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Strike Back Below!

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN is like spending two hours with a girlfriend you thought you were over. You’re a little nervous at first, but then the magic comes back and you miss her more than ever.

It has only been seven months since ‘Battlestar Galactica’ ended, and just when the withdrawal is at ‘baby crawling on the ceiling’ bad, here’s a nice fix: A brand new movie showing key events from the Cylons’ perspective (most of them, anyway). It’s not quite a prequel … more like concurrent events. It’s the flipside to the human story, as we see Cylon puppet master Cavil (Dean Stockwell) first arrange the nuclear annihilation which kickstarted the original mini-series, then his desperate attempts to wipe out the remaining 47,000 humans as they search for Earth. This is truly Stockwell’s movie, as his grand design is unveiled and ultimately defeated. More than anything, the story makes clear it was the humanity buried in each Cylon – not just Adama’s heroics – which doomed the machines.

Plenty of holes are filled, and fans will love the attention to detail (going back to the first episode, when Tricia Helfer talks to an unseen stranger). Stockwell is superb in dual roles (there’s a version aboard the Galactica, and another on Caprica), slipping in and out of familiar moments to make him a more fleshed-out villain: “I’ve got a lot of sabotage to do!”

If there’s a problem with ‘The Plan,’ it’s that it’s too dialed in towards diehards. The story makes absolutely no sense without an intimate knowledge of the series, and even then, there’s stuff you’ll need to brush up on. Also, the complete absence of Mary McDonnell ends up being a distraction. In so many ways, she was the heart and soul of the show. This is like doing a Star Trek movie without Spock.

Maybe next time. Since the film only covers events during the first two seasons of ‘Galactica,’ there’s plenty of story left to tell. Right? You friggin’ toasters, don’t leave me again.

It’s more of a thriller than a horror flick, but ORPHAN will do nicely this Halloween. Here’s a movie that arrived with zero expectations – the ‘scary kid’ story is beyond tired at this point – and ended up surprising most everyone who saw it. The scares don’t feel cheap; there’s a trio of solid performances (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard as the parents, Isabelle Furhman as their adopted daughter); and it has one of the most effective twists this side of ‘The Sixth Sense.’ The trailer did this movie no favors.

We’d like to think Pixar is untouchable, but chew on this: Worldwide, ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS has grossed nearly twice as much as ‘Up.’ In fact, only ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ has made more. While it did a robust $196 million in the U.S., the third ‘Ice Age’ movie made a staggering $682 million overseas, compared to only $165 million for ‘Up.’ What’s it all mean? Kids in Europe prefer their old dinosaurs to actually be dinosaurs instead of Ed Asner.

Really? NIGHT OF THE CREEPS is just coming out on DVD now? I liked this movie better when it was called ‘Slither,’ but for some reason this dopey ‘80s flick has built a cult following. Why, I have no idea – it’s terrible. Although my hatred of it may stem from the fact that when I saw it in theatres, a gang of dumbasses in the back row were pelting me with their candy. Which leads me to wonder: Why spend $3 on a box of chocolate-covered nuts if you’re just going to throw them at people? Just bring rocks like I do.

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