Review of Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007) by Grant W — 04 Jul 2008

Razor is a fascinating movie. It's a movie almost entirely composed of texture and emotion and the expressions on people's faces and almost entirely devoid of plot--because we already know the plot.

Some complained when this aired that we didn't actually learn anything new about Pegasus, because everything we saw we already heard about in the series, but they were looking to learn the wrong things.

This is a movie about people who do terrible things. It's about anger and rage and desperation and fear and people do when their back is to the wall--when they're faced with untenable alternatives, as Admiral Cain says.

To do this, it depends entirely on the audience already knowing what's coming, which means having watched the Cain trilogy of Battlestar episodes ("Pegasus" and "Resurrection Ship" parts I and II), so it's not really the stand-alone some of its marketing suggests and why this isn't four-stars.

But if you watch Battlestar, this is an absolute must-watch, because it's a dark and beautiful complement to the main series, demonstrating so much with so little time. (The extended DVD cut adds a few extra scenes from the version aired on TV, some of which are great--Cain's flashback is devastating--and some of which are not--an even blunter and less subtle scene than the awkwardly tidy ending, of Kara and Kendra discussing Cain's definition of a razor.

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