Brave New World (1998)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Yes, it was not TRUE to the novel, but this version hits on so many levels closer to home, I found it to be much more interesting and connectable than the 1980 version. The writers deserve much kudos for fitting most of the elements of the novel into this modernized version - and it fits well with current trends from the night club sex world, to the Prozac, zoloft, "e" popping world, to the CITY people being civilized and the country folk shunned for their family ways. ALL very relevant, or sort of how the novel played out in my mind anyway... but this movie fit even better. If you can ever find it, I'd recommend a watch, NOT as the best version of BNW novel, but as a modern and currently existing lifestyle in the world that BNW predicted. I mean, I read the novel and the whole time I was thinking, "This is exactly how the world is today mostly", so I found this updated version to be brilliant.Production wise, the sets were fine, the lighting great, not sure about the audio, and the actors fit pretty well, and acted okay... it's not Oscar material as it was made for TV, but the STORY carries everything along exactly as it should. I'd buy the DVD in a second if it is ever released.

This movie gets some of it's ideas from Huxley's book, but basically they just pick and choose certain things they want. The story does not flow in the same way, so SOOO much is missing. They make up story lines that completely go against Huxley's story, actually made me so irritated to watch this movie.To name a few points which I found most disturbing: Bernard and Lenina's relationship is portrayed to be way more than it should be. Someone (a Delta) is trying to kill Bernard because the DHC programmed him that way. The DHC is overall just evil. Pope is not in the story at all with John and Linda, actually, the whole reservation thing is completely changed! Linda isn't fat or horribly disfigured by age, but yet she is called fat.Read the book, it's only like 200 pages.

I'm not sure what I'm more embarrassed to admit: that I've seen this movie or that I don't miss it any time it airs. Okay, it's probably the second one.There are some good performances struggling to break out. Peter Gallagher is always pretty solid and I've always been a fan of Miguel Ferrer. Rya Kihlstedt is certainly sexy and better than what's she's given to work with.The fact that this is an adaptation is no excuse for its weaknesses, furthermore, none of the changes enhanced the story, anyway.On the plus side, this is one of the funniest damn movies about a dystopian future that has ever been released. Normally, I don't bother with reviews, but I wanted to share the joy with this one. I can't help but laugh out loud when the pinhead delta runs head-first into Bernard's window projector thingamajig. I wonder if that counts as a spoiler.

Low-budget and made for TV, yes, but also perfect casting and good sets and costumes. Lenina's resemblance to Anna Karina in Alphaville can't be accidental. Compared with the low-rent mall interiors of THX1138 and Logan's Run it looks luxurious. The better you know the book the more interesting it will be. BNW is hardly a literary classic, rather a socio-political essay like 1984. Huxley foresaw so much so early - in 1932 there were only two totalitarian states, Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy, neither especially consumerist. A few of Huxley's ideas are missing from the film, notably the deification of Henry Ford and the prevalence of cloning. But there are few missteps compared with most adaptations, just a hokey ending, the deranged Delta assassin subplot, and making Linda an outsider instead of a misplaced 'civilized' person. The slogans are straight from the book, even the song lyrics. Fortunately the 20th century demonstrated that neither totalitarian propaganda nor relentless advertising can really get people to believe lies for long. But in most ways the real world has turned out worse than BNW - Huxley predicted the pornography of sex but not the pornography of violence, Betas (or worse) are running things, not Alphas, and every attempt at Soma (ecstasy, Valium) has turned out to have a dark side.