Saw this on cable last night and I couldn't believe...

... how many A-list actors went on board with it. I tuned in mid-film, and started to dismiss it as nothing but a Gilbert Gottfried "yap" vehicle, when I start recognizing guys like Christopher Lloyd, Chevy Case, and the unmistakable bellows of James Earl Jones. Even Katey Sagal I recognized immediately. Chloe Mortez, I was little less sure of, but I only doubted it was her since she has to be one of the most versatile and talented young female actresses of this generation, yet in this film her part came of entirely B-grade.

All I can say is that while you can get a FX guy with lots of contacts from years in the business to pull as cast like this together, it's probably not a great idea to put him in the director's chair. I was in shock. This film would have been OK for 1980, but even by today's "made for cable" standards, it fell far short of the mark. The writing was ok. But the pacing was horrible. At one point I tuned out for 10-15 minutes to check the news, and when I came back, the characters were still doing the same thing. The "plot twist" with Mortez was both predicatble and under-exploited in the story telling. Constant and abrupt cuts between different sets of characters might have worked when Shakespear was "captivating" his audience, but they didn't work here.

Sadly, this ends up being a fluff film for little kids who will watch anything, and they won't have a clue as to how much acting talent is up there on the screen.