Bekkah:

I feel like I very often want to start my reviews with “What did I just watch?” but like, what did I just watch? This was like a 95 minute leadup for a Greys Anatomy episode. Where was Shonda in this?! This movie was so slow, like achingly slow. Were the 80s slower? Wasn’t everyone on cocaine? Jeff-as-a-scientist-making-bad-decisions is a role he was born to play, but even his rapid lip-licks couldn’t save this. There was no drama. No intrigue. No one I cared about. Why was Donny Sutherland so creepy to everyone? Why did he care about saving a racist John Belushi lookalike. Am I too smart for this movie? (I am not not smart enough for this movie.) Points for the lip-licks and the cute monkey that (surprisingly) didn’t get hurt in this movie. But that’s about it.

Danya:

Some guy on the internet called this movie “outstanding” and “deep.” That guy might have been from the 1980s, and also he was wrong. It seemed like a strange relic, especially since the miracle of the movie is an artificial heart, which was already around in the 80s. It’s listed as sci-fi, so I kept expecting something exciting to happen. Like maybe Carol would be haunted by the robot of her heart? Or suddenly become a cyborg dedicated to the robot apocalypse? But no, there is nothing exciting that happens here. I can imagine that when it was made it asked cutting edge philosophical questions. But when we are 6 days before the election, those kind of questions seems like a antiquated luxury, like top hats. The only question that matters now is: Fascism, yes or no?

2/10 Goldboos

Threshold on IMDB

The celebrated heart surgeon Dr. Vrain supports the research of the offbeat scientist Aldo Gehring, who is inventing an artificial heart. Dr. Vrain performs the first artificial human heart transplant against the advice of the Ethics Committee.

Director: Richard Pearce

Writer: James Salter

Stars: Donald Sutherland, John Marley, Sharon Acker