Last Lives (1997)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Disappointment for a huge fan!

Beautiful, moving film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Story Synopsis: In a dimension parallel to ours, the convicted terrorist Malakai is being used as a guinea pig in a temporal experiment designed to send people across parallel worlds. Convinced that his dead wife exists in our world, he hijacks the experiment, sending himself & two cohorts over to our world. The scientist who created the experiment also crosses over, armed with a number of bracelets that can revive the wearer in the event of death. He uses one of these 'lifebands' to resurrect Aaron, the fiancé of the woman Malakai abducted, having being shot by him as he tried to save her. The pair then gives chase but the scientist is killed in the process. Before he dies, he passes the 'lifebands' to Aaron, who then uses them to attempt a highly risky & dangerous rescue of his love.Film Analysis: Last Lives is a low-budget knockoff of the Terry Gilliam time travel flick 12 MONKEYS (itself a knockoff of a French new wave film known as La Jetee). Both films cover the same story - a criminal is used as a subject in a temporal experiment due to his obsession of a woman from another world or time, the experiment going awry because of this. The only difference is that while 12 Monkeys is an intelligent & darkly humorous time travel flick, Last Lives is a film with a severely limited scope.As an action film, Last Lives is competent enough, with some decent car chases, shootouts & explosions. But it fares less well as a sci-fi film - namely due to the rather stupid gimmick of having the hero armed with special armbands that can help him cheat death. Sure, the gimmick is interesting but the way it is used here is quite silly - as the hero, Thomas C. Howell is killed so many times that it is not even funny. Okay, I take that back - the various ways that Howell kicks the proverbial bucket are so contrived that you will be laughing out loud over it. Case in point being the shack explosion, with Howell's scattered body parts reforming despite the explosion's effects (surely it would've affected the armbands as well?). The temporal experiment is just a MacGuffin used to launch the story, promptly being written out by the end of the first act.The acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Howell is pretty good despite having some sort of Southern accent that affects his performance slightly. Judge Reinhold looks like he is embarrassed to be there while Jennifer Rubin seems to be under the influence of some serious sedatives. As the villain, Billy Wirth (who has proved himself to be a capable actor in the past) is given little to do, making the most of his role as a telepathic terrorist with a pair of silent henchmen & painful telepathy as his only weapon.

*** MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*** OK, I'll admit - had Billy Wirth not been cast as the bad boy for a good cause lead in this flick, I wouldn't even have bothered picking it up.I thought C. Thomas Howell's acting was lackluster at best (check him out in every scene at some point sporting a pained face like he's constipated in a major way) and though I tend to enjoy Jennifer Rubin's work, she didn't show me much here. Judge Reinhold was non-convincing as the brainiac scientist from the planet Smartron (for obvious reasons - Lee Press-On mustache and using the same goofy delivery as when he had th brain of a preteen boy in Vice Versa). The plot? Well, let's just say I tend to agree with a previous review that questioned how Adrienne (Rubin) could possibly fight off Malacki's (Wirth) advances to get back to the loving arms of Aaron (Howell). I believe love is a powerful force, but ladies, have you SEEN the eyes on the "villain"? There just wouldn't have been any resistance from me, I'm afraid. I'd have flown the proverbial white flag, suffered through the "agony" of being Malacki's true love (and all that entails) and reflected fondly on the memory of my ex-fiancé once in a while. Once in a GREAT while.This movie isn't THAT bad, but it wasn't in any danger of sweeping the Oscars, either. I'm not sorry I've added it to my collection, but it's not because of story line, direction or special effects. Sorry, guys - for me, this one is all about the eye candy. Period.

Not much else to say of this science fiction/action wannabe. The story is poor, the acting is poor, and pretty much everything else about this movie is poor. The only intriguing aspect of the movie, the bracelets that can bring you back to life, is wasted in the pathetic plot of the film. Long story short, skip this film. [1/10]

They should remake this film, perhaps with a different cast, perhaps with the same one but at least another few million in the budget. The story is interesting enough to deserve a makeover. It's been done before - LA Takedown and Heat for example. I'd grade this a "C+" and a "could try harder".