On August 3, 2011, a live panel discussion about the predicted upcoming human-technology merger known as the Singularity and the content of the movie Transcendent Man, called Transcendent Man Live: a Conversation about the Future, was telecast to theaters all over the country. A mixed bag of content, Transcendent Man Live: a Conversation about the Future perfectly illuminated the problem with discussing science in America in general: it seems we cannot just have a conversation about science; we have to include nonsense from all sides in the name of fairness, to “teach the controversy.”

On the panel were Ray Kurzweil, inventor and futurist; Barry Ptolemy, director and producer; Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple; Michio Kaku, physicist and television host; Tan Le, technology entrepreneur; Dean Kamen, inventor; and Deepak Chopra, doctor and spiritual leader. It was hosted and moderated by Ellen Ratner and Alan Colmes, both of Fox News. There were several celebrity cameos including Al Gore and Suzanne Somers.

Some background: In 2009, Transcendent Man was released. In it, Ray Kurzweil tries to convince the audience that in the near future humans will merge with machines and we may even stop aging. It is this potential merger, which Kurzweil calls the Singularity, that the panel discussed in Transcendent Man Live: a Conversation about the Future.

The first few minutes of the telecast were a tribute to Ray Kurzweil and his accomplishments—a credibility reel to give the audience a reason to consider his point of view. Then Kurzweil explained his theory of the Singularity and the importance of exponential thinking to the audience. He explained that when people were on the savannah, they had to think laterally because of their surroundings. For example, a lion will not run at an exponential rate.

Kurzweil outlined his proof that lateral development (one innovation at a time) is not how information technology evolves and it is not the way to think of it in the future. It is because of this exponential growth of information technology that he believes nanotechnology, innovations in genetics, and robotics—including artificial intelligence—will be a billion times more powerful in twenty years than they are now. When this happens it will allow us to merge ourselves with our machines and allow machines to merge with us.

Essentially, the Singularity will occur when we know enough to repair our genetic flaws (including aging) and have machines small enough to enter our body to do the repairing as well as increase our intelligence.

The panel, an eclectic collection of people and professions, was a mixed bag. Some offered exquisite moments of mind-changing insight; others made insipid, excruciating, forehead-slapping remarks. It reminded me of the last time I had a bag of Jelly Belly’s Every Flavor Beans. When sampling from a bag of Every Flavor Beans, one is almost as likely to get a disgusting Vomit Bean as a delicious Juicy Pear Bean. Every time I get a bean that tastes good, it is a half-hearted victory because I know it has raised the probability that I will soon be sucking on an Earwax Bean.

When discussing why people should not fear becoming merged with machines, Kurzweil explained the human physical condition in a way that I had never heard before. It was both accurate and poetic. He said that humans are not their bodies because our bodies are renewed every seven years with new cells. Instead we are more like the shape of water as it goes over rocks in a river—not the water, not the rocks, but the shape. In the context of the discussion, it was a beautiful metaphor that rearranged my understanding of self.

As soon as Kurzweil earned some credibility in my mind, he then threw it in a dumpster with a ridiculous endorsement of notorious-to-the-skeptical-community Suzanne Somers and her plan for a healthy life. For those readers not in the know, Somers decided not to get cancer treatment in place of “natural” options. Now she is seen by some, including Kurzweil, as a mogul for staying healthy. Her plans include bioidentical hormones, whole foods (unless you want to buy her processed food instead), and various other dietary supplements and vitamins.

It is hard for me to take Kurzweil seriously on matters of the future of science and development when he throws his hat behind an advocate of faith-based healing (for which there is no evidence of success) such as Somers.

Listening to the panelists was like playing a terrible television game show. Every question was an opportunity to look behind another curtain. Just as in game shows, sometimes a point was made that was so valuable to the discussion that a member of the audience should have jumped up and down as if a prize had been revealed. Other times, panelists gave an attention- and credibility-sapping donkey of an answer.

In fact, from the beginning, it was obvious there was going to be a real problem with the discussion. Everyone on the panel and the hosts were there in person except Deepak Chopra, who was telecast onto a television in the room. Worse, the television was set in the exact middle of the panel on a pedestal, making Chopra look like a revered, disembodied floating head. It resembled a makeshift altar to Chopra, even if only in impression.

As far as I am concerned, when you put Deepak Chopra on a panel to discuss scientific revolutions, the discredit is done. No matter how credible the other persons on the panel may be, good manners dictate that they not treat a religious representative or resident dullard with the condescending or dismissive tone deserved.

Except for one exchange between Michio Kaku and Chopra about quantum physics in which Kaku lost his cool and put Chopra in his place, good manners won out over scientific inquiry and debate. Much to my disappointment, even though the panel members were often displaying physical signs of disgust, outwardly they treated Chopra as if he had an equally valid point of view.

Worse, Chopra demanded attention. He felt the need to address every single question even when other members of the panel had barely spoken and had more requisite knowledge to give an accurate answer. Had I not been carefully listening so I could write this review, I would have just checked out during his vocal expressions of intellectual vomit.

The moderators were extremely frustrating. It was obvious that neither has a background in science journalism. Ellen Ratner seemed ill prepared to cover the topic and the nature of her questions led me to believe she did not really understand what was going on. Alan Colmes had a bit of a better grasp, but he made jokes that could most generously be described as common. The most insightful remarks that came from the panel emerged when the discussion drifted slightly off the topic. Even still, there was a question about God that seemed misplaced and brought out the worst in almost everyone on the panel.

The problems aside, I really did gain valuable perspective about the Singularity, as well as some new orientations to consider about merging ourselves with machines. Frustration aside, Transcendent Man Live: a Conversation about the Future was worth watching for those few diamonds in the rough. If nothing else, it was an excellent way to exercise critical thinking.

I think I would have enjoyed it more at home with a group of friends, engaged in conversation about what was said instead of sitting silent in a theater. If or when Transcendent Man Live: a Conversation about the Future is released on DVD, I will do just that. I suggest the same for the readers of this review.

Further Reading:

Suzanne Somers Cancer Controversy: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-24/opinion/commentary.brawley.cancer.treatment_1_alternative-and-complementary-medicine-medical-peers-therapies?_s=PM:OPINION

The Past is Now

Nostalgia for the Light is a documentary about time and how it is experienced cosmically and personally, as shown through one small region of Chile. Mind-opening and perspective-changing, Nostalgia for the Light brings the recent and distant pasts so close together, it is almost as if the filmmaker could bend time so the beginning of the universe was flowing into now.

Nostalgia for the Light is a series of interviews of experts in different fields about the study of the past in the high-altitude, extremely arid Atacama Desert in Chile. The desert has no living things in it except human beings. The air is thin and extremely clear. For generations it has been a transit route. During the reign of Pinochet, it was used to house concentration camps in abandoned mining camps and to bury the bodies of political prisoners. It is these conditions that draw people who study the past to converge in this hostile place. It is narrated in part by the director and writer Patricio Guzmán.

Nostalgia for the Light starts by explaining why people study the cosmic history of the universe in the Atacama Desert. It is asserted that the lack of moisture makes for the world’s best view of the stars—and one might be persuaded by the sheer number of observatories.

Astronomer Gaspar Calas speaks throughout the film about the cosmic perspective of the past. His insights in the beginning of the movie are attention-grabbing and require some thought to fully appreciate, but in a way that made me even more receptive to what else he had to offer. He gently opened my skull and dropped ideas in my brain, leaving a gap open for the people who came after.

After Calas, we meet Lautaro Núñez, an archeologist who takes us around the desert showing us the transit paths of llama shepherds of the past. He explains the people’s history of the desert. It is during discussions about the recent era (19th century) that we get the first hints into the problem of those who willfully forget or dismiss Chile’s past.

Vicky Saaveda, Violeta Berrios, and a few other women go through the Atacama Desert by hand with small shovels looking for the bodies of their dead loved ones who were taken during Pinochet’s rule. They wander, digging, hoping to find mass graves or the graves of individual people. During their digs, they often find small fragments of human bone blowing across the desert.

It is these little fragments of bone that tie the entire cosmic story together. Nostalgia for the Light is a painful mace that gives new meaning to Sagan’s quote, “We’re made of star-stuff.”

The slow pace of the film allows for time to process the depth of what is being offered, but at times it does drag. I was a bit bored of watching the observatory dome opening and closing or rolling around the tracks. It is not a film-killer though; some time is necessary to make the connections because Patricio Guzmán does not beat the viewer over the head with the themes—for which I am eternally grateful.

Nostalgia for the Light did not just give me insight into Chile or the Atacama Desert; it gave me new ways to think about time, what it means to live in the past, and if it is even possible to do anything else. It is full of thought-inspiring insights, comments, and themes. The use of cold factual perspective and warm emotion creates a choir of bells ringing a beautiful, haunting, strangely wonderful, and disturbing song.

Before this film, I had never simultaneously felt the sensation of soaring on the wings of wonderment and sinking into a tar pit of sadness. My heart was torn and sewn back together over and over again during Nostalgia for the Light. I cannot suggest Nostalgia for the Light highly enough for anyone interested in the effects of the past, historical or cosmic.

Cheeky Goodness

Aliens do not know what they are getting into when they attack a block in the council estates (public housing) in South London. Attack the Block is cheeky, original, gut-busting silliness, but is set on a backdrop that is insightful to the lives of the people in the estates.

Moses (John Boyega) and his roving rabble of teenaged troublemakers, Pest (Alex Esmail), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Biggz (Simon Howard), and Dennis (Franz Drameh), roam the neighborhood looking for ways to make money. They spot what looks like a meteorite and go to check it out. What they come across is an indescribable creature. After a struggle, they bring the creature back to Hi-Hatz’s (Jumayn Hunter) pot-smoking room and head back out into the estates. While there, they visit with Ron (Nick Frost), Hi-Hatz’s nature-show-educated pothead cohort. When they get out, they realize the first creature was just the beginning of their problems—their block is being invaded by aliens. They need to team up with a hesitant neighbor named Sam (Jodie Whittaker).

I love movies, especially horror movies, set in the ghetto. (For American readers, the estates are similar to the projects or ghettos in America.) It is a large sampling of people who know what it takes to survive in a cruel world, so they are less likely to hesitate or act marginally. There are always fewer dumb broads who wait for their man to care for them, or people who are waiting patiently for the police to come and save them. It is usually just a bunch of kick ass people kicking ass. Attack the Block is no exception.

The characters in Attack the Block have to survive their neighborhood on a daily basis. They understand the geography of their vicinity, how to use it to their advantage, how to improvise weapons, and how to survive. The movie is full of weapons made out of what is lying around, improvised weapons made out of household items, and a tactical use of the protagonists’ surroundings to gain an advantage against the attackers.

Attack the Block only makes subtle points and reflections about the people in the estates and their living conditions, some insights more powerful than others. Towards the end of the movie, there is an obvious point being made about the condition of this rabble of teens.

It would be wrong to call Attack the Block a comedy, because it deals with several serious matters, including the neighborhood conditions, drug sales, crime, and violence, in a serious way. There are aspects of the movie, however, that could have had the film team charged with assault for busting the gut of the audience.

More than once, I was so elated that I threw myself against my seat with laughter. I seriously considered leaving the theater to go to the bathroom to make sure I did not pee my pants, but I could not pull myself away. A few scenes were so gross, I was caught shouting “Eww!” at the screen, covering my eyes, and laughing far too loudly to be polite. No one complained, though—they could not hear me over their own laughter.

Even better, the aliens were not humanoid (phew), use the best R.O.U.S. technology (yippie), and come to the planet in an unusual way and for an original reason. The aliens are indescribable, scary, and unique. The characters have a hard time explaining what is happening, because it is not easy to articulate what the aliens look like without sounding completely insane. It is so relieving to see a movie about aliens that has something new to offer.

Attack the Block is ridiculously funny and squirm-inducing and had me shouting more than once at the screen. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go see this one again.

References

1. About R.O.U.S. Technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXjl1eMczN0

2. Attack the Block on IMDb ]]> Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:34:00 EDT info@csicop.org () http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/a_review_of_harry_potter_and_the_deathly_hallows_part_2 http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/a_review_of_harry_potter_and_the_deathly_hallows_part_2

Who Let the Helium Out of My Balloon?

The last in the Harry Potter movie series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 answers many questions about Harry Potter and his magical gang of teenaged students of magic. Unfortunately, what came in with a bang goes out with a whimper in this final installment of a much-loved series.

Deathly Hallows: Part 2 picks up where Deathly Hallows: Part 1 left off, and there is little recap to reorient the audience to the story. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) has to find the other horcruxes in order to kill Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and save the world from his reign of terror. His friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) help him find and destroy the horcruxes.

After the last Harry Potter movie, I was a little more excited than I am comfortable admitting to see Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Unfortunately, I was let down. It was not the visuals that let me down—they were stunning. My attention was captured by the captivating whiz-bang animation and effects. The makeup was deceptively natural in the best way. The green screen background scenes were not flawless but were good enough that I spent most of the movie with my disbelief in full suspension.

The actors did not let me down either. For the most part, the acting was delightfully inconspicuous. Daniel Radcliffe was the only person who let me down with an occasional helping of melodramatic over acting that he cannot blame on the content of the plot.

In fact, that is the issue. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 should be a gluttonous collection of highly dramatic scenes because it is the climax of a saga of extremely popular films and the second half of its own two-part series of the movies. It was supposed to wrap up the characters enough that we feel satisfied that we know enough about them that we can leave them to their lives without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss (such as what any good Brown Coat feels about Firefly).

Deathly Hallows: Part 2 should have been full of overwhelming gravitas and drama; it should have been spectacular enough to live up to the legend. Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has so little drama (and no plot magnificence) that the audience is left with a severe case of the ho-hums when they leave the theater. The story might as well have stayed finished and not been told at all.

Deathly Hallows: Part 2 reminded me of the time I received a balloon from a friend for my birthday. The problem was not that it was only a balloon; the problem was that it was a simple latex balloon that had been left in her car for over twenty-four hours in hot summer weather. By the time the balloon finally got to me, it was only half inflated. While it did still technically float, it only sort of bobbed up and down, trying to keep itself upright but being tugged by the weight of its silly blue ribbon. It did not float proudly above my head as a beacon of my specialness. It just sagged in front of my face, a tribute to the effects of gravity on my body.

Someone let the helium out of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Instead of being a high-flying tribute to the Harry Potter series of movies, it just hovered at eye level with a terribly unimpressive plot. There are so many events going on at once that there is no plot development on any single event. Speaking only of content, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 feels like an endless, slowed-down montage.

Adding to the lackadaisical mood is the fact that the filmmakers did so little recap. If one has not watched Deathly Hallows: Part 1 immediately before viewing Deathly Hallows: Part 2, it is nearly impossible to fully understand what is happening. It is inexcusable, no matter how popular the series of films, to make a half movie and charge the audience full price for the ticket.

Standing on its own, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 cannot be considered a complete movie by any standard. It has no beginning, feels as if it starts in the middle of something (because it does), and has no climax. It just ends in a cinematic plateau.

I do not think the Christian Right in this country had anything to worry about with the Harry Potter series of films. They just had to wait for the last one and they would be satisfied that the drop off in filmmaker enthusiasm would be enough to save their poor precious little ones from the scourge that is simulated, fictional witchcraft. I certainly no longer care.

Not, Not, Not, Not

In Cowboys & Aliens, the cowboys of the American west in the 1800s had more threats to their civilization than bands of trouble-making Indians—aliens have come to earth. It’s not dramatic, not cheeky, not funny; Cowboys & Aliens is the film of not.

When He (Daniel Craig) wakes up alone in the dirt in the American West, he cannot remember his name, where he comes from, what this thing is on his wrist, or why he cannot remember anything. When he goes to town, he gets on the bad side of rich cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). He meets Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) who takes an inhuman interest in him. Meanwhile, aliens begin culling people in a plot to take over the world.

Cowboys & Aliens takes itself far too seriously to be a comedy, and it is far too light-hearted to be a drama. There is no light and shade, just a boring monochromatic collection of emotionless attempts at expressing a plot riddled with historical stereotypes. It is a perfect collection of what is wrong with alien movies and what is wrong with westerns shoved together in a boring “blow-up-athon” that even eleven-year-old boys would find exceptionally dull.

The aliens in Cowboys & Aliens are predictably reflective of human beings. Humanoid in physiology and in motivation, the aliens are a carbon copy of all aliens that have come before: they’re depicted as probing, dissecting, and greedy; the Alien Anti-Defamation League could have a field day with this movie.

The problem with the aliens in Cowboys & Aliens is not that they have come to steal our resources, which is pretty much the only reason a race of aliens would take over another world. The problem is not that they are hostile or want to wipe out the human race. Stephen Hawking warns us, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans…. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”

The problem is what they want to steal, how they look, and how they go about trying to wipe out humans. Why would an alien race with weapons powerful enough to zap a herd of cattle or group of people dead from the comfort of their mother ship ever concern themselves with collecting samples to find a way to kill a nearly defenseless, technologically inferior population? It makes no sense. It is like me dissecting an ant to figure out how to kill it instead of just killing its colony with ant bait. Sure, it might give you some insight, but wouldn’t killing the people with available technology be a better use of resources?

Why writers think aliens will find us so fascinating, I do not understand. It has never been the case that human beings have bothered to stop killing to study things. The same people who buy this nonsense are the people who think that the Japanese who whale in the southern Arctic Ocean are actually researchers.

While it is certain that an alien race interested in our planet would share some physiological similarities with some kind of life here, there is no reason to believe they would be similar to humans. I agree that they probably would be able to process oxygen and may be carbon-based, but why are they symmetrical? Why are they bipedal? Why are they so damned human-like? We are not the only species on this planet. The way we figured out how to survive on this planet is not exclusive. Why does every alien have to be a reflection of us?

What the aliens come to steal is equally ridiculous. If you were floating around the universe, looking for a planet to steal from, would it not make sense to come to this planet for the water? It is our distinguishing feature. Instead, their trip is as petty as our own greedy nature.

As if the aliens were not frustrating enough, the cowboys are not much better. The six-shooting nonsense that we have all associated with the development of the west is plain wrong. Getting away from the historical problems, Cowboys & Aliens stereotype fiesta is exceptionally dull. What will the cowboys act like? What will the cattle baron act like? How will the pretty girl act? Well, it turns out they act exactly as you’d expect. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, interesting about the western characters.

I think the director, Jon Favreau, thought we would not notice the huge problems with the movie if he just blew up enough stuff during the film. In fact, there should be an acting credit in the film for fire, as it is one of the most prominent characters in the film. Maybe Favreau could not get a grip on the over writing that occurred because of the huge number of writing cooks (six), all adapting a comic book that throws a seventh writing voice in the mix (Scott Mitchell Rosenberg). Using seven writers is like asking for a delicious meal of blended curry, pizza, ice cream, creamed spinach, pumpkin pie, orange soda, and sweet and sour chicken.

In fact, the only person who seemed to have come to work with the intention of pleasing the audience in Cowboys & Aliens is the costume department. I want to thank the costume department for the chaps Daniel Craig was wearing in the early parts of the movie. It was a beautiful, inspired choice for which all we Craig admirers thank you. When this comes out on video, I know how I will be using my pause button.

A film can get away with being historically incorrect, or scientifically implausible, or stereotypical if it is a good movie. Cowboys & Aliens makes the mistake of being a historical mess, purging scientifically questionable content, being an uninspired collection of pigeonholes, and becoming unquestionably tiresome. I was really hoping for a fun and cheeky movie. That will teach me to hope.

Forks Over Knives presents the audience with the argument that a whole-foods, plant-based diet with no meat or animal products or refined foods is the way to a long, healthy, cancer-resistant, and heart-disease-free life. Forks Over Knives plays like a 1950s governmental instructional video, makes basic reasoning mistakes, and discredits itself by touting examples that no skeptical audience can take seriously.

Before we go any further, let’s cover the things that basically all nutritionists, doctors, and scientists can agree on. When discussing the movie’s content, I will be starting from these as basic assumptions. Vegetables are good for human beings. Fruits are no slouch either. Both in pure volume and as a proportion of one’s overall food consumption, eating large quantities of refined sugar is harmful to the body. Consuming disproportionately high levels of foods high in calories and low in nutrition (for example, eating a fast food meal and no veggies or fruit most days) can cause health problems. The spread of obesity in America needs to be addressed through concerted educational efforts and a reorientation of people to their food. Before anyone gets any ideas about throwing a beet-related tantrum or trying to frame this review as advocating that we all eat a cow a week—just don’t.

I generally do not discuss the plot of an entire film in a review to avoid spoiling a movie for my readers. In documentaries, I try to look into the facts and outline the arguments. If this is an issue for you, this would be a good time to stop reading and scroll to the last two paragraphs, in which I give my general summary.

Forks Over Knives makes these assertions ad nauseum through the entire movie:

• A whole-foods (not refined), plant-based diet is the best for people.
• It prevents and can reverse cancer and heart disease.
• Meat, animal products, refined foods (including sugar and oil), and high levels of protein cause and/or contribute to cancer and heart disease.

They assert that animal proteins, both muscle and byproduct, are harmful. This includes meat, dairy, and other animal products. The doctors in the movie contend that the high concentration of protein in milk feeds cancer and tears away endothelial cells in blood vessels, making a person more vulnerable to heart disease. Huh? That is a pretty radical claim to make without outstanding evidence. Luckily for us they did set out to provide us with evidence—or should I say “evidence”?

The foundation for the conclusions presented in Forks Over Knives is built by Cornell University professor T. Colin Campbell, PhD, and Caldwell B. Esselstyn, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic. Campbell conducted several studies and research experiments outlined in the book. Esselstyn treated and continues to treat some of his patients with strict changes in diet.

Campbell explains a study he conducted on rats examining different concentrations of casein, the main protein found in milk, in which he found that different concentrations resulted in different cancer rates. 20 percent casein rates resulted in higher rates of cancer than 5 percent casein rates. Based on that and an observational study of Filipino families, he launched a humongous study of the diet of rural Chinese people and wrote a book, The Diet, Life-style, and Mortality in China: A Study of the Characteristics of 65 Chinese Counties, by Chen Junshi, T. Colin Campbell, Li Janyao, and Richard Peto. After examining over 300 factors of thousands of people, he concluded that a whole-foods, plant-based diet is best and eating meat or animal products is bad because it causes cancer.

After examining information about heart disease rates in Kenya and Papua New Guinea against the rates in America, and after conducting numerous bypass surgeries, Esselstyn decided to conduct a small study of fewer than twenty-five people to change their diet to plant-based whole-foods with small amounts of dairy. Of the people who stayed in the study, all survived much longer than was expected (many were close to death because of severe cases of heart disease). He continued the study and now has treated 250 people using the diet.

I am not a scientist, nor am I a member of the medical field (unless lifeguarding as a teenager counts), but I spotted some serious problems with the reasoning here. Campbell equates all animal proteins to casein; furthermore, he does not explain how he came to his conclusion that animal protein and products are bad for people based on results from the people in China.

Esselstyn compares heart disease rates in Kenya and Papua New Guinea to rates in the United States, and assumes the discrepancy is based on diet and that inhabitants of Kenya and Papua New Guinea do not eat meat. Besides the lower standard of medical care in those countries, which makes the assertion of any accurate numbers impossible, the life expectancy is so much lower (Kenya 58 yrs, Papua New Guinea 57 yrs) compared to America (78 yrs), it is impossible to directly compare.

If a person who might get heart disease in his 60s in Kenya dies from AIDS at age 32, this says nothing about his risk of heart disease at 65 years. If that Kenyan does live to age 57, but has no access to medical care and is never diagnosed, his medical condition can never be recorded, and he lives in a country that probably does not keep complete statistical records.

It can hardly be considered a proper comparison, with similar enough variables to be able to examine the relationship between the two countries conclusively or effectively. It certainly cannot be concluded that diet is the reason why Kenyans or the people of Papua New Guinea do not have heart disease. Using his same analysis method I could attribute the United States’ lower HIV/AIDS rates to our highly processed, high-sugar, meat-centered diet.

His initial study, which concluded with only eighteen people, could hardly be considered a representative sample of anything other than those eighteen people. Even his expanded patient sample of two hundred fifty people is no more representative. He also disregards the people who did not comply with the diet, even though ability to adhere to a nutritional treatment is a necessary consideration. We could all cut down our risk of heart disease if we only ate carrots dipped in potato mush, but I doubt many people would comply, and it could not be considered a viable or successful treatment.

Esselstyn’s conclusions force him to jump over sedans, but Campbell has to go full Evel Knievel, jumping sixteen school busses before sailing over the Grand Canyon, bouncing off a trampoline, and landing on his front tire on a dime sized target.

I do not remember how many proteins there are, are but I do remember from high school biology that there is more than one kind of protein. Drawing the conclusion or even starting to examine the possibility that all animal proteins are harmful to human beings based on the potential cancer-causing properties of different concentrations of one type of protein in rats is complete hooey.

Forks Over Knives does not go into the specific data of Diet, Life-style, and Mortality in China other than to state that Campbell feels it conclusively proves that a whole-foods, plant-based diet with no meat or animal products prevents cancer. Again, I am no expert in the authentic Chinese culinary techniques, styles, or food, but I do know that the Chinese diet does not fit the Campbell-approved diet. While he is correct that the Chinese do eat a far more plant-based diet than we do, the Chinese diet includes small amounts of meat.

The thesis, argument, and attempts to rebut the objections were just adding up for me. I thought that maybe because it was in movie format that important pieces of information were missing. Certainly the doctors would not present their point of view without having some sort of rational basis. These two are no schlubs when it comes to their credentials. I decided to investigate the essential claim presented in the movie as best I could. I tried to fairly examine supporting and critical papers, essays, and comments.

Both doctors said that examining the results of the study proved conclusively that a whole-foods, plant-based diet with no animal products helps prevent cancer. Esselstyn extends that claim to heart disease.

It turns out, not so much. The study was huge, and did take into account a large number of factors, but was completely observational; of the eight thousand correlations, no causation could be established. One of the criticisms I read points out this very glaring problem; in a later book by Campbell for general consumption, called The China Study, he writes on page 107:

“At the end of the day, the strength and consistency of the majority of the evidence is enough to draw valid conclusions.  Namely, whole plant-based foods are beneficial, and animal-based foods are not.”

Just an inch lower on the page:

“The China Study was an important milestone in my thinking. Standing alone, it does not prove that diet causes disease.” [italics in the original]

Did you hear that? It was the sound of Campbell attempting that bus-canyon-trampoline jump I mentioned earlier. In Forks Over Knives, he not only attempts to get us to eat more veggies and less meat, but tries to get us to eat no meat because it causes cancer and heart disease and eating only a whole-foods, plant-based diet would prevent these diseases. Yet even Campbell says that he cannot draw that conclusion from this study even though he says earlier that that conclusion can be drawn.

Online Campbell refutes that his dietary recommendations were based exclusively on the studies he mentions in the film. Unfortunately, if audience members do not research the claims made in the film, there is no way for them to know about the additional factors that Campbell says he used to draw his conclusions. 

The film briefly mentions a study done in Norway during World War II. It concluded that people had fewer heart attacks during the time the country was occupied by Germany. The Germans took the livestock for their soldiers, so Norwegians had to move to a plant-based diet. Unfortunately, when one goes from grazing animals in their yard to farming, it requires different levels of activity. There may have also been other things that were and were not available during this time—both food and environmental factors. The doctors do not bother to outline any of these other potential variables.

Esselstyn mentions in passing that he puts his patients on statin medications when he is describing the study he created; that is the only mention of these drugs that he gives, and only in passing. He does not have a full diet treatment; he leaves that to a couple other doctors in the movie, Matthew Lederman, MD, and Alona Pulde, MD.

Lederman and Pulde, who run Exsalus Health and Wellness Center in Los Angeles, are two doctors featured treating patients in Forks Over Knives. In the film it is implied they treat people with food instead of medicine. They take a patient featured in the movie off of his medication and they show the doctors shopping with this patient for new food. There is no discussion of any other factors besides diet.

The front page of the Exsalus Health and Wellness Center’s website paints a slightly different picture.

“Exsalus Health & Wellness Center is comprised of a group of medical doctors committed to maximizing the health of our patients. Using a comprehensive, patient-centered approach that includes medical evaluation, nutrition education, practical lifestyle application, acupuncture, massage, and physical fitness we help our patients achieve optimum health.”

The problem here is not that they get people to relax, de-stress, exercise, and eat better. Heck, those are things we can all agree are good for people. The problem is that when they speak in the film, they only talk about diet. It is sort of like cleaning a house using a vacuum, broom, and paper towels but saying that the reason why the house is so clean is the awesome paper towels. We could chalk this up to editing problems if it happened once, but it did not.

The narrator and writer of the film, Lee Fulkerson, decides to try out the treatment from Lederman and Pulde. Right before entering their office, he explains that he is not the kind of person we would expect to do this treatment because he has just consumed two Red Bulls (a high-caffeine energy drink). When he goes into the office they do a health evaluation, including blood pressure and heart rates. When he returns after doing the diet, his numbers are much better.

Each 8.3 oz bottle of Red Bull has 76 milligrams of caffeine or a total of 152 milligrams of caffeine. WebMD explains the effects of caffeine:

“Caffeine works by stimulating the central nervous system (CNS), heart, muscles, and the centers that control blood pressure. Caffeine can raise blood pressure, but might not have this effect in people who use it all the time…”

It is possible that drinking two energy drinks before going to the doctor to have a physical will not affect your heart rate and blood pressure. It is not probable that stimulant drinks had nothing to do with the measured improvements. I find it impossible to consider the physical improvements of this diet based on the measurements because the measurements taken were not valid.

In fact, there is little discussion about the other factors that may cause people in China, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, and Norway in World War II to have different health outcomes; most notably and egregiously is the complete silence on physical activity. Exercise is never a topic for discussion, even though almost all of the people on the diet in the movie are at some point shown exercising. Average physical activity levels in China, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, and Norway are all extremely different from those in the United States. A discussion about modifying diet without modifying activity to fight heart disease and cancer is like trying to bail out a boat without plugging the hole.

Forks Over Knives slips in an assertion as fact that I found pretty shocking: 1–2 percent of cancers are hereditary. It was my understanding that the scientific community had not yet found or pinpointed the cause of most cancers. There is no source sited, and I did try to find the reference but I could not find it. I guess it happened so long ago it is not on the Internet?

As if it was not bad enough that the argument they try to present has evidentiary problems, it is riddled with logical fallacies and quackery warning signs. At one point Campbell is swarmed to sign books, like a rock star giving out autographs. There are appeals to ancient wisdom, celebrity endorsements (ok, celebrity-ish), deceptive framing of opposing arguments, visual cues meant to sway emotion, direct appeals to emotion, and appeals to fear, and I have not even gotten through the first half hour.

Their most blatant and shameless appeal was to the ego of the men in the audience. They go out of their way to prove how manly their diet is, with a Mixed Martial Arts fighter, a fireman chanting that “real mean eat vegetables,” and even discussions about how well the penises of Esselstyn’s patients work. No, I am not exaggerating.

Oh, and the C word does make an appearance. Not the offensive one describing a woman, no. The big one, the skeptic’s big C: Cure.

It also frustrates me that the doctors did not use the common term for their diet: vegan. (It is only said two or three times in the entire movie, by the MMA fighter.) It is a loaded word, but if the film wants me to wear a label, it had better tell me what that label is, and why I should take the flak. To avoid it altogether is at best cowardice and at worst deceptive.

The movie is not without some interesting factoids. It also spends a little bit of time explaining the conflicts involved in USDA policy-making. No agency can advocate for and simultaneously regulate the same industry. The most horrifying example is the food that one can eat and be in compliance with the nutritional guidelines as outlined by the USDA. A young person could eat a bowl of Lucky Charms, a burger and fries, and a slice of pizza in the same day without deviating from the guidelines. Yuck.

Forks Over Knives is not even entertaining or well made. The editing has serious issues. The style in which it is shot seems cheap. There is little to keep the attention of anyone who does not already agree. It is not a total snore, but then I did have a lot of coffee before I went.

I could continue for another hundred pages about the problems in the film, the deceptive way it frames the arguments it makes, the inadequacies of the arguments, or the bore factor. Based solely on what the doctors offer in the film, I was not convinced that a whole-foods, plant-based diet can cure cancer or heart disease. Based on my research into what they offer, I was even less convinced.

Forks Over Knives reminds me of a quote by Douglas Adams: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” Isn’t it enough to tout the health benefits of whole plant foods without creating a false demon of meat and dairy?

Note: I only saw this movie once, and did my best to take complete notes and verify what was said on the website. If I have missed something, or have misunderstood something, please let me know.

References

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html

http://www.amazon.com/Colin-Campbell-Doesnt-China-Study/forum/Fx1YJPR95OHW08P/Tx3QD9DFF9KLKFN/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&s=books&asin=1932100660&store=books

Matthew Lederman, MD, and Alona Pulde, MD
Exsalus Health and Wellness Center, Los Angeles, California
http://www.transitiontohealth.com/wordpress/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55308419468#!/group.php?gid=55308419468&v=wall

WebMD Caffeine
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-979-caffeine.aspx?activeIngredientId=979&activeIngredientName=caffeine

Life Expectancy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

After attending Comic Con, Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) rent an RV and visit numerous alien hotbed locations. After an eventless handful of alien-friendly stops and pictures of empty landscapes, their trip comes to an abrupt stop when a car in front of them rolls off the road. When they get out to help the driver, they are shocked by whom they find behind the wheel: Paul the alien (voiced by Seth Rogen). Paul convinces them to take him north to save him from government agents (Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio) who are on the hunt to take him back to Area 51.

The beginning of the movie starts off with some promise. Paul stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as adorably chubby, slightly awkward yet noble geeks with an enthusiasm for all things alien. How could it go wrong? I’ll tell you how: Paul. For some reason Pegg and Frost, who also wrote the film, imbued Paul with human emotions but did not give him any real depth. Many of the characters in the movie, including Paul, comment on the attractiveness of a comic book character with three breasts. This implies that Paul’s sexuality is similar to that of human beings. He seeks adoration. He tells jokes. His words say that he is afraid of being caught by the people who held him captive. For the majority of the film, Paul basically offers the emotional depth of an upper-middle-class junior-high-school student. Then, out of nowhere, for no explicable reason, he develops a sense of duty at the end of the flick.

Rogen’s vocal acting bounces between stoner and surfer, making Paul dreadfully off-putting. The alien species he belongs to obviously neither values nor has facial expressions or body language. Making the situation even worse, the sound editing makes Paul sound like he is speaking directly into your ear throughout the entire movie because no matter where he is standing, Paul sounds like he is two feet away. Even though this is a subtle problem, it is one that can cause an audience member to be taken out of the moment without being able to exactly pin down the reason. It is one of those times when your brain throws up red flags because something is not quite right but leaves you to figure out the problem.

The other characters are written as equally inconsistent. They bounce from wise to ridiculous, brave to bumbling. I believe that we rarely venture outside of our essential character while expressing our individual ranges of emotions from bravery to cowardice, but the characters in Paul are written in such a way that we never get a clear understanding of their emotional parameters.

People who report having been abducted by aliens often express a feeling or memory of being probed in the anus. This baffles many skeptics because it is not clear what exactly an alien species would learn from the inside of a human colon. Sure, any species who could travel to our world would probably be far beyond our own advancement, but why the structure of waste removal mechanisms? Still, this meme seems to be a reoccurring theme of abduction stories. I wonder what the aliens would do with extensive knowledge of the human bowel. Do they base their energy source on waste? Do they want to know about our eating habits? Do they find the shape of our feces particularly attractive (like diamonds)? Can they predict the health of a potential slave species by conducting colonoscopies? If so, they may find our cracks calling. But it seems unlikely that our crap is their unobtanium.

One of the saving graces of Paul is that it does not try to offer an explanation for the reported penetrative activities of off-worlders, but it does make it clear that Paul is as frustrated about the probe meme as skeptics. Paul completely and utterly dismisses the idea of aliens conducting anal probes. When face to face with Paul, numerous people beg to not be sodomized by a probe, which seems to annoy Paul. He repeatedly asks them what they think he would learn from an anal probe.

Occasionally, Paul does accidently bumble into moments you wish you could believe as true in the world of the characters. Some jokes hit the nail on the head. Some moments have marginal sincerity. But anyone calling Paul charismatic, humorous, or timeless is probably suffering a terrible case of confirmation bias. Even though Paul wants to be heartfelt and charming, the writing too often drops cold, pointless, annoying jokes that sap any warmth developed during the story.

In order to escape his Catholic mortician family, a skeptical atheist goes to seminary school. Once there, his teachers think he is best suited to perform exorcisms. In a lousy attempt at showing a doubter coming around to faith, The Rite misses the point of skepticism altogether and manages to make Catholics look like numbskulls who lack the ability to understand the foundations of a skeptical, non-theistic point of view.

[Note: I generally do not reveal spoilers in my reviews, but in this case what really irked me about the movie occurred near the end, and I will be discussing it. This would be a good place to stop reading if knowing the end of the movie will affect you negatively.]

Sick of dressing the dead and tired of filing the nails of the departed, Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) feels stuck at home. In his family, there really are only two choices of career for men: priest or mortician. Exhausted by corpse beautification, Michael decides to go to seminary school, despite his doubts about the existence of God. Near the end of his schooling, his teachers decide to sign him up for exorcism classes in Rome. Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins) is assigned to give Michael non-traditional, hands-on exorcism training. Much to Father Lucas’s chagrin, Michael’s suspicion is undeterred by the rituals and strange coincidences that begin to occur. Michael continues to examine without reverence the phenomena the church has labeled as possession. But Michael’s skepticism unceremoniously vanishes when his father’s death causes him overwhelming grief.

Michael adheres to reason neither because he is especially committed to finding the truth nor because he is naturally hyper-rational. He is depicted as having a childlike defiance of authority and a contrary nature. It is only the anger he feels after the trauma of his mother’s death that causes him to turn away from God.

I concede that many publicly identified non-theistic doubters share this defiant quality, but that is not because they cherish the thrill of conflict or lack the substance to discuss their ideas without being crass. It is because the only people willing to publicly come out as atheists or as skeptical of the idea of God have to be willing to defy conventional discussion, belief, and authority.

I also grant that it is often something intimate and traumatic that stirs theists to question their religious beliefs: a glaring injustice that the god described in their faith has allowed to happen or a lie they uncover about their church. It is the questioning, and the examination of their beliefs, that eventually leads some theists to abandon the idea of God altogether. Being angry with God is not atheism; it is faith.

Theists often confuse resentment of God with atheism. It has been my experience that many theists see atheists as arrogant, immature, defiant people who resent and are angry with the god they say they don’t believe in. Essentially, Michael is the stereotypical model of an atheist in the eye of theists.

It is obvious the writers of The Rite have a strong point of view: belief in God is the default position. If something is not otherwise explainable, it must be God’s doing. At the end of The Rite, Michael has to try to explain what he finds unexplainable in the world, but he cannot. He then realizes that he has turned to the devil by being skeptical of God and that he actually does believe in God. In that moment the writers prove they know little about either atheists or skeptics.

In short, Michael is nothing more than a personification of the ill-advised, foolish, and arrogant stereotype many theists have of atheists. Generally, it goes something like this: an atheist’s anger with some perceived injustice God has perpetrated against him makes him egotistical, disobedient, and insolent, but in the end, atheists will submit to their belief in God when they are faced with troubling times, because they never really disbelieved at all. It is akin to the myths of “There are no atheists in foxholes” or that “if an atheist just learns about God, she will love him.”

The typical theistic point of view is that all unexplainable occurrences can be attributed to God because theists hold God or God’s works as the default explanation. Skeptics do not have a default explanation, even when not having one means that they have to live with the discomfort of not knowing the answer.

The average skeptic may give thought to the god hypothesis, even if just for a second, because all ideas are worth considering. However, he would not default to the position that God or the devil is making someone sick or causing voices in his head. Most skeptics would require the existence of God and the devil to be conclusively proven before they could settle on it as a cause for anything or even a serious hypothesis.

It would be unusual for a reason-driven person to freak out in a moment of confusion, abandon their rationality, forgo their ruthless examination of the situation, and lay the happenings at the feet of God or the devil. I suspect most skeptics would say exactly the same thing in this situation: “I do not know what is going on, but I would like to figure it out.”

Writer Michael Petroni and director Mikael Håfström either have a point of view so shallow it would not cover their toes, or they are willfully snubbing both the atheist and skeptical communities. There is, of course, the very small chance that they are being ironic to show how insulting and idiotic the point of view of most theists is when it comes to atheism or skepticism.

To make matters worse, the plot they do offer up is unmistakably utter garbage. Both O’Donoghue’s and Hopkins’s acting is just so much emotionless drivel. I have been more convinced of the emotions of an actor at an elementary school play on the nutritional value of vegetables. The camera work, the dialogue, the pacing, and the visuals each leave the audience hungry for substance.

The only redeeming quality of The Rite is the adorable kittens that infest Rome’s streets—but even those have a sinister side. They just stand there, looking all cute with their kitteny goodness consuming the entire screen. Just when the baby cats inspire a slightly embarrassing round of coos from the audience, an actor bumbles his way into the scene and the audience members’ blissful kitty bubble is popped, sending them crashing face first into the atrocious acting litter box.

The Rite is just the right movie for the atheist or skeptic who has absolutely nothing better to think about at the moment and wants to gain insight into how they are seen by Catholics and theists in general. The beauty of the skeptical community is that there is almost always something better to consider, and very few things are worth less brain power than watching idiotic attempts at pigeonholing.

The drive for balletic perfection can drive a sane person mad—and cause a slightly mad person to lose her mind completely. With the exception of when its actresses are pretending to dance, The Black Swan is a well-acted, disturbing film that gives fleeting, peripheral glimpses of greatness.

Nina (Natalie Portman) lands the role of her life when she is cast as the Swan Queen in her company’s presentation of Swan Lake. The closer she gets to perfection, the more she loses herself, the more she slips into the character—literally. Nina’s ballet director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), is determined to break her of her weakness and encourages her to lose control of herself. Lily (Mila Kunis), the company’s new up-and-coming dancer who is nipping at Nina’s heals, drives her further from herself and deeper into the character of the Swan Queen.

Most of The Black Swan takes place on the dance floor. Ballet is a challenging craft: most ballerinas would agree that it takes years to even scrape the surface of the dance style and that it is never perfected. It is arguably the most challenging dance style that uses emotive expression. The smallest details in ballet are toiled over: the correct placement of the head relative to the shoulder, shape of the hand, and extension of the neck are skills that ballet dancers hone for years.

The dance scenes are frustrating for viewers of the film who have either danced ballet or enjoy watching it and know the difference between expression through dance and an attempt at expression through dance. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis do the latter. It may seem a small nit to pick, but the movie is about elite ballet dancers and much of The Black Swan is expressed through dance alone.

Much of the emotion of The Black Swan is supposed to be expressed through the dance, not just during it. We are supposed to infer Nina’s emotional breakdown from Portman’s dancing en pointe, not from simply watching her act out an emotional scene. If she cannot dance the emotions, how can I be expected to feel them?

The filmmakers chose actresses whose dance skills would earn a C+ grade at best and asked them to emote through the world’s most disciplined and challenging dance style while standing in the slippers of Maria Tallchief or Margot Fonteyn in one of the most iconic ballets of all time. This is asking for the impossible from these actresses, and it is disruptive to the quality of the film. Portman is asked to convey the majority of her character’s emotions through dance, but her ballet skills are substandard. This inevitably causes Portman’s acting performance overall to suffer.

If a phenomenal actor like Johnny Depp was asked to learn to play the guitar in six months and then asked to play—without post production and sound editing—with the emotional persuasion and skill of Jimi Hendrix, he may be able to get most of the notes right but would undoubtedly make mistakes that would be detrimental to his performance. That is essentially equivalent to what Natalie Portman was expected to do. The Black Swan’s director, Darren Aronofsky, made the dance-version equivalent of a fight movie in which none of the actors had ever taken an honest punch and were not expected to take any during filming.

Aronofsky’s dismissal of the importance of the dancing is a dirty shame; it is a port-wine stain on an otherwise strikingly beautiful film. Portman’s portrayal of Nina’s mental degradation touches on confusing, skims across fragility, reaches toward heart breaking, and finally lands on a penetrating sense of the disturbing. There were moments toward the end of the film in which I lost myself in Nina’s madness, but all of these moments occurred when Portman was not dancing. Kunis’s Lily is erotic, narcissistic, and—even though nothing she does ever overtly expresses it—appears to be wildly dangerous.

Despite some plot points that border on the supernatural, the plot feels very natural overall, which is a tribute to the quality of the writing. Writers Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John McLaughlin use Heinz’s story to captivate their audience. I wanted to know what was happening to Nina, why she was so fragile, if she was really sprouting feathers, if she was actually having random lesbian affairs—or if it was all in her mind. Nina’s interaction with her mother (Barbara Hershey) left the uneasy scent of Norman Bates in my nose.

Even the cinematography waxes and wanes through different emotional states, challenging the audience’s perceptions. Cinematographer Matthew Labitique and director Darren Aronofsky shy away from obvious cinematographic clichés such as making a room dark when the mood of the film is sinister. Instead, a reflective shot implies a distorted point of view, and a peeking shot makes the audience strain to see what’s going on—thus forcing their attention to one aspect of the scene.

If you think a barre is a place where people drink, an assemblé is a group of people, and attitude is something a teenaged girl gives, see The Black Swan. The incredible acting and beautiful cinematography will sweep you away. If you were just struck with a need to warm up, jump, and then stick one leg in the air, The Black Swan may be two mouthfuls of ipecac for every sip of Cristal.

A digital reunification of father and son may save two worlds—and a legacy. Tron: Legacy, the sequel to 1982’s Tron, imploded when an uninspiring plot was crushed under the weight of an unrelenting and desperate attempt to be visually interesting.

After Sam Flynn’s (Garrett Helund) father disappears, he is left to figure out the world on his own. That is until his father’s (Jeff Bridges) partner Alan Bradly (Bruce Boxleitner) gives Sam a sign that his father may still be alive. Following the clues found in his father’s old arcade, Sam finds his father and a whole new world.

Getting me—an abandoned child myself—to cry about family reunifications is easier than tying shoes. When the movie started, I thought I was in for an evening of tear-stained cheeks. That was not to be. I can’t remember caring less about the characters in a movie.

Garrett Helund did nothing to break through to me. His performance was shallow, boring, and unbelievably trite. He couldn’t be bothered to express any energy. No matter the circumstances of the story, he had all the emotional expression of a person taking their mid-night pee. I suspect it would have put him out to ask him to emote in front of the camera.

Jeff Bridges was even worse. Not only could he not act in this film, the effects used to make him look young in some of the scenes made him look like a clay-mation figure, a comical farce of himself. Bridges inability to make his mouth move naturally, compounded with the atrocious animation, made it impossible to watch without wishing someone would kill the character so he would not return on screen.

Screenwriters Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis did both Helund and Bridges a disservice by formulating a plot that neither offers nor asks for any emotional investment from the audience. The characters are distant, offering nothing to relate to, and unrealistically written. As I mentioned above, when Sam should be scared or confused or tired or happy, the character seems to be an emotional vacuum. The plot too shallow for even babies to drown in. Extraneous characters, motivations that make no sense, events that are mentioned and then not explained, and awkwardly placed comments leave the audience members scratching their heads.

Tron: Legacy absolutely, positively, and undoubtedly requires viewers to have seen the previous movie, Tron. Technically there is a complete plot for Tron: Legacy on its own—although it makes little sense in its own context. Few things chap my hide more than filmmakers mandating homework in order for me to see their movie. If I have to pay ten bucks to see a movie, it better be ten bucks’ worth of movie.

I suspect the only thing that kept moviegoers from leaving Tron: Legacy twenty minutes in were the visual effects (except for the awful one used to make Bridges look younger) and the skin-tight clothing. I admit, I wasn’t disappointed to have to watch good-looking people in tight light-up outfits. The scenes that take place “on the grid,” or inside the digital city, are sparkling and clean.

The fight scenes were exciting but only because of the interesting lighting and aforementioned tight clothing. The fight choreography itself, with the exception of one scene, is unexceptional. The fight scenes take place in an arena in which the characters play a game that, in essence, is death-match Frisbee. Frisbee is fun, but it is really hard to imagine it as a source of peril. Could you imagine how dangerous the beaches of California would be on a sunny day?

Tron: Legacy is a superficial experience that is as satisfying any other superficial experience. Chock full of glamour and lacking in substance, it is all sizzle and no sausage. I walked out of the theater two hours skinnier and hungry.