warriors from the maternity ward, designating them "1A" right in the crib.

In a quick prologue, young Todd (Russell) is immersed in a life of violence, discipline and skillful, merciless killing. By the time he reaches his 40s, he is a scarred veteran of countless battles and has notched hundreds of kills, not all of them combatants.

But it's apparently not enough for the powers that be. There's a new platoon in town, made up of genetically enhanced fighters led by Caine 607 (Lee) and the martinet Colonel Mekum (Jason Isaacs). Who's better? In a brutal confrontation, Caine bests three of the older models, killing two and leaving Todd for dead.

Todd and his less fortunate companions are summarily thrown out like yesterday's toasters, shipped via space trash barge to the ironically named Arcadia 234, a garbage planet heaped with mountains of technological refuse from the 20th century.

But Todd's alive, and stumbles upon a band of marooned space pioneers whose ship crashed on Arcadia a dozen years earlier. They take him in and bind his wounds. As he convalesces, Todd catches glimpses of the life he's missed. He's especially taken by Sandra (Nielsen), a Pre-Raphaelite blonde Earth-mother whose son, Nathan, is about the age Todd was when he made his first kill.

The pacifist pioneers teach Todd new job skills--chopping carrots and planting oregano. But it's hard to leave old habits behind, and when Todd inadvertently attacks one of the settlers, they banish him for the safety of the colony.

Meanwhile, Colonel Mekum has decided to give Caine 607 and his compatriots a workout and schedules a security sweep of Arcadia. What if there's someone on the planet? They must be hostiles; kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.

The colony falls under fire. Todd realizes he's the pioneers' only hope. Will they accept his help? And can he take on an entire squadron of Caines?

Shane in space

Soldier, based on a script by David Webb Peoples, has been characterized by director Paul Anderson as "a Western set in space." But like the settlers' habitat, Soldier is actually a recycled pastiche of cast-offs from various Western, war and SF movies.

The film gives a nod to its forebears: Todd is a veteran of two battles mentioned in Peoples' Blade Runner, and the Arcadia's junk heaps include spaceship parts from Anderson's Event Horizon.

Soldier's clearest antecedents, however, are 1981's The Road Warrior and its inspiration, 1953's Shane, with Todd as the disgraced gunslinger who chooses to defend a town of farmers from ruthless outlaws.

But unlike those classics, Soldier slogs along like a grunt in mud with no clear idea why. Scene follows perfunctory scene to the film's foregone conclusion. There's little wit and less suspense. The film is also ambivalent about its central themes. It starts as a critique of the military mindset, but ends up making the case that such people are needed.

And there's precious little context to the schematic script. Why the need for these soldiers? Who are these settlers, and where were they going?

The much-vaunted special effects don't even hold much interest; the entire production seems shot in a hurry and on the cheap. Canny production design by David L. Snyder, the art director for Blade Runner, attempts to duplicate the multi-layered richness of his earlier film. But the execution, in a rock quarry and on sound stages, is claustrophobic and stagy. The few broad vistas look fake.

Russell's performance is the film's key weakness. In a role that makes the Terminator seem like Daffy Duck, Russell utters a spare 63 words throughout the entire film. He must convey Todd's passage from killing machine to family man with his eyes, face and body language. But though he's a charismatic screen presence and does well with the physical demands of the role, he's no Olivier. He spends much of his time with a blank stare meant to convey conflicting feelings. He ends up looking merely vacant.

It looked to me like more effort went into the tanks, flame-throwers and machine guns than into the script for this movie. To see a good space Western, I recommend renting 1981's Outland, which is based on High Noon. Or just rent The Road Warrior again. -- P.L.

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Living life in black and white

Pleasantville Rated PG-13 Starring Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, Jeff Daniels Written and Directed by Gary Ross 116 Minutes

avid (Maguire) and his twin sister Jennifer (Witherspoon) are two '90s kids with nothing in common except their bickering, divorced parents. Jennifer is mostly concerned with being popular and dating cool guys. David is a nerd who likes to tune out life by watching an old Father Knows Best-type sitcom called Pleasantville.

In Pleasantville, everyone is happy, it never rains and the basketball team never misses a shot. Everything is black and white, figuratively and literally. David has watched each episode many times, and he hopes to win a trivia contest that will be held during a Pleasantville marathon.

When Jennifer invites a cool guy over to watch a concert on television, it interferes with David's plans to watch the marathon. They fight over the remote, breaking it. Unexpectedly, a mysterious TV repairman (Don Knotts) arrives and gives David a fancy new remote.

The new remote works just fine, and soon David and Jennifer start arguing over the TV again. Suddenly they find themselves in Pleasantville, and in black and white. They have taken over the roles of the two kids on the show, Bud and Mary Sue.

In Pleasantville, mom (Joan Allen) makes mega-breakfasts while dad (William H. Macy) goes off to work. David and Jennifer decide to play along until they can find a way home. However, these new kids do things a little differently than Bud and Mary Sue would. Jennifer shows the captain of the basketball team what being pinned is really all about, and David introduces the owner of the soda shop (Daniels) to the colorful world of fine art.

Little by little color starts to bloom in Pleasantville, and the remaining black-and-white townsfolk aren't happy about the new changes. Then it's up to David and Jennifer to decide whether they should take their chance to go home or lead these Technicolor people into their brave new world.

A colorful story with depth

Pleasantville is a cleverly written film that is not the comedy it appears to be at first. It's much more ambitious than that. Written and directed by Gary Ross, Pleasantville is a surprisingly racy story of the emotional, sexual and intellectual awakening that can come with lost innocence. What starts out as a wry look at TV's version of the '50s becomes a commentary on racism, progress and individual freedom.

Exceptional production values fill the screen in a powerful way as black, white and gray gradually give way to Technicolor. Pleasantville embraces each character's awakening through colorful images, with impressive results. The art direction and special effects are, at times, breathtaking.

One of the reasons the film works well is because it's populated by wonderful characters who realize they can decide to do things differently if they want to. Only Witherspoon's character, Jennifer, is weakened by being underwritten (during the second half of the film she nearly disappears from the action).

As the misplaced teens, Maguire and Witherspoon have fun with their roles. However, the film's true meat comes from the supporting cast. Peopled with some of the best character actors working today, Pleasantville offers fine performances by Allen, Macy, Daniels and Knotts. Pleasantville also is distinguished by the final performance of one of the truly great screen villains of all time, J.T. Walsh, who passed away recently.

However, Pleasantville is not a perfect film. There are confusing messages, such as equating casual sex with the enlightenment of discovering great literature or personal freedom. To be fair to Ross, there is a progression from sexual passion to other forms of passion. Still, it's troubling to see sex and adultery treated so casually in a film with so much depth.

Pleasantville is surprising, powerful and well made. It's nice to see a film from Hollywood that isn't just black and white. -- Kat

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Cinema verité or just plain sucky?

Vampires Rated R Starring James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee Directed by John Carpenter 100 Minutes

im Crow (Woods) is an unusual creature. He's a Vatican-sponsored vampire slayer, slightly sociopathic, and the leader of a team of fellow "goon" killers who stuff themselves on adventures of violence as if they were Cheeze Doodles. He's the best, though, brought up in his unorthodox craft by the Church after his parents were vampirized. He and his team are celebrating their extermination of another vampire nest when the local vampire master, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) casually stalks into their revelry and slices through their numbers.

Only Crow, his fellow slayer Montoya (Baldwin), and one of the prostitutes hired for the party remain alive. Crow and Montoya recognize that their foe is unlike any they've faced before. Because of his superhuman strength, the two slayers theorize that this undead enemy might be the legendary master of them all--the first vampire, and the most powerful.

Like Valek, Crow is cunning and nonchalantly cruel in his methods, and his current plan is to use the prostitute, Katrina (Lee), as bait to catch Valek. Katrina is instrumental, for she was bitten during the attack, and as she changes into a minion of the undead, she can relate Valek's actions and whereabouts, for she is linked to him telepathically.

Crow briefly meets up with his Vatican liaison, who tells him to report to a command center and re-staff his slayers. Crow is unwilling, suspecting a double-cross because the attack on his team was too easy, and Valek had called him by name. However, he sourly welcomes a young priest, Father Adam (Time Guinee), to the team. It's a double handicap, for, along with being green, Father Adam may be a plant. But Crow has bigger fish to fry. Valek seems to be planning something, and Crow must discover the vampire's plan and thwart it before it's too late...

A vampire film without vampires

It appears that with Vampires--based on the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley--John Carpenter's intent was to make an action-vampire film (that newest of film genres). But, although there's lots of action, the film lacks vamps, even if their simulacra populate the film liberally. In essence, this is a vampire film without vampires, for that creature is given short shrift, seen only in small glimpses and furtive shots. Sure, a lot of wriggling and leaping and snarling stirs up the cauldron, but the vampires are never seen clearly enough to deliver a convincing scare. The one vamp that does get screen time, the Master, is so over-enigmatic as to be rendered ineffectual, and so brutal as to risk being boring.

Valek does have his moments, however, as does Crow. Valek hanging from the ceiling, about to leap upon a victim, is among the film's finer and authentically scary moments. Also none too shabby--the sight of the Master and his minions thrusting upwards through the earth, beginning their nightly sortie. James Woods is definitely competent as the low-key-crazy guy, but there are no real surprises. Daniel Baldwin as his beefy slayer/sidekick is passable, but does not inspire that second-banana likability.

The most egregious thing about this production, aside from the metaphysical mishmash (upon which, sadly, the plot revolves), is its casual abuse of women, as represented by the film's female lead. Carpenter seems to have his characters attain their machismo and credibility partially by degrading, excessively threatening, punching, and just plain being mean to Katrina, beyond the bounds of what the situation and characters would seem to warrant. Because of this, these slayer anti-heroes are reduced to garden-variety thugs, and the audience might find itself rooting for the vampires. At least their violence seems not to discriminate especially between genders.

Though the film was largely predictable, there were some original moments: 1) vampires being harpooned and dragged into the sunlight; and 2) the concept of a Vatican-sponsored slayer tag-team. -- Tamara

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