Review Detail

7.9 4 10
FanMix August 07, 2012 2707
(Updated: August 31, 2012)
Enjoyment
 
8.0
sdavmor aug 25 2010

My cousin and I watched “Capricorn One” and “Eleven” back-to-back the other night. Conclusions: “Eleven” is a better film”, but the problem is that Mollo has (for the most part) polished a turd to a high-sheen. Which is all down to problems in the source material rather than the fan-editing. I was impressed by the excellent informative fan-editor commentary track, which helped a lot in understanding the choices made in what to junk from “Capricorn One”.

The editing of “Eleven” (with the added footage) is excellent, and some of the continuity repair-work + audio reconstruction is outstanding. I especially liked how a lot of needless exposition was got rid of. That by itself (trimming a good 20 mins of yakking) was a huge improvement to the flow of the story.

One thing that I noted watching the original is that the premise of “Capricorn One” is very strong. It’s ultra-suspicious conspiratorial core almost carries a duff script and a bunch of so-so performances to the finish line. Which is probably why its a dynamite candidate for a get-it-right remake (one is in the works right now).

Once the decision was made to junk the entire WTF? crop-dusting biplane rescue the ending of “Eleven” has to change from exposure of the conspiracy to its triumph. I think Mollo might have been a bit too aggressive in cutting Elliott Gould’s part. And Karen Black’s reporter did at least serve as a mechanism for getting him pointed towards the conspiracy’s film-studio in the abandoned airbase. Still, this is just personal taste nit-picking. A very good job indeed, Mollo. You achieved all your stated objectives, even if the final result is still a bit of a letdown in the conspiracy-thriller dept.

I give it 8/10 for execution and 6/10 for content.
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