GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

MasterFantastic I have a confession to make: I like 'B' movies. Some can be very inventive while others are downright terrible. This movie falls somewhere in between the two poles. The plot of Monolith concerns a formless, shapeless alien presence which can transfer between bodies and gives its human hosts the ability of pyrokinesis. It also kills them after a fairly short time, but then again, it's an alien, it's been here before time began, so it really doesn't care much. And it's held by John Hurt who heads up the Department of Historical Research, which is a fancy name for a government black ops organization that tracks aliens.Enter two cops, played by Bill Paxton and Lindsay Frost. They're at odds with each other from day one, yet form a grudging respect and affection for one another by the end of the flick. They stumble onto the government's plan and after chases, watching their commander (played well by Louis Gossett, Jr.) get killed, and poorly staged fights, they manage to thwart John Hurts' plans and all is well...sort of.The good thing is director John Eyres manages to build some suspense with this flick in spite of working with a low budget. Paxton and Frost work well together even though the dialog between them--otherwise known as playful banter--is often stultifyingly bad. John Hurt overacts marvelously. His speech at the end ("I've earned this moment, I deserve this moment") should win an Oscar...or a Razzie. There's an amusing scene with a guard at the Department of Historical Research, an excellent good-cop/bad cop scene (very well edited, IMHO), and the music is surprisingly effective.The downsides to this film begin with the title. With a name like 'Monolith' I was expecting some kind of immense stone structure. We get a spaceship instead. (It's pretty cool, but still...) The dialog also could have been a lot better. A lot. Really, I'm surprised that the leads managed to work up any sympathy for themselves with some of the lines they had to spout and that's due to good acting more than anything else. The explanation for Paxton's wife's death is never fully explored although it can be guessed from the flashbacks, but is underdeveloped. I really think if Eyres had been given a decent budget and the script had been worked on more, it could have been elevated into 'A' status. Sadly, it wasn't, but it's still a very likable film in spite of its deficiencies.

udar55 Detectives Tucker (Bill Paxton) and Flynn (Lindsay Frost) individually stumble upon an out-of-this-world case when they both spot a deranged woman chasing down a young boy with her car and then shooting him dead. Things get messy when the Department of Historical Research boss Villano (John Hurt) shows up and takes the woman away (according to the screenplay, he has a higher security rating than the President) from police chief Mac (Lou Gossett, Jr.). Naturally, two curious and rule breaking detectives won't be having any of this and begin to investigate. But the bigger question is will these two cantankerous cops get along? Folks seem to peg this as an X-FILES ripoff, but that is hard to swallow because it was filming before that show debuted. It is more LETHAL WEAPON with aliens. Director John Eyres and screenwriter Stephen Lister had some marginal direct-to-video success with PROJECT: SHADOWCHASER so Shapiro-Glickenhaus maybe wanted a piece of that. It is nice seeing Paxton getting a film to carry on his own at this time (he previous did with THE VAGRANT), but the budget just isn't there for this one. Introvision handled the FX and some of them are really rough. It is a shame because I could totally get behind a "LETHAL WEAPON with aliens" film (well, I guess I have THE HIDDEN, which this closely resembles). John Hurt appears to have only done a day or two on this as his scenes in the last half have him isolated in shots (even including his major role in the finale).

Brian Thibodeau Monolith (R) - MCA Universal Home Video: Low-budget hack John Eyres (PROJECT SHADOWCHASER), a director whose penchant for making bubbleheaded B-action scripts seem like high-concept A-list product without the subtext stymies him time after time, lends his flashy, contrived visual style (mostly achieved through lighting and heavy FX work) to this hokey, logic-free sci-fi actioner about two stereotypically mismatched cops (Bill Paxton and Lindsay Frost, bad quip traders to the end) who encounter creepy research guys, assorted walking dead, monster gun battles, and a hefty serving of explosions as they track a body-hopping alien entity to the source of its power. While PROJECT SHADOWCHASER ripped huge chunks from TERMINATOR and DIE HARD, MONOLITH's inspirations seem to come from a plethora of Big Action Flicks, as its alien beastie - bereft of motive or, apparently, physical form - proves little more than a MacGuffin to allow Eyres to show off his remarkable-for-this-budget action and FX sequences, particularly a boffo climax. In between these, however, we get grating, failed attempts at comedy and hero banter so stale a chainsaw couldn't cut it. However, if you go in expecting a full wheel of cheese with the FX wine (in this case a nice Mogen David), then you'll be less disappointed. I give it a 4

katpbennett The reference to Starsky & Hutch by another viewer is brilliant. This movie has no story, but, instead, seems to have been pieced together with bits and pieces pulled from Hollywood's vast supply of garbage cans. Bill Paxton does his usual out-of-control-but-I'm-really-hurtin'-inside schtick. Lindsay Frost's hair stays miraculously manageable, despite her being blown into a pool, shot at on a high-rise terrace, and (why do they subject us to this schlock?) diving into sewage. Both actors serve as the other's straight-man to hackneyed one-liners that are as predictable as the victims. Just who or what this alien with eyeballs that shoot fireballs is... or wants... is never explained, nor do we have any idea what the goon scientists have been doing with/at it all these years. I paid 20 cents for the video of this film on the streets of Seoul. I think I was ripped off.