IslandGuru
Who payed the critics
Claysaba
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Inadvands
Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Charles Herold (cherold)
The first time I saw this movie, I'd tuned in after it had been playing for a half hour. This meant that one of the first things I saw was a brilliant animated sequence (directed by animation genius Chuck Jones). Because of this, I had a more favorable view of the movie than I would have if I'd watched from the beginning.This time I watched from the beginning, and realized that it wasn't as good as I recalled. The first 20 minutes or so is rather dull set up. The movie picks up with clips from fictional, disturbing TV shows, but the actual journey the movie is centered on is very hit and miss, with a lot of rather toothless pop parody pretending to be satire.It's a watchable movie, but I found my attention often flagged. The best reason to watch is for the animated sequence, which you can find on youtube, if you don't want to bother with the movie.
AaronCapenBanner
John Ritter and Pam Dawber(both sitcom veterans) play Roy and Helen Knable, a suburban couple who unwittingly become sucked into their new television, and find themselves bouncing through different TV series & movies, which are being aired on a demonic TV station run by Spike(Jeffrey Jones, well cast) who puts them through(among other unfortunate TV watchers) an ordeal to see if he can capture their souls for Satan, and earn himself a promotion! Plot of course is ludicrous, but this is supposed to be a comedy, and while some of it is funny(amusing joke titles of TV series and films, and a clever in-joke with John Ritter and two old cast mates...) not enough of it is, as the film seems like a nutty cross between "Network" and "Beetle Juice"! Watchable to a point, but should have been grounded a little further in reality to be successful.
imdb-21622
Funny movie. Especially the scene where they are mice.Look for the message 'Remember Tuesday is Saddam Hussein Appreciation Day' on the scoreboardI always liked Jack Ritter, and thought he was the star of Three's Company. He has a good comic timing.Pam Dawber does a good job as his annoyed wife - yes, she plays a stereotyped one dimensional frustrated housewife role, but she does it well.Jeffrey Jones, who played the principle in Ferris Bueler's day off is pretty entertaining as well. He seems to have a knack of playing people you want to dislike :)I could give this a B for comedy movies, and an A for TV parody movies!
ccthemovieman-1
This was a clever and funny movie, much better than I anticipated. Most of the humor involves takeoff or parodies of television programs and movies. Being familiar with most of them, I enjoyed the humor. The takeoff involved having the devil take charge of some of these programs.John Ritter and Pam Dawber play husband-and-wife "Roy and Helen Knable" who get sucked into buying a TV dish package straight from The Devil. After the purchase, which comes complete with 666 channels, mayhem ensues. There were a number of spots in here I just laughed out loud. Knowing a lot of the TV programs that were being spoofed helps a lot, of course, but there is a lot of good material in this film. The special-effects were pretty good, too, especially for a film that really never got a lot of exposure nor, I assume, had a huge budget. Jeffrey Jones and Eugene Levy, two guys who are usually pretty funny, supply some good humor here, too. I looked at this strictly for laughs even though I know the devil is somebody to take seriously, but this film was anything but played for seriousness. As a bonus, we even got a Chuck Jones cartoon in the middle of the story.This is one wacky movie and I'd like to see it on widescreen DVD. I last saw it on tape. This is recommended to those who enjoy dark humor.
