Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

SnoopyStyle Progressive high school teacher Ralph Hinkley (William Katt) is given a class of delinquents including Rhonda Blake (Faye Grant) and Tony Villicana (Michael Paré). He falls in love with his divorce lawyer Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca). He takes the kids on a field trip to the desert. The bus breaks down and he goes off to find help. He runs into hard-nosed FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) who is investigating his partner's killing. The odd couple has a close encounter with a UFO. The aliens give Ralph a powerful superhero suit. Ralph struggles to make it work (especially flying) after losing the instruction book.It has a great premise for a superhero show when the superhero genre just got a leg up after Superman (1978). It's riding the first wave of superhero in the real world. The problem is that it doesn't follow through. It turns into an action procedural that Stephen J. Cannell would be famous for all throughout the 80s. Instead of digging into the ramifications and the personal lives, it becomes one rescue idea for each episode. There's a problem and the duo solves it after 60 minutes. In fact, the show doesn't even give Pam that much to do most of the time. Nine times out of ten, she's simply the girlfriend character despite being the third character to know Ralph's superpowers. The show eventually makes her a third wheel while they get rid of the students. Even Ralph's son fades into the background. The characters don't grow and the show becomes episodic in nature.The most memorable episode is when the duo encounters two old men who had a suit back in the day. However the silly episodic stories mount up. There is a ghost in one episode. They're digging for gold in another. With voodoo, Bermuda Triangle and everything else, the second season simply has too many stupid episodes and the show never recovered.

John T. Ryan LAMPOONING a successful story, picture or genre of Film has been a time proved tradition in Hollywood. We can see even in the earliest days parody being reflected in the work of names such as Will Rogers (UNCENSORED MOVIES-Douglas Fairbanks as ROBIN HOOD and others), Stan Laurel (MUD & SAND Valentino's BLOOD & SAND-bullfighting), Ben Turpin SMALL TOWN IDOL (The Western) and Buster Keaton (THE FROZEN NORTH-Western-but William S. Hart in particular). The practice of spoofing serious movie types and their stars has made much of the stuff that was the one and two-reel comedies from such names as SENNETT-KEYSTONE, ROACH and EDUCATIONAL/Christie.THE emergence of the Super Hero as the important cultural contribution from the emerging and growing Comic Book publishing business was met with an almost instantaneous induction into the world of the Parody with the coming of Paul Terry's MIGHTY MOUSE Cartoons starting in the World War II period, 1943 to be exact.* OF course the trend continued thru to the Television Age with characters such as UNDERDOG and COURAGEOUS CAT; but hit the primetime TV when the world was given the BATMAN Television Series (Greenway/20th Century-Fox/ABC, 1966-68); which is arguably a parody in itself.BUT in the ensuing season, both CBS and NBC came up with their own Super Hero send-ups in MR. TERRIFIC (Universal/CBS, 1967) and CAPTAIN NICE (NBC Television/Paramount Studios, 1967). The two had many more similarities than differences. They were easily confused with each other; being much like the earlier situation involving THE ADDAMS FAMILY and THE MUNSTERS, only more so. Needless to say, neither one made it into a second season.TIME, it is said, heals not only all wounds, but also any and all bad ideas for TV series; so long about a decade and a half later we tuned into THE GREATEST American HERO (Stephen J. Cannell Productions/ABC Television Network, 1981-83). This time the parody would succeed, lasting into three distinct and different seasons.WHILE it was definitely a member of the Parody genre, it came from a different Branch of the Family Tree than did previous entries. GREATEST HERO started out with what could be perceived as a straight drama-action story; that being the reception of a Super Power laden costume-suit from Alien Beings while being alone in the dessert. What a great thing! Who wouldn't want such a thing to happen to them! BUT now hold on now, Schultz! With such powers and marvelous threads to go along, there would certainly be some special problems inherent. For example, how to control the suit's flying power? How to measure one's take-offs and landings? What to do about your proclivity toward motion sickness? ALL of these, along with some other common human deficiencies, are what puts the humor in what would easily a straight Drama. The story lines and characters may be slightly more exaggerated at various junctures, but by and large, they are played straight.THE Series co-stars William Katt as Ralph Hinkley, the somewhat unwilling recipient of the Super Suit and Robert Culp as the most straight-laced F.B.I. Agent Bill Maxwell. The two worked well, playing off of each other's character idiosyncrasies like a well honed team.THE combination of on-screen talent and the mixture of genres worked out very well for the series, which sailed through 3 seasons. The ability to follow the story on two levels; about in the same manner had the BATMAN Series in late '60s wound up being an advantage to building-up its loyal followers.NOTE: * In one of those stranger than fiction occurrences, when the first Terrytoon cartoon about a super-powered rodent came out it was titled: SUPER MOUSE RIDES AGAIN with the title character being called "Super", not "Mighty". However, a Comic Book entitled SUPER MOUSE hit the news stands at about the same time as the cartoons release. The whole thing was no one's fault; so no hurt, no foul. Producer Paul Terry unilaterally rechristened his little cheeser the more familiar, Mighty Mouse.POODLE SCHNITZ!!

J J Brannon The most prominent clue is that Bill Maxwell is playing a turn on his "I Spy" Kelly Robinson fifteen years down a dead-end road, where his Cold War battles have apparently led him to be mired in eroded ruts.The very opening sequence implies the murder of his long-time black partner.In fact, the entire series -- from the pilot movie -- onward is a witty investigation of the uses and abuses of power, from the roles and capabilities of women (contrast/compare Connie Sellaca's attorney with Rhonda's confused teenager struggling for esteem) to the limits of American adventurism against the continuing threats of the Cold war. Here is a man of conscience chosen by Higher Powers to right wrong who struggles to be a decent father, lover, friend, and inspire kids by his "ordinary" example.My favorite episode is "Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell", where Emmy-winning writer Robert Culp reveals in the Season 2 finale the depths and intelligence of the Bill Maxwell character.Cannell wrote the pilot in an atmosphere of the Iran US Embassy hostage situation and a cultural dearth of idealism. Many viewers saw the red suit comedy and missed the morally ambiguous complexity lying beneath.

hcalderon1 I really wish this show was done today, because I just watched it on DVD, and found it incredibly entertaining, and very funny. The story begins with Ralph Hinkley(William Katt) a high school teacher, is lured out in the dessert, comes across FBI Agent Bill Maxwell(Robert Culp) and they are approached by a UFO, and is told they must work together as a team, they give Ralph a suit that has magical powers whenever he wears it. The funny part comes when Ralph loses the instruction book on how to use the suit, he keeps getting in trouble, because he does not use the power too well. But he seems to make the best out of the bad situation. I enjoyed the show, I still wish it was made today.