Really Surprised!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Bad luck for me! Two stinkers in a row - last week it was "The Terminal Man" and this week "Braindead", I mean "Brainstorm." So boring!I originally thought, "Oh cool! An 80s movie about computers and stuff and Christopher Walken. Sign me up." Bad call. An hour and forty five minutes of "What would happen if you could feel things through a computer?" I tried 4 times - no kidding - to finish this movie, and I could only stumble a few minutes more through it before turning it off again and again. Horrible, paint-dry boring. It's the same thing as "The Terminal Man" - nothing happens! Not in an existential way like Camus, not in a Chekhov way either, it's just boring. It goes on and on and on and on, almost like the same scene is being rewritten over and over. What are people thinking writing scripts like this, directing pictures like this? Unbearable movie, I couldn't manage more than an hour and fifteen minutes of it. There is no reason to watch this movie. Don't bother. Nothing interesting happens, there's no cool 80s music or soundtrack, and Christopher Walken isn't much. Don't watch "The Terminal Man" either. Well, actually, if you watched those two movies back to back it might either kill you or transport you into some boring movie dimension or something.

Besides the film brainstorm, Douglas Trumbull was also the special effects supervisor for some of the most elaborate movies ever made. Films like 2001 A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, New Magic, and of course the multi-Oscar winning film - Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Since this was his first directing debut I have to say he did a remarkable job.Later on his career, he went on to do more special effects for other films, but soon fell off the grid. In Brainstorm a scientist Micheal Brace (Christopher Walken) invents a machine to record the complete feelings of another human being. This included emotions, taste, smell, memories, and shocking revelations most people would like to hide away in dark closets.Although the project was going through like a well oiled machine, covert agents wanted to use it for more nefarious purposes, such as the military, or senseless psychological motives for deeper government operations. With the death of his partner in crime Lillian Reynolds (Louise Fletcher) most of the company was now under control by the same people who wanted to use the machine other than communication or education.All in all, I found this to be a very good film. Using actors of very known quality, including Cliff Robertson. The music was top notch, which gives the viewer a more broad scope in vision as well as medium action as well as the expanse into space and beyond. It is too bad the movie did not do so well at the box office. The eighties were in fact a rather tumultuous time where various movies hit the screens. Brainstorm came out at the wrong time.If it waited a few more months I am sure the film would have peaked the interests of the audience with more acceptability. I felt it was a winter film rather than a fall film. It had more ingredients for the cold months. Yet as for Douglas Trumbull, he retired from the scene and went on to create roller coasters for the large amusement parks well into his seventies.It would be nice if he could work on another film project to show us his relentless magic that has wowed the crowds for over five decades, and with films like those Oscar winners, only he could do it without computers. Remarkable man for an undeniably tough business. Highly Recommended for those over 14.

This is not so much a review as it is an observation of some co-incidences relating to this film and Bertrand Tavernier's 'La Mort en Direct' (1980). I would be surprised if Trumbull had not seen Tavernier's effort as both films do seem to share a common fixation on death and the brain. Anyway, to get to the point, both lead actresses, Wood in Brainstorm and Romy Schneider in La Mort en Direct died in the year they made their last films, at the same age of 43, rather unexpectedly it has to be said. I find all this goes quite beyond 'coincidence' and delves into the realm of what Freud called the 'uncanny'. The fact that both films are about the nature of consciousness (in some small way) and death further provokes the mystery. It could be said that there was something of a self-fulfilling prophesy going on.... maybe. At any rate, the mere thought is capable perhaps of shiver-deliverance.....

Brainstorm is an indecently beautiful and deliciously scary slice of 80s aspirational cinema. Chris Walken and Natalie Wood co-star as married scientists Michael and Karen Brace, who are part of a team that invent a device that records and can re-transmit experiences. The film is maybe an American example of the 80s cinema du look, every shot is framed, for every shot an effort is made. When Michael is in hospital, he has bright red jello on his lunch tray, there's a Vasarely serigraph and some great abstract sculpture in the corporate environment. Everything is controlled. I would love to know how they got some of the shots they did.Even though it's such a beautiful movie, there's some nice messages there. One of which is about seeing yourself through the eyes of others, and rekindling lost love. I actually felt lucky to be alive watching the movie - it's been a long time since I felt any such thing.It's quite a reflexive movie in that the initial corporate use of the technology is to get someone to do a grand prix, and then peddle the sensorium of that, but the movie is also in many ways about experiencing something beautiful yourself, what it's like to live the life of a genius and feel true love.Brainstorm is one of those rare movies which mention a force that could be used for good or bad, without seeming trite. The story could be tighter, and isn't helped by Nathalie Woods dying in mysterious circumstances before the film was totally wrapped. I just absolutely love it though, the movie came on me as a revelation. I had suspected when watching Silent Running, particularly the opening glide over a quite artificial forest, that Trumbull loved fetishised imagery, but I still wasn't prepared for Brainstorm.