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The Tommyknockers (1993)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
5/24
5/24:
I didn't think of it at the time, but I have to say The Tommyknockers is racist.
Jimmy Smits, a Puerto Rican, sacrifices himself to save a town of white people. On top of it, he plays an
alcoholic who's stupid and gives in so easily. By the way, who reads poems these days? I could've told him
to seek another profession, and that way, he would perhaps never succumb to drinking again.
A big flaw of The Tommyknockers, which was shot on location not in Maine but in New Zealand, is it goes in circles.
There's no reason to stretch out the show for three hours; not much happens, feeling like twelve TV epsiodes stuffed into
one. All I saw is directorial ineptitude in terms of juggling the subplots. Bobbi and Gard have the most attention while
Ruth has the least.
The final thirty minutes is what finally did it in with the worst logic ever. How did Gard know it's what he had
to do: putting the headset on and letting it drill through his frontal lobes? Is there a manual for this sort of thing?
Remember when everybody was working on the burial site? Seeing many shovels at work, I'm surprised that barely any progress
was made. All of a sudden, Bobbi uncovers a very simple mound which reveals a way inside the spaceship. Amazing, is it?
So, are the idiots telling me the aliens, after they were buried for like 10,000 years, found things to do inside the
spaceship for that long? Yeah, okay. Well, then...their fortitude must be legendary. At the end, one kid, who disappeared
during a pointless magic trick, makes out of the ordeal okay when he should've stayed dead while the survivors, especially
Bobbi, were supposed to lose some of their teeth permanently. Hey, what's the deal with the dolls, and what happened to
them afterwards?
In the meantime, the acting is okay. I credit Jimmy Smits for getting me through the show. Some of the writing is certainly
crap. In fact, if Edward D. Wood, Jr., was a more competent filmmaker, The Tommyknockers would've been the result.
By the way, it's incredible that ABC was okay with letting a former porn actress (Traci Lords) appear in this made-for-TV
film and then allowing her to do what she did the best at. Talk about bad judgment.
All in all, The Tommyknockers is
Invasion of the Body Snatchers in Stephen King disguise.