It feels like it used to be a much longer movie that got chopped down to ninety minutes; I’ve read that Whedon’s original script is a lot darker, which would explain how tacked-on and flat the sequences with the airhead friends feel — and the girls’ dialogue is wretched.   It’s like someone threw Valley Girl and Heathers in a blender and then let the puree rot.   And we get a lot of stuff thrown in randomly that’s like, why do we care?   Are we supposed to find Rutger Hauer menacing or funny or both?   It’s a strange movie, coming to it after seeing the entire series, and lot of it is barely recognizable as Whedon, but I guess it’s worth seeing.   Donald Sutherland is really sweet in it, an excellent proto-Giles.   (9/22/03)

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