Change Your Image
jessepenitent
Reviews
Tales of Tomorrow: The Children's Room (1952)
Original Story Less Horrifying
The short story on which this is based is less horrifying and actually somewhat more optimistic. The boy doesn't want to leave his parents and struggles to be kinder to them. Indeed, he is upset that he keeps talking down to his Mom. Even the librarian in the story is a much more understanding, kinder person. (And as a librarian, I like to think this is true of our profession and would be true, even in the situation depicted).
As a stand alone piece, without knowledge of the original, I can agree this is a spooky little tale.
Still, I would like to see the more hopeful original produced as a play some day.
With You (2006)
Is It Possible to be Scared AND Disappointed?
Because I was and am.
Parts of this film made me go "AIIIGGHH!!!" and hide my eyes behind my hands. Other parts had me saying "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?" And still other parts just made me say "Oh, come ON!!!!" The Good: Well, let's start with the sets. Most horror films these days seem to take place in the middle of a dark, artfully designed "atmospheric" wood where it's always midnight even at one in the afternoon or ten in the morning. The characters move into haunted houses that are pristine and lovely, but ever so inexplicably creepy. Most of them may as well have big signs on them that read "And you thought Amityville was bad?"
Jim's apartment, on the other hand, looks like two that I had to live in when I was starting out. The crap paneled walls and the crap carpeting, bad wall paper...it looks like a place any of us might have to rent one day when we're financially strapped. It didn't look creepy, just trashy. It looked frightfully real. And large portions of the story took place during broad daylight. And somehow that didn't subtract from the creep factor. Instead of atmosphere, I got genuine scares in a realistic setting that I could have lived in once upon a time. The mundane becomes scary. YAY! Props for that guys, even if it was by accident and not by design.
The Bad: Someone needs to learn to edit and listen to how people really talk. I want to say the acting was pretty wooden as well...but I couldn't tell if the actors were just bad at their craft or if they were struggling to sound natural with the trite dialogue they'd been given to say. Any stiffer and the words would have broken into bits before they hit the audience's ears. Keanu Reeves would have been very comfortable reciting a lot of these lines from his almost never moving mouth.
The Good: When you come down to it, the plot borrows from lots and lots of different (and mostly antiquarian) horror tropes. Still, it was refreshing to see what was essentially the plot of countless M.R. James short stories transported to Middle America in the twenty first century and played straight. The exposition, clumsy as it was, did tend to give one the chills.
The Bad: The exposition that was given was clumsy when it wasn't nonexistent. We never learn much about Amon except that he's mighty evil. People's eyes bulge when they hear his name. Conversation stops, whispers commence....but we learn very little about him or why he's doing what he does.
More Bad: Even with the music of M.R. James to play, there were some bad notes struck. Why did everyone act like an idiot? Why did we have to have the "whew, it's only the cat?" chestnut right before the big scare (which was rather impressive, from my POV). Why didn't Mr. Klein insist on a change of venue immediately? Why, when Jim and SLoan realized that the noises they were hearing couldn't possibly be coming from the next apartment, didn't Jim sleep on the couch at Sloan's? Why didn't the police officer take the infamous box to Jim at once instead of taking it to the hospital? (That poor town is in trouble if he's their finest.) And why were we offered Mr. Mercant's many dour prophecies when he, ultimately, doesn't show up for the rest of the movie?
The Good: Loved that the ghost wasn't kept to one spot and that it could amble around. Loved the crazy noises next door. Got a charge out of Sloan checking under the coffee table before sleeping.
The Bad: Those spiders still didn't have a patch on the tarantula attack from "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (yes, I am contradicting myself, but really--those spiders were kind of, well, sad. I'd be unhappy if they were in my house, too, but still....)
The Good: Nice to see a guy instead of a girl in jeopardy for a change. Nice to see a horror flick that doesn't depend on nudity and sex to keep the audience watching. Nice to see that the gore factor was almost nil...but...
The Bad: What the heck was up with that ending? Creepy yes, but...it didn't make sense with the rest of the story. Did Amon need to periodically get up, snatch a body and eat someone else's? We are never really told what Amon's deal is, so, while the ending *may* explain the various disappearances, it doesn't explain what caused the haunting in the first place. It felt tacked on rather than a natural outcome of the story.
So, I give this five stars. Five stars for an herculean effort to recreate old time-y haunted house elements in a modern day setting and to somehow put enough of a spin on to make it feel fresh and original.
Unfortunately, because the freshness borders on raw and unfinished (clunky dialogue, wooden acting, the need for people to act like idiots in order to bring the plot forward....) I give no stars for the rest.
Still, if Jim Christiansen keeps bringing this kind of scare to the table and learns to boost his dialogue levels, I will certainly come back for more.
We've Got Each Other (1977)
Wish This Had Lasted Longer
It's a pity this show didn't last longer. While I remember very little about the episodes themselves, I do remember that the chemistry between Oliver Clark and Beverly Archer was real and quite believable. Here were two people who looked like someone you might actually see in line behind you at the grocery store buying milk and eggs. He wasn't a Neanderthal slob guy (think Jim Belushi) married to the very smart and absolutely magazine model gorgeous wife (Courtney Thorne-Smith, but almost any television actress will do there). I can remember thinking that this show was unusual even back then for portraying main characters who weren't gorgeous and body conscious.
As I recall, the dialogue was consistently funny and intelligent, the situations were amusing and it left one with a warm and happy feeling that watching a rerun of "Friends" just doesn't deliver. (Sure, "Friends is funny, but warm? Nope. Nada.) To echo the previous poster, yup, they don't make programs like this anymore because they aren't "sophisticated" enough. Pity, because, frankly, the latest round of "sophisticated" sitcoms seem to be getting meaner and meaner. If mean names, nasty comments and vulgar language is "sophisticated" I guess I will take the "naive" humor of this type of show over that.
Sirens (2002)
What Everyone Else Said
This was a simple minded excuse to string together lots of revolting sexual imagery and, oh yes, blood. Robert Glenister (sp?) delivers a great performance as the piggish department head. But the rest of it???? Let's see...plot twists so unbelievable as to make M. Night Shyamalan's works seem realistic and logical by comparison.
Characters who act in ways totally out of character because the plot needs them to do that.
A wrap up delivered second hand by the second male lead at the eleventh hour--just before the bad guy comes to "off" him and a scene that makes absolutely NO sense even when its reason for being there is explained...so that the heroine can hear on the phone--in the killer's presence--the truth of the matter.
For that matter, the second hand wrap up delivered by Glenister's character would be interesting if any clues had been planted for it...but there were NONE. Until the moment he gives up the explanation, we have not been given clue one to follow in what should be a play-fair mystery.
Film cuts that make sense only when you realize it's done to "fool" the audience (who is, one hopes, too smart to be fooled).
Actors without any kind of chemistry. No, I lie: GREAT chemistry between the heroine, such as she is, and the piggy boss. Now THAT would have been an interesting relationship to explore. Every time they got screaming at each other, I really did expect clothing to fly and there DID seem to be a spark there, despite her protests.
But the chilly, creepy Greg Wise??? Sure, he's pretty in the same way a wax statue is...maybe he's the Keanu Reeves of England? Charmingly wooden, but not much passion.
And, really, if there had been just ONE main character to like and sympathize with, I might have forgiven all of the above, but when the only likable characters are the red herring's snooty wife or the heroine's put-upon Pakistani assistant (a great acting job by the young lady whose name I don't remember)...well, then you are clearly watching it for the sex scenes. If that's the case, go rent a porn flick instead. If you want a mystery with lots of angles, great, whole characters and believable twists...just pick something at random off the rental shelf with your eyes closed and you are guaranteed to have a better movie.
Irresistible (2006)
Did Susan and Sam Owe Someone a Favor???
I borrowed this from my library, so thankfully, I only lost the dollar rental fee and 103 minutes of my time (well, not quite 103 minutes--I fast forwarded once during a tedious bit--and even with the fast forward I lost absolutely nothing of the plot...) Who thought this was a good idea? Was it only shown in Australian theaters? Are Austalians so undiscriminating in film that they will sit through any suspenser even if it is godawful and choppy? As I watched I felt that the writer had all these "great" ideas for scenes...and wrote them up then cobbled them together to make a story about a nutter and the nutter's victim. While the first "twist" gave me an "omigod!" rush...it was promptly dampened by the belabored ending and the final "twist" which left me saying to my cat "well, I'm glad I sat here working on a craft while I was watching this thing...something got accomplished." Not recommended. Not ever. Even if someone PAYS you run fast in the opposite direction. And keep running.
Le pacte du silence (2003)
Gerard, Go Back To Being Martin Guerre...PLEASE!!!
Luckily, I rented this from my library, so all I want back is the 99 minutes I wasted watching it. (Actually, I only wasted about an hour and 15 minutes, since I fast forwarded through everything that didn't have subtitles...and I was still bored.) It lacked character development. Plot development. Thematic development. Whatever it is you need to make a good thriller, the producer and director said "Oh, let's not do that..." and did the WRONG thing. It wasn't as if bad choices were made mistakenly, but deliberately. The narrative was painfully choppy, the English translation for the subtitles pitifully stilted (and wrong...at one point,according to the subtitles, the Monsignor tells Joachim the Reverend Mother doesn't trust him. In French, however, he says "She thinks you're the anti-Christ." Gerard Depardieu is a terrific actor but he just ain't priest material and it's been a long time since he (And Sean Connery and Harrison Ford and a few others) could play a believable romantic hero opposite a (much, much) younger actress. (Indeed, had this played over here, Sean Connery would be our priest and Lindsay Lohan would be the nun.) I don't know if the script can be blamed on the source novel, but I could not swallow Carmelite nuns at a voodoo ceremony any more than I could swallow the sudden and inexplicable love affair between Joachim and Gaelle. The ending was a gory mess and the efforts to blur the twins' identities was just silly.
A waste of time from start to finish. The only good part of this flick for anyone at MY home was that my cat got to sit on my lap and sleep for the hour and 15 minutes the movie played....
Look elsewhere.
Admissions (2004)
Exquisitely Flawed
I was surprised to like this movie since I'm from the "check your brain at the door and have fun" school of film viewing. However, this film touched my heart. I have friends like mentally retarded Emily. I have friends like unsocialized Evie. And I've been in Evie's shoes, chasing away opportunity out of fear and out of devotion to others.
Amy Madigan's disappointment in her daughters was almost palpable on screen and the awkward moments where she tried to bridge the gap with Evie were raw and painful to watch. And perhaps I am denser than most, but I never saw the twist with Evie's father coming. Usually I cotton on to those things rather quickly.
My reservations are similar to others posted here. I thought Christopher Lloyd's wonderful, sympathetic character (a very different role for him, I thought) was underused. What happened to him once he realized what was going on with the poetry? Would he, like James, try again??? Second, the ending, such as it was, didn't seem to resolve or accomplish anything. I didn't expect the pieces to be picked up and all the ends tied neatly, but I felt that I was left at odds with the characters, that there was no real healing taking place here or any real efforts at healing being made.
Otherwise, exquisite and lyrical and disturbing and, for some, very, very true.
99.9 (1997)
Wish I'd Seen The Movie Described in Other User Reviews (Spoilers)
I'm not stupid and I don't have the attention span of a gnat. I LOVE movies with subtitles because (silly me) subtitled movies generally have a more interesting and original plot than what comes out of Hollywood these days. Like most fans, I'm irritated with the American Movie Machine nabbing and remaking foreign films, particularly the J and K horror films.
But 99.9, IMHO, may be improved by an American schlockmeister, at least for this dim-witted old broad. Maybe then I will understand what the heck happened. I watched it twice, hoping that I was just MISSING something. Reading the other comments here, I wonder if I should get it again and watch it over. I can't be that stupid, can I? It should have been great. Creepy atmosphere. Taciturn villagers who won't give straight answers. Faces appearing on walls. Not to mention the whole effort to videotape the dreams of alcoholics and drug addicts...it should have been freaking fabulously frightening.
But then...it all went spinning off to nowhere. Plot lines were dropped. Clues were brought up and discarded. And that whole ending just...well it sent me over the edge.
Guess I will stick with simpleminded fare like "The Devil's Backbone" or "Cure". 99.9 is simply too esoteric and sophisticated for me.
The Bone Snatcher (2003)
Kind of Fun in a Painful, Jawdropping Way
My jaw fell so many times watching this flick, I have bruises. Okay, granted, I really wasn't expecting the quality of, say, The Others or even Thirteen Ghosts (the new one, which was just dreadful and is still head and shoulders above this insanity). Someone else noted the thin characters...I wouldn't call them "thin". "Thin" implies there might be something to them. How about almost non-existent? In no particular order we have: The Girl Who Will Scream; The American Who Will Figure It All Out; The Macho Guy Who Will Just Bull Through Everything Until He Gets Killed: The Wise Black Man Who Will Die Early; The Extra Guy Who Is There To Die First; The Extra Woman Who Is There To Play Tough. That's it. That's your character list and that is what they are and what they remain from beginning to end. If they were "thin" they might, at least, change a little bit from beginning to end. But they don't. Well, okay, the American guy decides he's going to stay with the fieldwork at the end and the Screaming Girl goes back to wherever she came from. That's the change. Other than that, they all act according to their assigned roles and rarely betray any real emotion when they finally meet up with the menace.
Now, the producers get props for an original menace, I will say. I had understood the story was going to be "Tremors" but with ants instead of giant worms. I give the writer credit: these are very cool, very scary ants and what they do with bones is excellent. (The first time the "bone snatcher" appear, I admit I jumped a few feet.)Unfortunately, the very cool concept becomes Alien in the Desert very quickly. We get a lot of commentary on ants that may or may not be true, but we don't get much of the mythology on which the menace is based. And we get every monster movie cliché ever made. People go into places they know they shouldn't and when they have no compelling reason to. Moronic characters try to hinder our heroes and die for it. One character does double duty as "scientist who doesn't want to kill the monster but study it". A Very Cool Gadget is introduced only so the American can tell everyone something about ants that, gee, I hope everyone knows anyway. Then the gadget is broken. Our heroes run out of the one thing that can keep the menace at bay. And then there is that final, annoying moment when we know the menace is still with us--and wonder exactly what and how the hey the hero or heroine came by it. It completely renders everything that went before as useless and false.
Three stars for the cool use of ants and bones. Nothing at all for clichés, clunky dialogue and dim bulb characters.
The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
A Gorgeous Trainwreck
After reading through the commentaries here, I want to see the movie the other writers saw. After I watched Phantom last night, I kept asking "Where was the passion?" Minnie Driver and Miranda Richardson manage to portray some of the passion and emotions their characters experienced, but Emmy Rossum seemed whiny, Patrick Wilson callow and Gerard Butler....well, I have never seen the famous Michael Crawford version, but I have seen other Phantoms (all still unknowns) and all of them assayed the role with more passion and darkness in their pinkies than Butler did with his whole body. Yes, it was pretty to look at (and I will admit that "Past the Point of No Return" was a great sequence) and I give props to the writers for explaining why Carlotta suddenly loses her voice during a performance, but if I never see this again it will be just fine with this Phantom fan.
When Strangers Appear (2001)
Almost Worth the Trip
Every year, three friends and I take a weekend road trip. It's a "girls only" trip and we spend several months planning where we will go, when we will leave and what we will do once we get there. Some of us are a little more detail oriented than others, but we do leave some things open to chance to make the trip more fun. One reason for the trip is to enjoy time spent in the company of friends and to get away from it all. We meander along the first day, maybe even stopping at interesting places on the way. It's great fun.
BUT--once we get to where we are going, there had better have been a good reason for us to go. If the hotel has no running water, the main tourist attraction is closed and the food inedible, the rest of the trip sours a little bit.
"When Strangers Appear" was like an almost good road trip: interesting companions whom you learn more about as the story progresses, interesting side trips in the plot and a couple of great twists and turns...and then you arrive at your destination and...no running water (well, maybe too much running water--those of you who have seen it may know what I mean), no tourist attraction and lousy food.
I was actually surprised by the actors. Barry Watson and Josh Lucas aren't Hanks or Newman or Penn, but they managed to create creepily likable characters who kept dragging me back and forth to their side. Radha Mitchell was annoyingly spunky but at least she kept it consistent (or tried to--her character was required to do some things that were stupid) and Kevin Anderson adds another likable bastard to his credits.
The actors do what they can with the script. They are all great companions for the journey, but the writer either had no destination in mind or the chose several different destinations and couldn't decide on any of them. While the characters are trying to reach the mystery destination, they are suddenly required to act like idiots. There are at least two or three incidents where the behavior of the heroine and her "support" is SO stupid, I wanted to kill them. There is the obligatory car that won't start. Is this an unwritten law in filmdom? After a certain, terrifying scene, the "good guys" SIT DOWN AND CHAT when they should be on the run--and it's very clear that this lull in the action was inserted only so the "bad guys" would have time to catch up with them. Several major pieces of information are introduced--and then discarded. A certain action--the kicking of the jukebox at Beth's diner-- is repeated over and over. It is built up in such a way that I really was waiting to see how it would be used in the denouement...but it is never used. A major player (about whom some scary things are revealed and about whom questions are raised) is taken out at the beginning of act three. Then we learn nothing more about him.
Up to the end of act two, even with all the idiot actions, the movie was Hitchcockian, intriguing and had me salivating for the answers. Who is Jack? Who is Peter? Why surfing? What's on the freakin' disk?
And then....Hitchock leaves the project and Steven Seagal comes in to create lots of mayhem, holocausts and insanity. We get no payoff (unless explosions and shootings are your idea of payoff). No explanations, no tie ups, NOTHING. Lots of loose ends getting wet so that Radha Mitchell's character can be the butt of a soggy director's joke.
Now, some will say that I am immature if I can't stand loose ends. But a picture that sets itself up to be Hitchcock should follow in his footsteps and tie up the major loose ends, even if it leaves the minor ones untied. I expected thoughtful, intriguing answers that might even create more questions about everything that went before (a la "Mullholland Drive" or "Memento" for example). Instead, I got explosions, cheap shots, death and destruction...which leads me to believe, the people responsible didn't know what to do with their classy material, so they just went for the lowest common denominator. If they wanted to film a cheap action thriller, then it should have been a cheap action thriller on page one. I was tantalized for ninety minutes with the promise of really good answers. And the promise was broken leaving me stranded in the desert without a road map.
Not a very good ending to what had been an exciting road trip.
The Village (2004)
Despite Lame Twist, It Hobbles Toward a Haunting End (Spoilers)
I went, knowing the BIG twist and was prepared to sit down and hate the whole thing. And I was surprised (more so than I was by the "twists") that I walked out defending it to my friend. (She used words like "tedious" to describe it.)
I really wanted to hate it and have fun making mock of it. Instead, I was horrified to find that there were tears pricking my eyes in a couple of spots.
There is something gutsy about going ahead with a plot that has been completely leaked to your target audience. And there is something gutsy to be found in what this film is saying about love and fear.
It probably shouldn't have been marketed as a horror film, because it isn't. And maybe he didn't need Sigourney Weaver's star power (but you know, she has what is a small, throw-away role and she does a great job with it and I liked her in it). And no, the creatures aren't real--but what they say about our fear and what it says about the "elders" needing to generate fear in order to avoid facing their own, is quite profound. Some people are calling this a 9/11 film. If it is, Shamayalan is suggesting that if we face our fears and destroy them, we will be better off than hiding our heads in the sand.
The acting is low key (with the exception of Brody's over-the-top Noah) and dialogue appropriate to the time in which the folks believe themselves to be living. (Yes, people actually did talk like that, if the letters I have read from my great gramma's generation are any indication.) Bryce Howard is riveting to watch, though I was hardpressed to believe she was blind. And the whole throwaway bit about her and "auras" could have been dispensed with. I was sorry to see a person with mental difficulties cast as the bad guy, but I suppose a "normal-thinking" villain would have added a whole set of plot difficulties. Still, I found it hard to believe that the young man was so mentally challenged and innocent and was still able to come up with the evil plan he did.
On the over all, though, despite the twist (for a much better plot based on the same twist, read Margaret Peterson Haddix's "Running Out of Time." I'm wondering if M. Night read this book and borrowed a great deal from it), I find this film and the very end (not the twist reveal, but the last frames, focusing on the elders' decision and on Bryce Howard's quiet bravery) haunting my thoughts a day or two later.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Harry Potter and the Chopped To Bits Story
Okay. I am going to get creamed by the condescending film buffs out there, who love "interesting angles, amazing cuts and fabulous photography." This is, after all, what we have come to in modern film-making: lots of arty shots, to heck with story telling that makes sense and definitely to heck with pacing that allows one time to reflect on previous events.
PoA's pacing, such as it was, was breakneck-Saturday-Morning-Serial style for the short attention span crowd. (Yeah, I'm being condescending now.) No time for thought, for exposition, for reflection, thinking or character development. Let's just have onedamnthingafteranother. I've seen/heard critics claiming this makes for a tighter, shorter movie...but somehow, when those two hours were up, I felt as if I'd been sitting there half my life and it wasn't the good half.
I've heard the cries "It's not the BOOK! It's only BASED on the book! You people have to understand that an entire book can't be filmed." Okay, sure. It's based on a book that millions of people love and respect. I don't understand this idolization of and praise for Cuaron's choppy, herky-jerky style of direction. Is it because today if it doesn't keep moving-moving-moving we can't waste time watching it. Yes, they call them "movies" for a reason, but movies, literate movies, also are there to make you think. This wasn't "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" where you're there to watch things happen one after another. This was supposed to be a film of a book in which there is a mystery, with clues pointing to the resolution of the mystery.
But the clues were mostly tossed out with the speed of light, the explanation (when it came and what little there was of it) was delivered by Gary Oldman at a pace so fast his mouth would have reached the finish line before Smarty Jones was out of the box. Everyone talked so darned FAST and moved so darned fast there was no time to say "Oh, THAT'S what the moon's appearance meant" "THAT'S why this happened...."
There is also the matter of plot elements being left out. PoA is a long book. Of course, it was necessary to leave out scenes, combine several characters into one and condense things that happen and even tweak in some changes. But why, if time was so of the essence, was it then necessary to drag out the whole Knight Bus sequence? Funny? Sure. Necessary to the plot? Hardly. If you can't spare three minutes for an explanation of the Marauder's Map (who created it and why) then why spare three minutes for the kids eating the animal noise candies? What did that add? Not a bloody thing. Why was so much film and time wasted on the ghost horsemen crashing through windows when the background of the Patronus spell was sacrificed? The former may have added atmosphere, but the latter is important to Harry's development as a character. And since Buckbeak is a very important subplot, why spend three minutes on Harry's wild ride, but barely thirty seconds on the information that Buckbeak has been sentenced to death??? For a film so concerned with the theme of time, not much thought was put into the importance of time at all.
In the end, while the movie seemed jam-packed with events, it was ultimately empty, without warmth, without soul and completely without heart. Glossy, bright, slick and BORING.
More Dogs Than Bones (2000)
Very Big Dog, No Bones About It
It had such promise. Don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Would like to say it was clever, fun and original. And for a while--just a little while--it was fun. I laughed at some of the lines. No, really, I did. There were some great takes on myths about America and Americans. And then...it all went to hell in the biggest handbasket I've ever seen.
For three quarters of the movie everything is warm and fuzzy. And then, I guess they lost the last part of the script and said "Oh, well. Let's just kill everyone."
Wouldn't you have liked to see Peter Coyote get his job back? Or better yet, frame one of his superiors, make it up with Mercedes Ruehl, maybe off the Louise Fletcher character (what a waste of a great actress) and go off to Barbados? Or what if each person had somehow each gotten their own dream? Or if Uncle Raj had gotten the cash to return to his home in India? I was even expecting to see Uncle Raj become involved with Victoria for a bit. Wouldn't that have been a cool pairing? Wouldn't it have been funny to either a) see her mellow out or b) him become avaricious and street smart? Wouldn't it have been a riot if they had stretched each new obstacle out a bit more? It could have been so funny....
But Nooooooooooooooooo! They turned it into a stereotypes on parade with Whoopi doing her cool earth mother routine yet AGAIN (since Celie, has she actually played any other character besides herself?) becoming the hero because she's a cool earth mother. Boring!
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Keep My Money, Just Give Me Back My Time!
After I saw "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" I thought I had seen the year's most incoherent, special effects laden piece of garbage. Imagine my surprise (after reading and hearing so many positive reviews) when I found myself watching a flick that virtually ties LXG for first place in the category of incomprehensible, stupid and--frankly--BORING. Clearly the positive reviews given this drek were written by fourteen year old first grade drop outs whose idea of "worth watching" may be defined as "people get shot up for no particular reason except that it's cool".
As a rule, I don't mind violence in movies if the violence is there for an intelligent reason (i.e, to further the plot, explain motivation, etc., etc., etc.) However, that assumes, that there is a plot to further and character motivation to explain.
Robert Rodriguez may be a control freak about his movies, and he may like to do them all by his little lonesome (I'm surprised that he didn't play all the parts in this movie as well) but her might also want to take a class in STORY. I'm not talking about plot contrivances and cliche. I'm talking about coherent story telling. About character motivation that is a tad fresher than "you killed my wife and child and appear to have killed me as well, but I--inexplicably--survived so I will get you."
There were some great set pieces here (Blind Agent Sands tricking the guards into giving away their position, Carolina and El Mariachi escaping from the hotel room using a chain as a rapel) but unfortunately, they were nothing BUT set pieces, as if Rodriguez had dreamed them up and then needed to figure out how they all tied in together. Sadly, NOTHING ties in together in this mess. And here's what is saddest: so many people with I.Q.s a little smaller than a butterfly's are going to think this is great cinematic storytelling because the body count is so high.
Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
I Want My Time Back
What scares me most is how "cool" everyone thinks the blood, the gore and the nudity is.
Anyway...I saw the original 13 Ghosts when I was a small child and it scared me AND entertained without a lot of gore or nudity. I saw the original again recently and, well, it hasn't aged well, but it's still good, campy fun. (I mean, how can you not love a movie that casts Margaret Hamilton as one of the good guys and has another character comment on her looking like a "wicked witch." It's a hoot.)
When I see this new version claim to be based on the original, I want to toss my cookies. About the only idea this film took from the original was the thirteen ghosts and maybe the character names. If they wanted to make THIS movie, why give a tip of the hat to William Castle at all? Why not just change the ghosts to demons and psychic forces and call it "The Black Zodiac" or (God forbid) "The Glass House"? Or anything but Thirteen Ghosts.
Tony Shaloub (highly underrated and really a great actor) works hard. So does Matthew Lillard. They manage to make something of their one dimensional characters. Embeth Davidtz, on the other hand, is playing Sigourney Weaver playing Ripley in "Alien." And F. Murray Abraham, please tell me you were doing this for the fun of it! As for the two kids, let's face it--they were there because they were two kids. And they were in danger. And we're supposed to care about them because they are two kids in danger. I kept thinking "Tony, let 'em get eaten by the doomsday machine or whatever it is, and get out of there. You can do better."
And then there was the Nanny. I hope Rah Digga was paid handsomely to prostitute herself. When did it become cinematically necessary that all black characters in horror films have to run around acting like Buckwheat in "The Little Rascals"? Think: Ernie Hudson in "Ghostbusters 2", eyes bulging and nappy hair on end. Why is the black character always the only one who realizes there is a major danger to be met, so let's get the hell out of it now? Think: Whoopi Goldberg in "Ghost." What's with the stereotype and why do they keep allowing themselves to be sucked into it?
In the end, this wasn't a serious, character-driven movie because it wanted to be a light-hearted special effects driven scare fest but it also wanted to have Something Important to Say about family relations. And it wanted to be a message flick about meddling with The Unknown. Sadly, it was none of these and was, instead, a Great Big Mess that can only be loved by people who want to see gore and nudity. Geez. At least the original knew it was camp and didn't pretend to be anything more.