Doctor Who: The Movie

 The 52% tomato-meter reading can be explained only in one way: the only reason anyone would watch this film is that he or she is already a fan of Doctor Who, and as such, cannot help but promote anything Whovian, no matter how campy. Tragically, I fall into this precarious category.

As a dedicated Whovian, I have become accustomed to the Who Camp. Mind; it's a different kind of camp than your usual cult classics. Who Camp involves slimy villains, (usually) badly-written lines, overacting to the point of melodrama, and general adult silliness, which in itself, does not diverge from normal camp. Who Camp, though, also has a sweeping sense of optimism and universality which many productions completely lack. The Doctor, as a character, embodies something more/less than our need for a superhero, and yet carries us away in an imaginary place where the earth is protected (although, like most superhero stories, his also invents the villains from whom the earth must be protected), and we're safe to run away to places more alien than our own minds. How many of us feel safe enough to run away to, say, Taiwan?

Unfortunately for this movie, the Doctor travels to America, which he (and the audience, supposedly) finds ultimately to have been a mistake (almost always). Not only does he travel to America, but he travels to America in the nineties: not exactly an ideal vacation spot - and the dogs have noses.

Paul McGann does actually have many of the aspects of Doctor Who that his predecessors did. He finds delight in childish things, like perfectly-fitting shoes. He must convince doubtful mortals of their imminent danger and convince them to help. The villain is mildly frightening (Pre- John Simm, The Master hasn't ever been entirely frightening, for all his cruelty and callousness). The Tardis had changed significantly from the days of the white roundel, but because it has continued to change, we barely notice anymore. At least it still functions (even with the brakes on). If McGann does make one mistake, it isn't his fault. It's those damn writers. They A) had him confessing to be half-human (which is totally apocryphal, and serves no purpose), B) harped on the "only thirteen lives" thing (which I suppose we could toss out as a bit of outdated Time Lord legislation, used here only to add some sense of urgency to keeping the Doctor alive), C) actually acted romantically interested in a human, which doesn't quite work for anyone but Rose, especially in something as short-lived as a TV movie. The Doctor, as a 907-year-old, must see time passing more quickly, and a two-hour-stand must seem ridiculously brief for any sort of emotional involvement. And even with Rose, it didn't get all - biological. And finally, D) have him spouting personal nonsense to every third stranger he meets, as if time travelers have little better to do than interfere in little lives, one at a time. I might stretch that last one by building a kind of "he saw it coming" or "he went back and set it up" mythos, but I don't think the writers of this movie thought that far ahead. Shame on them.

It's also not McGann's fault that the aluminum apparatus in which he's suspended toward the end of the film makes him look like a [insert British expletive here].

The film had many disadvantages, but the only one that really bothered me was the Doctor's sentimentality. It's a different sentimentality, completely lacking his characteristic resilience upon which fans so constantly depend. Our Doctor feels things, certainly, but he doesn't get all mushy at the slightest provocation. Or any provocation, really. Not mushy. This movie made him mushy. For that, I'd never rate it above three stars.