Overall Rating
 Awesome: 6.45%
Worth A Look: 33.33%
Average: 20.43%
Pretty Bad: 22.58%
Total Crap: 17.2%
5 reviews, 63 user ratings
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| Gothika |
by Chris Parry
"Who wrote this thing, a fourteen-year-old kid with developmental problems?"
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I like scary. I love scary. Problem is, nobody seems to know how to do scary anymore. With Jeepers Creepers 2, the filmmakers forgot the fact that what made the first Jeepers Creepers film scary was that you never saw the monster until late. It was the unknown that made you shiver, and when that unknown was revealed ten minutes into the sequel, all that was left was jump scares and teens in jeans. Gothika falls for the same mistake, revealing a spooky ghost ten minutes into the film, and then taking the incompetence to a whole new level when it can't decide whether the ghost is the bad guy or not. After a while I was missing the teens in jeans.Halle Berry is a doctor in a mental hosiptal, filling her days with diagnosing crazies and making out with her much older, far rounder asylum-running husband. But one evening, as she drives home in a rainstorm, she swerves to miss a girl standing in the middle of the road and crashes the car. Next thing you know Halle's on fire, then she's waking up in a psycho-cell... at the hospital she's been working in as a doctor.
Well, we're twelve minutes into the film and already we're scartching our heads wondering what on earth the filmmakers were thinking. I mean, this isn't just a plot-hole, this is a plot-chasm. It's like putting the prison warden into the yard with the lifers, or having the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan open a Wal-Mart in South Central Los Angeles. After years of pumping these patients full of sedatives and telling them they're nuts, now she's going to join them in the communal shower? Gimme a break.
But it gets worse. It seems Halle killed her fat, bald, old husband, which is why she's now incarcerated. While she's sitting wondering what the hell is going on, she's visited by her ghost friend, who seems to enjoy flicking the lights on and off, and leaving cryptic messages for Halle to work out.
Now this is where it gets REALLY stupid. The ghost wants something from Halle, and seems to have the ability to write messages on walls, or even carve them in Halle's arm, yet she doesn't have the ability to make those messages CLEAR. "Not alone"? What the hell does that even mean? I've seen the film through to the end and I'm still not certain what the ghost was trying to say.
And neither is the writer, Sebastian Gutierez, it would seem. Gutierrez earned his chops writing and directing the steamy thriller Judas Kiss, but his work here as a scribe is substandard in every respect. The dialogue is awful, the plotline is all over the place, and the concept is entirely wasted. Director Mathieu Kassovitz, who you might remember as the romantic lead in Amelie or as the director of The Crimson Rivers, has style up the wahzoo but no way of turning that style into substance as the script veers off the road more often than Halle after a hit'n'run.
First the ghost is scary, then the ghost is trying to pass on a message, then the ghost is beating six shades of shit out of Halle, then she's giving messages again, then she's eville incarnate, then she's saving lives. When you do find out who the bad guy is I DEFY YOU to explain how the first scenes with the ghost could have been staged by the killer. I mean, does the murderer bring the ghost back from the dead? Does the ghost work in cahoots with the murderer? Or murderers? And if so, why is she giving hints? AARRGH?!
Come on, people. Writing a screenplay is hard, but spotting one as patently unready for prime time as this is no difficult task. The concept itself - the psych doctor sent to hospital for a murder she doesn't remember committing, as a ghost works to get her in more trouble - is a good one. A vengeful ghost, annoyed at some long ago slight that resulted in death, this I can buy. But I can't buy a word of the rubbish that is Gothika.Lights flashing on and off are not scary. Overweight cops with sexual problems are not scary. Both together? Not scary. Or even mildly entertaining.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8347&reviewer=1
originally posted: 05/06/04 18:24:01
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This film is available for download or online viewing at CinemaNow.com For more in the CinemaNow.com series, click here.
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USA
21-Nov-2003 (R)
DVD: 12-Oct-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
29-Apr-2004
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