Twilight Zone: The Movie

Imagine the promotional potential: take two of Hollywood's brightest young superstar directors ripe from their latest triumphs—Steven Spielberg (E.T.) and John Landis (An American Werewolf in London)—and join them with up-and-coming hitmakers Joe Dante (Gremlins) and George Miller (Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior) for glossy, big-budget remakes of four episodes from Rod Serling's seminal sci-fi/fantasy series The Twilight Zone. Executives at Warner Brothers must have been drooling at the promise of a box-office bonanza when Twilight Zone: The Movie was released with great fanfare on June 24, 1983, but while ticket sales were brisk, the critical reaction was tepid. Key to the film's failure is the fact that none of these upscale remakes is better than the original. After an enjoyable Landis-directed prologue featuring Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd, the first segment (also by Landis) is a rather obvious and heavy-handed treatise on prejudice in which a hot-tempered bigot (Vic Morrow) finds himself whisked through history as a Jewish victim of the Holocaust, an African-American hunted by the KKK, and a Vietnamese soldier tracked by the American enemy. The segment is initially powerful, but then redundant (and is overshadowed by the tragic on-set helicopter accident that killed Morrow and two Vietnamese children—not surprisingly, the DVD is devoid of any behind-the-scenes bonus features). Spielberg's "Kick the Can" stars the late Scatman Crothers in a treacly tale of senior citizens given a second chance at youth. Dante's take on Jerome Bixby's classic episode "It's a Good Life" is characteristic of the director's manic early-'80s style, turning into a live-action cartoon as a spoiled, bratty kid uses his supernatural powers to get everything he wants from the terrorized adults who are obligated to cater to his every whim. Best of all (then and now) is Miller's taut remake of Richard Matheson's classic teleplay "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," with John Lithgow (in the role originated by William Shatner) playing a traumatized airliner passenger convinced that a monstrous creature is sabotaging the airplane. Optional. (J. Shannon)