Wonderful Movie

A Disappointing Continuation

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

and the memory of her in other good-to-great films, is the ONLY reason to watch this rubbish. It was extremely disjointed, as if the director/writers were going in one direction and then would stop take a holiday or something and come back with a different idea altogether. One other reviewer mentioned the son being disturbed and yet Walken and Wood never are seen with the son or even mention him again after his "psychotic break" as it is called due to him playing with Dad's toys. I also agree with the reviewer who said that Louise Fletcher's chain smoking looked like it was done by someone who has never smoked. Really, it isn't any one gripe that stands out, the story-lines just aren't fleshed out, the script is mediocre, and the whole thing doesn't make sense. Slapping on a romantic ending to a sci fi/futuristic film without a strong ending to the sci fi is another poor choice.I was impressed by how Natalie Wood continued to be a knockout, perfect hair and make up, and a good actress even in this lousy film, till the day she died.

Bad luck for me! Two stinkers in a row - last week it was "The Terminal Man" and this week "Braindead", I mean "Brainstorm." So boring!I originally thought, "Oh cool! An 80s movie about computers and stuff and Christopher Walken. Sign me up." Bad call. An hour and forty five minutes of "What would happen if you could feel things through a computer?" I tried 4 times - no kidding - to finish this movie, and I could only stumble a few minutes more through it before turning it off again and again. Horrible, paint-dry boring. It's the same thing as "The Terminal Man" - nothing happens! Not in an existential way like Camus, not in a Chekhov way either, it's just boring. It goes on and on and on and on, almost like the same scene is being rewritten over and over. What are people thinking writing scripts like this, directing pictures like this? Unbearable movie, I couldn't manage more than an hour and fifteen minutes of it. There is no reason to watch this movie. Don't bother. Nothing interesting happens, there's no cool 80s music or soundtrack, and Christopher Walken isn't much. Don't watch "The Terminal Man" either. Well, actually, if you watched those two movies back to back it might either kill you or transport you into some boring movie dimension or something.

When this film was released in 1983, it felt secondary to the larger story and the mysteries surrounding Natalie Wood's death. It may be easier now to evaluate the work on its own merits.The film has some major flaws. There are sequences that are confusing to the viewer. Partly because of this, the various story lines feel slapped together, not fused in a cohesive way.It would be nice if the film felt like a fusion of sci-fi, romance, suspense, and spiritual revelation, but instead it feels like each of those elements roughly abuts the others, making if difficult to feel emotionally attached to the whole.Still, there are some worthwhile performances, notably by Louise Fletcher and Natalie Wood. And the visual representations of brain activity are interesting. Best of all, the high-tech feel of the film is impressive.In the end, the film tries to do too much. Its various themes compete with each other and each is cheated.

This is not so much a review as it is an observation of some co-incidences relating to this film and Bertrand Tavernier's 'La Mort en Direct' (1980). I would be surprised if Trumbull had not seen Tavernier's effort as both films do seem to share a common fixation on death and the brain. Anyway, to get to the point, both lead actresses, Wood in Brainstorm and Romy Schneider in La Mort en Direct died in the year they made their last films, at the same age of 43, rather unexpectedly it has to be said. I find all this goes quite beyond 'coincidence' and delves into the realm of what Freud called the 'uncanny'. The fact that both films are about the nature of consciousness (in some small way) and death further provokes the mystery. It could be said that there was something of a self-fulfilling prophesy going on.... maybe. At any rate, the mere thought is capable perhaps of shiver-deliverance.....