Just watched Lifeforce. Got it from Netflix (of course), based on a recommendation in the sci-fi genre. First off, it wasn’t as bad as I feared it might be. Second off, that’s about the best I can say for it.
Mathilda May, in the Dracula role, spent much of the movie naked, and that’s not a bad thing, but it’s definitely not enough to make the movie.
Steve Railsback, in the Jonathan Harker role, didn’t even mail his acting in. He may have sent it by carrier pigeon or something.
The story is almost directly lifted from Stoker’s book, even having the ship of the dead (except it’s a spaceship) for the arrival from faraway places. It takes place in England. It has an insane asylum. There’s hypnotism involved. Naked young women happen. Et al. Dracula is female, the other vampires from the castle (spaceship) are, perforce, male, and the names are changed. So nothing creative or new.
The special effects were actually above the standards I expected. Not too bad for pre-CGI days.
So, while I didn’t dislike the movie, I really can’t recommend it to anyone. But that’s what I expected going into it. If you never take chances with what you don’t already know is good, you never expand your horizons. So I get movies I expect to be disappointed by every now and again. And every so often, I find that I’m pleasantly surprised to be wrong, and discover a good movie. I got this one for the same reasons I got The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and that one was marvelous! So Lifeforce was worth a shot, but came up short.
(I’m looking forward to Hanna and Your Highness this weekend. One should just be good, the other is a “take a chance” type that I have more hope for than I did for Lifeforce.)
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