THE BLACK HOLE (1979) **1/2 Disney Studios efforts in the 2001 and Star Wars direction, Gary Nelson at the helm. A lot of the effects look kind of cheesy now-more like those '50s films than the modern stuff-but they were pretty good for the time. There is some plot, but the film succeeds to the reasonable extent that it does on the basis of the brilliantly assembled cast. Ernest Borgnine is my favorite of the lot, but it's not too unfair to say that the most impressive thing about his performance is his moustache. Anthony Perkins works his weirdness to stranger effect, though it does seem to me that the thing might have benefited from more interplay with Joseph Bottoms, who seems rather more lost throughout the proceedings, his efforts towards comic relief notwithstanding. Yvette Mimieux's presence invokes her most central, celebrated and I guess entertaining roles; and as such she's not an unreasonable totem for the mad scientist of Maximilian Schell. Well, yeah , Max is in it, he's practically running the thing. I'm not saying that I enjoyed it just because it had all these actors standing around who can do better/or worse. They all do well enough and the premise is smart enough for the target kids and aging adult comic book enthusiasts, and Nelson plays enough cards well enough to let us know that he's seen and appreciated the great space flicks.if the robots try a little too hard to be too cute, that's more likely to irritate me than you, and I wasn't even irritated much.
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