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As Good As It Gets

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

You have to admire Richard Carlson. He was reliable, almost handsome, had an MA from the University of Minnesota, wrote novels and plays, and projected intelligence, boldness, tension, and earnestness that were perfectly suited to the unusual subject matter of hi later career. He was an exceptionally unexceptional actor but he was THERE for you.The opening is a brief flashback to a mysterious event in a 17th-century Scottish castle. Then a shot of a pleasant lady speaking directly to the audience (originally in 3D) and introducing us to the story we're about to follow. I like the lady too. Katherine Emery is Aunt Edith, and she had a pleasant, relaxing smile and I believed every word when she explained, "I guess it all started with an engagement party at Cannes, on the Rivera." She continues to do the voice over for the rest of the film. Dissolve to Carlson and a few others at a gay nightclub in which an attractive young girl is flung around with abandon by a couple of men in tuxedos. One of the guests, uncredited, is the immortal Bess Flowers, whose entire career consisted of playing uncredited guests. Carlson seems to be enjoying himself immensely. He's engaged to Emery's niece, Veronica Hurst.His holiday is interrupted by a message from that Scottish castle, called Craven. Carlson must fly to Scotland immediately. He's next in line to inherit the castle and the title of Baronet that goes with it. The castle has no modern conveniences -- no telephone, no electricity -- and stands just as it did hundreds of years ago. Still, his fiancée doesn't object, although she muses that "I suppose I'll get used to being addressed as Baroness." (You bet you will.) He does not return. Instead he sends a message to the aunt and his fiancée dissolving their arrangement. Hurst is distraught, as who wouldn't be in such a circumstance? Hurst and Emery travel to Craven Castle to find Carlson put out by their visit. What's worse, he's turned twenty years older in the past few weeks. He reluctantly puts them up for the night, cautioning his sinister butler to lock all the doors. Strange slithering sounds are heard in the hallway. Hurst is resolved to find out what the hell has been going on, and she sneaks out that night and begins exploring the cobwebbed ruins. A bat flies at her, or rather into the 3D camera lenses.It's impossible to know why bats have such a bad reputation. They mean no harm. One night, standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon, I tore a piece of scrap paper into bits and flung them into a floodlight, only to be surrounded by thousands of bats with a dawning sense of disbelief. Two or three of the more adventurous entangled themselves in my hair and I toppled helplessly into the canyon. But two days later they brought me up by mule, bloody but unbowed, still at peace with bats. Anyway, Hurst makes it to a grimy window that overlooks the back yard. There she sees a gigantic maze with dim figures moving through it.The next morning she finds a webbed footprint on the staircase and another in the gravel before the maze. At this point it's beginning to look less like a horror movie or science fiction than one of Edgar Allan Poe's fantasies. Nothing that happens from that point on changes anything.

****SPOILERS**** This made in 3D effects movie staring the then 3D king Richard Carlson who was in as many as 4 of them-3D movies-as Gerald MacTeam who teams up with his faithful butler William, Peter Pate, to prevent his fiancées Kitty Murray, Veronica Hurst, from finding out what's going on in his family estate in Scotland. Gerald friendly- as the Man who sells Good Humor- and affable at first turned into a mental case after visiting his family estate and locking himself in it he aged at least 10 years in the one month that he lived there!With Kitty and Aunt Edith,Katherine Emery, showing up both unexpected and uninvited at the MacTeam Estate and seeing poor Gerald in the sorry state that he's in he and his butler William do everything to get them to leave and keep them from finding out what's been really going on there for the last two hundred years! Something so strange and shocking it would have all of Darwin's theories of evolution thrown out the window and used for camp and marshmallow fires!****SPOILERS*** The situation at the castle got out of hand when the secret that Gerald was hiding came out into the open to take a dip in the pool at the nearby maze and then all hell broke loose. The frog-like creature who was really-are you ready for this-the half man half toad Sir Roger Phillip MacTeam who came or hopped out into the open to take a dip in the pool and scared the living hell out of both Killt & Aunt Katherine! Trying to get away and back into the shadows Sir Roger ended up falling down from the roof of that castle that he hopped on to and to his death before anyone could save him. With now the cat or better yet frog out of the bag the mystery of the MacTeam Castle was over. And a back to normal Gerald not having to run interference for his late 203 year old descendant Sir Roger and can finally marry Kitty and forget this whole crazy episode in his life!

The idiotic conclusion to this film ruins all the work that went into a pretty well paced and presented horror film. I mean, even the dumb amphibian thing could have been done in a better way. I mean, did he have to be a big bullfrog? There are other issues at work here. First of all, the spoiled tiresome people who are at the center of this thing are insufferable. They are non-productive stuffed shirts, full of themselves and do nothing. One of them is a doctor, I guess. They make cutesy remarks and tell tired jokes. Then there's the young woman who can't take no for an answer. She has not an ounce of respect for the guy she feels she is saving. Then there is the big secret. Why did this guy feel he needed to stay there and throw his life away, lurking in the hallways with those servants. And tell me if I missed something. Why did he age? If the maze was the cause, what exactly is in the maze. Everyone else runs around in it. I have limited writing ability, but I would bet you that I could rewrite three or four scenes, change the creature, and make this a nice horror/mystery movie. Did anyone say when it was over that it was just plain ridiculous. One last thing. The Aunt that narrates this insults our intelligence by explaining everything to us. Maybe the screenwriter could have done that.

I've docked two stars from this film for what must surely be one of the silliest endings in horror movies - and that's saying something! This is up there with the climax of Night Monster for sheer cheek, but for around an hour this is an absorbing and atmospheric Gothic drama.Richard Carlson, always a welcome presence, plays the heir to a Scottish laird called away from his pre-nuptial holidays in the South of France by some strange emergency at his ancestral home - a rambling castle he hasn't visited in years. Promising to return to his fiancé as soon as he can, he then does a disappearing act, before writing a mysterious note telling his beau she's the next Jennifer Anniston! Naturally she doesn't take kindly to this, and with Aunt in tow (you can tell this was made in the pre-rock and roll era - the leads would be groovy teenagers if this had been made in 1958) she undertakes the trip to the castle, where the sinister servants and her one-time love are acting all mysterious....The Maze of the title is a part of the castle grounds, and seems to hold the key to the mystery. What are those strange slopping sounds heard in the night? Why must everyone be locked up in their rooms at a certain time each evening? The answer, when it comes, proves to be hilarious. MAJOR SPOILER HERE. Er, it turns out to be a 200 year-old frog, who happens to be one Sir Roger! A deformed ancestor who has an extended life, is very shy and retiring and yet cultured. (come off it, guys he's a frog!) The minute he's discovered Sir Rodg takes a great froggy leap through a window to his doom. You might say he croaked! Cue Carlson's laugh-out loud explanation for the mysterious events...All I can say is they must have some sizable insect life in the Scottish Highlands to keep Kermit, er, Sir Roger, well-fed. Okay, I fess up. It's a bloke in a frog suit....There's one great Lovecraftian shot of the frog fumbling about in the darkness which is genuinely creepy, though. And if you can get past The Muppet Show explanation you might like it.