F/X: The Illusion
- Episode aired Sep 9, 1996
- 1h 30m
IMDb RATING
7.7/10
26
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Rollie helps a woman escape a bad relationship by turning her into a man and finds himself on the run from the Feds who want him for murder.Rollie helps a woman escape a bad relationship by turning her into a man and finds himself on the run from the Feds who want him for murder.Rollie helps a woman escape a bad relationship by turning her into a man and finds himself on the run from the Feds who want him for murder.
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- TriviaThis two part episode was first presented as a two hour movie - it was in fact a "movie of the week" pilot for the syndicated series.
Featured review
Staggeringly bad
God, was this a struggle to get through. When I recently found out that there was a TV adaptation of the F/X films, I was eager to see it. But if this pilot is representative of the rest of the series, I won't make it far.
Unlike in the films, the "F/X" here are mostly ridiculously unbelievable. In one scene, for example, Rollie enters the bad guys' lair and makes a quip of some sort, then gets shot. When the baddies go to make sure he's dead, we see the crappiest-looking, featureless mannequin, whose lips can hardly move. And we're supposed to buy that this thing was just now looking, moving and talking like a human! No amount of suspension of disbelief will suffice for that.
While it would be silly to expect the lead actors to be anywhere near Bryan Brown's and Brian Dennehy's level, I would still expect better than this. Their main point of interest is their god-awful hair. Cameron Daddo's must have been time-transplanted from an especially dirty late 60s hippy. Even worse is Kevin Dobson's; the kind of thin, swept-up 'fro that you'd more expect to see on a very old black woman. And just in case the actual style weren't bad enough, it's been subjected to a dye job that would cause a hairdresser to commit harakiri in shame.
But the absolute number one terrible thing about this pilot is the filming style. Someone obviously spent far too much time watching NYPD Blue and then greatly overestimated their ability to copy it well. Almost every single shot is a nauseating mix of rapid zooms, close ups, quick cuts, blue lenses and stupid angles. The rare times we fix on anyone or anything for a few seconds, the camera wobbles around non-stop, as if the operator were either drunk or filming while treading water in a swimming pool. It hurts the eyes and the brain.
In order to give the show a fair chance, I'll watch one or two episodes more. You never know, they might have learned from their mistakes in this pilot and improved things. But I really wouldn't bet on it.
Unlike in the films, the "F/X" here are mostly ridiculously unbelievable. In one scene, for example, Rollie enters the bad guys' lair and makes a quip of some sort, then gets shot. When the baddies go to make sure he's dead, we see the crappiest-looking, featureless mannequin, whose lips can hardly move. And we're supposed to buy that this thing was just now looking, moving and talking like a human! No amount of suspension of disbelief will suffice for that.
While it would be silly to expect the lead actors to be anywhere near Bryan Brown's and Brian Dennehy's level, I would still expect better than this. Their main point of interest is their god-awful hair. Cameron Daddo's must have been time-transplanted from an especially dirty late 60s hippy. Even worse is Kevin Dobson's; the kind of thin, swept-up 'fro that you'd more expect to see on a very old black woman. And just in case the actual style weren't bad enough, it's been subjected to a dye job that would cause a hairdresser to commit harakiri in shame.
But the absolute number one terrible thing about this pilot is the filming style. Someone obviously spent far too much time watching NYPD Blue and then greatly overestimated their ability to copy it well. Almost every single shot is a nauseating mix of rapid zooms, close ups, quick cuts, blue lenses and stupid angles. The rare times we fix on anyone or anything for a few seconds, the camera wobbles around non-stop, as if the operator were either drunk or filming while treading water in a swimming pool. It hurts the eyes and the brain.
In order to give the show a fair chance, I'll watch one or two episodes more. You never know, they might have learned from their mistakes in this pilot and improved things. But I really wouldn't bet on it.
- feindlicheubernahme
- Jul 6, 2024
- Permalink
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of F/X: The Illusion (1996) in Australia?
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