Good movie but grossly overrated

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

What is it about the 1980s and really bad films? This cinematic misfire manages to ignore all the implied requirements of good filmmaking such as plot, decent acting, a cohesive storyline, and believable characters. The main problem with this movie is that it doesn't know what it wants to be: is it a dystopian future, a satire about consumerism, an allegory about capitalism, a fractured romance, a cautionary fable about oppressive government oversight, a musical? It tries and fails to be any of these things. Dan Akroyd appears for about two minutes of welcome comic relief. Bill Murray's role is a little more substantial, but not enough to rise above the cheap special effects or ultimate pointlessness of the trip to the moon so the seniors can buy things. See, when you push satire on an audience, you need to nurture relatable elements and draw them as broad allegories with which the viewer can connect; excellent writing can accomplish this, even with the obviously limited budget of a film like this; Terry Gilliam knows how to do this with films such as Brazil, my go-to example for an effective presentation of dystopia. We can connect with Sam because he's caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare. In Nothing Lasts Forever, we're given a never-ending parade of disconnected elements that don't form a cohesive whole or relate to anything. On top of all that, Zach Galligan's limited range renders an unconvincing hero, one who, by the way, doesn't learn anything other than how to play the piano. Yes, you read that right, that's the whole point of this film. He learns to play the piano.I had never heard of this film until I saw it on TV last night. Someone rightfully decided to bury this piece of junk, and it should have stayed buried. It's not the worst film ever made, but it's hard to imagine that, somewhere along the line, the people who worked on it didn't stop to realize they were laboring over mediocrity.

A wide-eyed young man (Zach Galligan) arrives in New York with aspirations of becoming an artist. Once inside the confines of the city (which is VERY confined in this totalitarian society) he's prepped to become a working stiff, but an eccentric homeless person whom he has been overly generous to eventually guides the boy to his true fate.The only thing stranger than the fact that this picture has barely been seen anywhere (officially, anyway) is that it was financed by a major studio. "Nothing Last Forever" is not a movie that mainstream '80s moviegoers would have flocked to see. Quite the contrary, if it had been widely released there's absolutely no question that it would have been an epic bomb... which is exactly the appeal.Filmed mostly in black and white (with a few color sequences), it's simultaneously an homage and a parody of classic films. There are many breathtaking visuals and wonderful performances (from an amazing cast) and the film manages to get stranger as it rolls along, blending shadowy noir with kitschy sci-fi and light drama with heavy farce. As another reviewer pointed out, it's difficult NOT to draw comparisons to Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," which was made on a grander scale but is equally as offbeat, surreal and impossible to accurately describe. In other words, like that film, "Nothing Lasts Forever" is truly a work of art.Here's hoping MGM will one day give the movie the lavish release that it deserves. While it'll never be a multi-billion-dollar draw, there's definitely a huge cult audience waiting to discover this lost gem.

This was one of those neat little movies that I had never heard of, but when I saw it I knew it was something special, like "Forbidden Zone", "The Big Crime Wave", or "The Projectionist". It's one of those movies that must be experienced as it's full of weird surprises, odd tangents, and imaginative details. It starts out like a perfect imitation of an old 1950s black and white movie, and I might have thought it was if not for the presence of a fresh-off-of-Gremlins Zach Galligan. It blends old stock footage with new stuff seamlessly, and slowly gets more and more strange, until the film starts fading in between B&W and color as Galligan discovers a secret society under New York City and ends up being sent to the moon to find his true love. It was directed by Tom Schiller, who did short films for Saturday Night Live, and features a surprising cast including Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray (who's great as always), Imogene Coca, Lauren Tom (currently the voice of Amy Wong on "Futurama"), Mort Sahl, Eddie Fisher, Calvert DeForest, and Lawrence Tierny. Everyone in the cast acts as if they were in a "normal" movie.So if you can find this, it's worth watching. I liked it. Yup. Sure. It was good. Uh-huh. Yeah. Affirmative. Yes-sirree-bob-a-roonie. It was SWELL. Great. Cool. Ginchy. Yup. It was super-duper, superlative, and neat-a-rific. Yup. Sure. It was good. Uh-huh. Yeah. Affirmative. Yes-sirree-bob-a-roonie-doonie-woonie. It was sweet. Great. Cool. Ginchy. Yup. It was phat, super-duper and tip-top. Yup. Sure. It was both pleasant and quality. Uh-huh. Yeah, yup, yes-sirree-bob-a-roonie. It was SWELL. Great. Cool. Ginchy. Yup. It was super-duper, superlative, and neat-a-rific. Did I say that already?

A truly bizarre film, but all the more entertaining because of it. Starts off in the style of a 1930s science fiction, and just seems to get stranger and stranger. I particularly liked the guided tour of the lunar surface for the paying tourists who laughed when their guide made a comment on the crashed Soviet probe she drew their attention to. The idea of native "moon people" (who look like native Hawaiians), also being another nice touch. Obviously, there was a very creative mind at work here.