Babylon 5: The River of Souls (1998)

Just perfect...

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I'm a big fan of Babylon 5, which I thought was probably the best example of serial Space Opera ever put to film- even better than Star Wars or any of the ubiquitous Star Treks.This film features two very good guest stars- Ian McShane and Martin Sheen. Fans of McShane from Deadwood or Kings are probably going to be disappointed here. His performance is relatively understated. Sheen portrays a "Soul Hunter" tasked with recovering a race memory that the hunters stole, only to discover the race was on the verge of reaching a higher plain of existence.This is mostly a showcase for Tracy Scoggins as Captain Lochley, and she does a really good job here. She was considered and rejected for the role of Janeway in Star Trek Voyager, and you can see where it was truly their loss.The problem was, with this as well as "Thirdspace", that the purpose was to create a Babylon 5 story outside the Five year Story arc. Sheridan and Delenn and G'Kar and Londo are the big players, this is the bit players having a bit of fun, but it's not crucial to the story.Still, there is just enough fun here to make it enjoyable.

An excellent film with great performances from Zack & Lochley. Much to their displeasure (& mine) Garibaldi arrived on station. (All due respect to Jerry Doyle but in Seasons 4 & 5 I lost sympathy for the character.) It doesn't take him long to start criticizing Zack (who I love best of all on the show)and taking charge. I'm sure Zack could have coped. The Soulhunter plot is fascinating, especially if you believe in heaven as Zack does. The humour supplements it nicely. 10/10

I'm a big fan of B5, having caught on only at the end of season three. I faithfully watched all the previous seasons when it was syndicated, concluding that it was one of the most well-thought out story arcs to ever hit television. Even the filler episodes were interesting. The movies, also, were well produced and as entertaining as anything to hit the theaters.Which brings us to 'River of Souls'. Naturally, after seeing everything else, I had high expectations. Martin Sheen appears to be acting in an Ed Wood movie rather than a serious Sci-Fi story. The story itself, might have looked good in outline form, even made it to the story board. However, it suffers obviously when it came time to filling this notion out into a two hour movie. There are no special effects to keep us entertained in the total absence of a compelling story. There are places where they were obviously short of time and just improvised the dialog to fill the story out. Had this made the regular season, it would have rated among the worst of the episodes.

Like Thirdspace before it, River of Souls attempts to put the supernatural into the B5 mythos (via Lovecraft to some degree) and give it a science fiction spin. While it doesn't descend to the levels of Star Trek's "metaphasic spirit" techno-babble, it still comes across as a bit odd. There are interesting performances by Martin Sheen and Ian McShane, and some follow-up on aspects of the B5 universe (such as the Soul Hunters, and Garabaldi's management of Edgars' Industries). But at the end of the day, it doesn't seem to add up to much. The B plot seems like an attempt to insert some broad comedy (it is funny, just unnecessary), and an excuse to put Tracy Scoggins in a skimpy outfit. Overall, an adequate entry into the B5 series, and more connected to the "mythos" than its predecessor, Thirdspace.