Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Memorable, crazy movie

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Larry Cohen's "Q" makes no pretense about what kind of movie it is. The purpose is to be over-the-top. It looks like the sort of movie that they had a lot of fun making. What really caught me eye was the cast. While Michael Moriarty isn't known for anything in particular, we have Candy Clark (Debbie in "American Graffiti"), David Carradine (Bill in "Kill Bill"), Richard Roundtree (Shaft in "Shaft"), Mary Louise Weller (Mandy in "Animal House") and Malachy McCourt* (the brother of "Angela's Ashes" author Frank McCourt). On top of that, the scene in the bar shows an Arlo Guthrie** poster in the background. What a collection for a movie about a winged Aztec serpent god terrorizing New York!*A few hours after watching this, I watched "The Brink's Job", which it turned out also featured Malachy McCourt in a supporting role. I never expected to see him in two movies the same day.**As it turns out, Arlo grew up in a property owned by Fred Trump. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about what a creep the elder Trump was.

As if New York doesn't have enough problems already, a flying serpent is on the loose picking people off as a feed.Jimmy (Michael Moriarty) is a thief, and one day he discovers a giant bird's nest at the top of the Chrysler building. Around the same time, police is looking for who killed the window washer, a construction worker, a man in bed, and a woman on the rooftop. Shepard (David Carridine) is a cop who's on this case and starts to suspect that something flying is the culprit of all the killing. When Jimmy gets caught, he uses the information he has to spring a deal with the cops.Unlikely story that a giant serpent can roam New York city and not get detected by thousands of people, but that's the plot. As far as giant monster flick is concerned this movie is crap, crap, crap because there's aren't much of a scene involving the Q itself, and all it does is fly around and pick people off of here and there. Otherwise, it's just one long boring sequence of nonsense that goes on between Jimmy and the police.Stingy is what I'd categorize this film under. Unlike Steven Spielberg, director Larry Cohen lacks the spirit to entertain and excite its viewers with visuals of the main antagonist. Don't waste your time on this one, as there's no delivery, and lots of tease. The main character of this film seems to be the greedy thief (and not the Q) that the director seems to identify a lot with.

Q, or to give it it's full title- The 8 Exciting Excapades Of Mr Q, The Big Thing, Also Known As Quaker Coat Al, King Of The Mormans, As He Chases Shaft, Kwai Chang, And Michael Moriarty- is basically just a remake of Jaws, but set in space. It has all the same scenes from that movie- a child being mauled to death as he takes his moon buggy for a brief spin; a dead man's head floating by the spaceship's port hole, Shaft having his legs bitten off as Q eats through the bottom of the ship. Heck, it even 'borrows' some of the famous lines- 'We're gonna need a bigger rocket', 'we're gonna need a bigger ship', 'Monster! (instead of shark!)', and 'Hi'. It is suffice it to say that the famous George Lucas theme tune of the approaching evil is rogued too. While the Jaws music goes like this- Duh duh. Duh duh. Du du du du duh da du du, duh da du du' and so on, the music in Q goes like this- 'Duh duh. Duh duh. Du du du du duh da du du, duh da du du'. If that ain't a slice of the old Rip Off Magee, then I don't know what is boy! Anyways, I'm sure if you've seen Jaws (or it's other remake, King Qwong) you'll know the basic storyboard. Humans have been living on the moon for a few weeks now, but for some reason they are all trapped in the 80s, or possibly the 60s. Drilling for precious moon oil has awoken an ancient beast known as Qod (basically God with a Q) and he ain't happy! He ain't happy, but he ain't not hungry! Q is a giant dragon type feature, roughly the size of a large squirrel, and he can fly. He can't breath fire, but he ain't not hungry! He feasts on space tramps and rocks and takes off towards the main city- Earth Part Two. Soon it is a race against time for the spacemen to work together and bring down this awesome foe. I like the graphics in this film- they are some of the best I have ever scene, and I like the fact that they filmed on the moon, with Neil Armstrong's permission. There is plenty of gore and killings, and the excitements are kept high on the scale- about 340lbs worth, give or take. What the film really needed was a big monster fight- they should have dug up another alien and had a smackdown rumble fest where they both smelled what the other had cookin'. This is a lovely piece of filming, Michael Douglas should be proud.Best Scene: Patrick Moore's cameo. He is discussing the possibility of life on other planets at the start of the show, then it cuts to him going to his dressing room. Later when his director goes to pick him up for his next shoot, and spins his chair round he is dead and Q has crawled out of his eye! You know which one.

New York police are bemused by a spate of reports of a giant flying lizard that has been spotted around the rooftops of New York, which they assume to be bogus until the lizard starts to eat people. An out-of-work, ex-con piano player (Michael Moriarty) is the only person who knows the location of the monster's nest and is determined to turn the knowledge to his advantage, but will his gamble pay off or will he end up as lizard food?The biggest issue with this movie is the implausibility that no one is able to see the monster. With a creature as big as Q, they really should be able to see where he flies to nest. As the plot says, some people even doubt he is real. Look up! He is huge! Even New York City's smog is not so bad that you cannot see the skyline. (The claim is that he flies in line with the sun so as to hide, but that makes no sense whatsoever.)Besides that, it is a great film. Good story, good characters, good acting, good cast (Moriarty, Richard Roundtree, Candy Clark and David Carradine)... we have a low budget going a long way on the effects (cheesy, maybe, but look at the stuff Sam Arkoff used to produce with American International). Some relatively tame blood and guts, kicking off early with the window-washer scene, which is pretty awesome.Praise has come for Michael Moriarty. Roger Ebert says, "Rex Reed was right, though, about the Method performance by Michael Moriarty. In the middle of this exploitation movie, there's Moriarty, rolling his eyes, improvising dialogue, and acting creepy. He's fun to watch, especially in the scene where he names his terms for leading the cops to the lizard." Moriarty is indeed an unusual actor, but a skilled one: he has won his fair share of awards.The negotiation scene is a bit odd from a legal point of view. Can the city actually grant Quinn complete book rights as well as photo rights from the police? There seems to be little the city could actually do to block another writer -- no one owns the news. And can you copyright a public document?Even after multiple viewings, the film never gets old and you might find different ways of looking at it. The science fiction angle of a giant monster may be the primary plot, but this is also a serial killer film, a murder mystery (or at least a detective story) and an examination of a man's flawed quest for redemption. There is more intelligence in the script than first meets the eye.I have seen this film on VHS, DVD, the big screen and on Blu-Ray. In any format, this film is a winner and the last of the great non-CGI science fiction films. While no collector's edition exists yet (perhaps some day), the must-have version is available from Scream Factory, who have provided a new (as of 2013) commentary from writer-director Larry Cohen. Truly a must-have.