Marc Boyle Movies

For his first major project after the overwhelming success of Titanic, Leonardo Di Caprio took a risky path in this adaptation of Alex Garland's acclaimed novel, directed by Danny Boyle. Richard (Di Caprio) is an American backpacking through Asia with a handful of friends from Europe. While in Bangkok, he meets a mad Scotsman who calls himself Daffy Duck (Robert Carlyle). Shortly before Mr. Duck kills himself, he gives Richard a crude map to a place in Thailand that he claims is paradise on earth: beautiful, unspoiled, and uninhabited. For lack of anything better to do, Richard and his companions try to locate the spot, which, after a dangerous and taxing journey, takes them to a beach as beautiful as Duck said it would be. Richard and his friends settle in, but before long they discover that they are not alone; a large group of fellow travelers has already dug themselves in, and they have established a community with the same social evils that Richard was hoping to leave behind. Just as important, there is an army of natives who grow marijuana in the nearby hills and do not appreciate the presence of these visitors. The Beach proved controversial during production, partly due to production delays and shifting release dates, partly due to environmental concerns after crew members bulldozed parts of the Thai island of Phi Phi Le for the planting of non-native trees. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Good and evil battle for the future of 23rd century Earth in this visually striking big-budget science fiction epic. In the movie's prologue, which is set in 1914, scientists gather in Egypt at the site of an event that transpired centuries earlier. Aliens, it seemed, arrived to collect four stones representing the four basic elements (earth, air, fire and water) - warning their human contacts that the objects were no longer safe on Earth. A few hundred years later (in the 23rd century), a huge ball of molten lava and flame is hurtling toward Earth, and scientist-holy man Victor Cornelius (Ian Holm) declares that in order to prevent it from destroying the planet, the same four elemental stones must be combined with the fifth element, as embodied by a visitor from another world named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). However, if the force of evil presents itself to the stones instead, the Earth will be destroyed, and an evil being named Zorg (Gary Oldman) will trigger the disaster. Despite her remarkable powers, Leeloo needs help with her mission, and she chooses her accomplice, military leader-turned-cab driver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), when she literally falls through the roof of his taxi. Writer and director Luc Besson began writing the script for The Fifth Element when he was only 16 years old, though he was 38 before he was able to bring it to the screen.
~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In 1939 Hamburg, Germany, a group of teenagers express their rebellion against Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime through their affection for American swing music, British fashion, and Harlem slang. American and British big-band jazz records are among those banned by the Fuhrer, but the young men secretly get together with their friends to listen and dance to the music. As their escapades become increasingly bold, they each get into trouble with the authorities. Robert Sean Leonard stars as Peter, who ends up being forced -- by a prank -- into having to join the Hitler Youth with his friend Thomas (Christian Bale). They are both engineering students at the university, where Thomas' father was taken away for defending his Jewish colleagues. With Arvid (Frank Whaley), they pretend to be Nazi supporters by day while rebelling with the swing music by night. Kenneth Branagh, in an uncredited appearance, is a glib Nazi Gestapo chief who makes matters more difficult. Each of the boys must choose among family, safety, friendship, and freedom as politics impinges on their youthful exuberance, and the Nazis set them against one another. The movie was shot in Prague, directed by Thomas Carter from a script by Jonathan Marc Feldman, and released by Disney. Barbara Hershey appears as Peter's mother. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

A British production created by Monty Python alumni, this film concerns an inept chocolate-factory executive (Tyler Butterworth) who accidentally knocks three workers into a vat. The product is an incredible hit with consumers, though one of the workers' widows (Vanessa Redgrave) is considering blackmail. ~ John Bush, Rovi

Set during the last days of the old west, this zany adventure follows the exploits of a pair of cow-poke bankrobbers her are captured and then given the choice between going to jail or going overseas to fight WW I. They choose the latter and end up in France where they eventually join a squadron of British pilots. The fliers have been assigned to gun down a well-protected, gigantic German zeppelin that has been causing many headaches for the Allies. Unfortunately, the attempts take a heavy toll on the planes and slightly addled British plane mechanic Fritz is having increasing difficulties piecing the planes back together. Tables turn for the better when the two unwilling soldiers learn to fly the planes themselves. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Michael Winner ups the ante once again in Death Wish 3. Any pretense of Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) having a career in architecture is completely gone. Kersey's new career appears to be as a professional vigilante, blowing away muggers, rapists and thieves off the mean streets -- or as he terms it "thinning the herd." Back in New York City, Kersey, with his usual luck, arrives just in time to find an old friend dying after a vicious beating by a multi-cultural gang of thugs. The cops arrest Kersey, but it just so happens that police chief Richard S. Shriker (Ed Lauter) is like Kersey with a badge: "I'm the law, and that means I get to violate your civil rights." He makes a deal with Kersey: he can go free as long as he keeps the cops informed of his death counts. Kersey grunts in agreement and proceeds to move into a decaying tenement building in the middle of a bombed out gang war zone. The building is populated by a group of elderly tenants who are terrified by the neighborhood gang warfare. Kersey declares his own personal war on the neighborhood gang, led by a frenzied leader named Fraker (Gavan O'Herilhy), who wears a reverse Mohawk hair-style. As Kersey devises booby traps and trip-wire bombs to confound the gang, the senior citizens gleefully take pot shots at the wounded gang members from their windows. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

This feature-length story about the heist of $10 million in Nazi diamonds primarily rides on star Tom Selleck's popularity as TV's Magnum, P.I., (a 1980s show), since the plot turnarounds, slighted character development, and stock situations are not that engaging on their own. The setting is 1934 and Nick Lassiter (Selleck) has been strong-armed by the Yank and Brit governments into stealing the diamonds from a German agent (Lauren Hutton) -- if he can track the gems to their hiding place. Along the way, he travels through London of the 1930s -- marketplaces, warehouses, and watering holes that lend an atmosphere to his search. His lady love Sara (Jane Seymour) more or less stands around to lend support while the suavely suited-up Lassiter battles a crooked cop (Bob Hoskins), his real arch enemy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The second sequel to the 1976 horror hit The Omen finds Damien Thorn assuming the full mantle of the Antichrist and preparing for a final, all-out battle with "the Nazarene." Now in his thirties, Damien (Sam Neill) has elevated the family business, Thorn Industries, into the world's biggest multinational corporation. A little bit of black magic paves the way for Damien to become ambassador to England and the head of an international youth council. He soon uses this platform to amass an army of followers to do his bidding. But when Damien notices the confluence of three stars in the sky on March 24, he gets worried about the second coming of Christ. So he orders his minions to kill all the babies born on that day, warning them: "Fail, and you will be condemned to a numbing eternity in the flaccid bosom of Christ." Damien even orders his faithful private secretary, Harvey Dean (Don Gordon), to commit infanticide on his own kid, just because the guy's wife gave birth on the wrong day; a nasty incident involving laundry-room implements soon follows. Meanwhile, Damien romances Kate Reynolds (Lisa Harrow), a beautiful television anchorwoman who feels like a moth drawn to Damien's charismatic flame -- even after he brutally sodomizes her to show her how the world looks through his eyes. Things come to a head when Brother DeCarlo (Rossano Brazzi), one of a secret cabal of monks who have assembled the seven Daggers of Meggido in hopes of assassinating Damien, reveals to Kate that the Antichrist has taken her son (Barnaby Holm) under his wing. Although The Final Conflict was the final theatrical installment of the Omen series, the made-for-TV Omen IV: The Awakening appeared a decade later. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

For Marshal O'Neil (Sean Connery), the Jupiter moon Io is just another dingy mining town on the final frontier. When his wife leaves him and takes their son with them, it merely confirms that though he's traveled millions of miles, his life is going nowhere. Then he notices that miners are dying in strangely psychotic ways -- walking in space without spacesuits, carving up prostitutes. With the help of Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen), his investigation reveals that the miners are ingesting a lethal drug that speeds their work efforts. He learns that the company that runs the town is behind the drug. He confronts the town boss Sheppard Peter Boyle and soon has two hit men heading toward Io with a plan to kill him. As the seconds tick down to the next space shuttle's arrival, O'Neil plots to meet them and faces the biggest challenge of his life. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., Rovi

John Huston directed this cold war spy thriller (from a script by Walter Hill) concerning a British agent trying infiltrate the organization of a nefarious communist spy. Paul Newman is Joseph Reardon, a British secret agent commissioned by Mackintosh (Harry Andrews) to impersonate a jewel thief. When the police are tipped off about his diamond robbery, Reardon is arrested and shipped off to a high-security prison. At the prison, he meets a convicted Russian spy and the two are involved in a prison break, arranged by a mysterious group called the Scarperers. After the successful breakout, Reardon finds himself drugged and sent to Ireland. It turns out that the escapade was organized by Mackintosh in the hopes Reardon could infiltrate the Scarperers and gather information on the group's leader, Sir George Wheeler (James Mason), and prove him to be a Russian spy. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

In the third episode of the six-part story "The Time Monster," the Master (Roger Delgado) has unleashed the all-powerful Kronos the Kronavore (Marc Boyle) from centuries of hibernation. Unfortunately, Kronos escapes from the Master and returns to his own time, where he destroys the continent of Atlantis. Unless this rampaging time monster can be reined in by the Doctor (Jon Pertwee), everything in the 20th century will likewise be destroyed -- including the Master. Written by Robert Sloman, Doctor Who: The Time Monster, Episode 3 originally aired on June 3, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi