Amerika

I remember when this stinkburger came out. I was a senior in High School and remember all the hype surrounding this. One thing stands out and that is when T.V. Guide had an article on the miniseries. The director was whining about how it's O.K. for Tom Cruise to shoot down Russians in Top Gun and that it wasn't O.K. for the Russians to occupy the United States. I thought fine, move to the Soviet Union if you don't like it here! Anyways beyond Kristofferson's overacting and downright annoying character, this could have been done much better. For instance, we get just a snippet of how this happened. No detail so I guess this dumb dumb director left it up to our imaginations, a definite sign of someone who belongs in High School theater. At least Red Dawn gave us a basis this was ridiculously vague at best. Cindy Pickett looked like a zombie in this. She had an annoying and whiney character that made me want to throw her into a Gulag A.S.A.P. If some folks liked it, hey you have the right to but this had no reality or credibility whatsoever. The only person that gave it any kind of life was Sam Neil who looked like he would rather do another Omen movie instead of this tripe. Even the Soviets at the time thought the miniseries was unprobable. I whole heartedly agree with the reviewers who say that after spending up to 10 hours watching this that at least we would get a good bang at the end, you know a CONCLUSION! It ended like a balloon running out of air, wilting into the end. I would much rather watch Red Dawn for 10 hours than this snoozefest. Unprobable plot, cheap effects and sets, dry and uninteresting characters, and finally shotty acting. Kristofferson's younger son looked creepy as well and couldn't act to save his life. One more thing, the reason this isn't shown anymore is that it sucked so bad that networks avoid it like the plague and cable stations don't want a riot outside their studios. This will eventually go down as nothing but a low budget boring MST3K caliber joke.

Forgive me, but when this was first shown on TV, the reaction from the public was with a collective yawn. American audiences just weren't ready for a TWELVE HOUR movie, and the Nielsen ratings for the series were embarrassingly low (If I remember correctly, they were the lowest for any mini-series). There was a paperback book tie-in with the mini-series, which was released several days before the TV show began (Can you say "give away the plot"?). What little I saw of AMERIKA when it was originally broadcast was as exciting as watching paint dry, and the series was savaged in the press as being the work of paranoid imaginations.

What I took as being very odd is that the patriotic hero was played by Kris Kristofferson, a man who has championed many liberal-to-left political causes that the most patriotic fans of this mini-series would oppose.

It's been said that a work of genius is never fully appreciated when first released to the public. It's also been said that people will read their own interpretations into the most innocuous of things. Patriotic epic or paranoid raving? Make your own decision about this mini-series.

I taped this 17 years ago. Recently, I dusted off the tapes for a second look. This series is not an anti-Russian polemic as claimed by the critics of the time. Rather, it is an examination of what it is like to live in a defeated and occupied totalitarian country. I decided to watch it because what happened to us in this series is comparable to the experience of Iraq under US occupation. If anything, the Russians were much kinder to us in AMERIKA than we are to the Iraqis now.

Despondent as they were, the Americans of AMERIKA had a much greater appreciation for freedom than we do today. Today, we have lost much of our freedom, and we have done it to ourselves. For a glimpse of what is in store for us if we persist in our present course, watch AMERIKA.

We (my Dad and I) taped the AMERIKA miniseries on its premiere air dates and I'm so glad we did. I've read a couple reviews here at IMdB that claim this milestone is boring. I believe they are misinterpreting the decided communist slant of this production. The production seems off-kilter because of it is presented through "a weary and wintry Russian eye", which might be compared to the powerless angst of the Russian characters of the Dr. Zhivago film. The characters are all doomed to communism and it's fascinating to view their ways of coping. Kristofferson and Urich are both powerhouses in this vein. My favorite theme is the outlawing of sentimental media, my favorite scene when Mariel Hemingway attends the illegal performance of "The Fantasticks". Shades of George Orwell's "1984", about a communist state where things that are illegal for the masses are allowed (but not admittedly) for the elite party members. So I say "God Bless AMERIKA". I think I'll watch it again next week.

I was too young to have viewed this movie when it originally aired, but my parents taped it and for some reason kept it around for thirteen years. I finally decided to give it a whirl, thinking it would be an adaptation of the Franz Kafka story (I know, I know.....). This was my first mistake.

My second mistake was actually watching the thing at all. At 870 minutes, this makes the 10-hour "The 10th Kingdom" seem like a short subject by comparison, yet the whole thing could have easily been pared down by half without compromising the storyline. Why? Simple: the plot is pathetic. You would think that by 1987 people would have realized the Soviet Union was NEVER going to take over the U.S., but I guess someone forgot to tell writer-director Donald Wrye, since he insists on rehashing the tired old "communist subversion" schtick that went out -- and deservedly so -- in the mid-60s. The dialogue is corny and hackneyed and seems to begin repeating itself at the halfway mark, while the direction is uninspired (although pretty much average by TV movie standards). Sam Neill manages to maintain his dignity in this midst of all this nonsense, but everyone else comes out looking as silly as the film itself.

By itself, "Amerika" is harmless piffle that, if nothing else, would make a good double bill with "Dr. Strangelove," which so effectively manages to ridicule and ultimately destroy the reactionary plot. But the ideology behind the story, and the reactions it has inspired among some of my fellow IMDb reviewers, is completely idiotic, almost frightening. The series' ultimate and highly questionable message is that we should remain ever vigilant against the communist threat, and that it will take any guise need be to bring down our society from within -- latter-day McCarthyism if I ever heard it. Thank goodness this 870-pound turkey is scarcely remembered today.