Rating: 
Summary: Offbeat and quirky
Review: It is a wacky, offbeat movie; think "Sunset Boulevard" if it were written/directed by Hunter Thompson. Nicolas Cage gives his best performance since "Raising Arizona." The film jumps around in time and place, careening from Los Angeles to Florida to New York, as screenwriter Charles Kaufman attempts to complete a screenplay based on the book "The Orchard Thief" by Susan Orleans. Kaufman can't get a handle on the story. His life and mind are chaotic. Things get worse for him when his twin brother Donald announces that he too wants to be a screenwriter. Merriment ensues. I highly recommend this film. Anyone who does see it should stay for the "Easter egg" at the end of the credits.
Rating:
Summary: Unique and imaginative
Review: Ultimately, to see this movie takes a little faith. While impossible to describe in words, I'll try to compare it as best I can. This movie reminded me of such movies as Fight Club or Memento in that 1) it is impossible to describe in fewer than 3 pages while retaining the meaning of it, 2)you are unsure about the real purpose of the movie until an hour after you've finished it, and 3)you either love it or hate it. This said, I encourage anyone who likes a truly original movie to see this movie. I like unique and original movies and will suffer through moments of bad acting and direction for the sake of the overall movie. However, Adaptation has superb acting and directing...it has it all if you're willing to go out on a limb and if you're willing to try not to expect more than it is. I did think that the movie seemed to go off on a tangent into a radical style towards the end. I wondered if this was possibly the section of the screenplay written by Donald (who from the movie is depicted as very prone to write the action-oriented conclusion of Adaptation vs. Charlie who is prone to write the slow paced, insightful beginning of the movie). While I felt the the fast paced section of the movie destroyed the mood and anything we thought we knew about a few of the charcters, in the end it wasn't enough cause for me to give up on this movie. The movie does go where no movie I have seen before does and when I pay my $$$, that's what I'm looking for.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the funniest, smartest films in years.
Review: I went into this film with great trepidation... I'm no fan of Nicholas Cage (who I think is vastly-overrated, overly-mannered and tremendously hammy), and I thought "Being John Malkovitch" was gimmicky and facile... But, boy! was I surprised by what screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jones came up with this time! The film's title refers less to biological evolution than intellectual, and specifically to the unique problems of writing a film script (or any work of art) based on a someone else's story. How do you tell these stories? And more importantly, how do you *sell* these stories, particularly when you want to tell them intelligently, and yet make your frat boy agent and the rest of the Hollywood studio system happy with your work. When this film opens, we see screenwriter Kaufman being ignored and shooed off the set of his last film -- he's so schlumpy and rumpled that no one on the crew gives him a second thought. This time around, he places himself squarely in the action, as a brilliant but self-loathing artist, whose lofty principles and self-doubt conspire to produce a massive case of writer's block. A fascinating project lands in his lap -- adapting an offbeat "New Yorker" article about renegade orchid farmers into a feature film script -- but he flounders as the project becomes a metaphor for his own yearnings for truth and beauty. The script proceeds on several parallel tracks: Kaufman writing about the magazine journalist (played with good-natured abandon by Meryll Streep) who is in turn writing about an eccentric flower collector (played by Chris Cooper, one of the most underrated character actors in American cinema)... The story-within-a-story premise implodes and veers off the road as Kaufman proves to be an ingeniously unreliable narrator. He pokes fun at Hollywood, the beast whose belly he inhabits, but in a gentle and affectionate way, rather than the heavy-handed hand biting of films like "The Player" and "Time Code"... another welcome (and unexpected) change of pace. The humor is fairly highbrow, but this is a movie that, once it finds its audience, is sure to keep 'em rolling with laughter. It's the feelgood egghead comedy of the year, entirely original and madly creative... and highly, highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Fact, Fiction, Imagination
Review: Fact, Fiction, Imagination-3/4 stars
About thirty minutes into this film I was wondering it I was seeing the biggest bomb about writer's block since Barton Fink. Then it hit me. Everything in the movie was symbolic for something else. I just wasn't getting it. What this movie does is work on two scales: 1)What you see is what you get (the no brainer) and 2)The intellectual story where you schizophrenically get so into everything about this movie until it twists your brain.
If you choose to look at the second way to view this, which I recommend you need to remember that nothing in this movie is real. Well Charlie Kaufman the screenwriter (Being John Malkovic) is real. His job is to write the screenplay for the book, The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. It is something that he can't seem to get a finger on, and he attempts many different approaches. He battles to keep the screenplay true to the book but instead he can't succeed, without the help of his evil twin brother (also played by Cage). The counter twin also shows lots of symbolism. As a last resort, he sticks himself in the middle of the screenplay which still doesn't solve the problem until his daffy brother writes his own screenplay after attending a screenwriting workshop run by Robert McKee. McKee actually runs this in real life and Kaufman has stated a very negative view of it. It isn't until the movie Kaufman attends a McKee workshop that he uses all the recommended wrap up endings (car chase, shootings etc.) The movie sums up kind humorously, probabally to the chagrin of Orlean herself (notably quoted as displeased with the project) as she is portrayed in a way which helps Kaufman end his project---fast, easy, sex, drugs, car chases, violence. Somehow it works. Now if you think this is confusing, go see the movie, if you want to think. If you don't want to think, see the movie and view it on the surface only, which is still entertaining. Additional Warning-If you've been involved in a traffic accident there are two depicted in this film in a very realistic way.
Rating:
Summary: Slick and satisfying. Stuck with me.
Review: After watching Adaptation, the next movie I watched was Star Trek: Nemesis. Adaptation had _messed_me_up_! I watched STN from the point of view of the screen play! (and it sucked, by the way, a real bummer). Adaptation cleverly wraps you up and leaves you hanging out there thinking about what really happened. A hint for those of you who are considering watching this, keep asking yourself: Who is writing the screen play now? I loved the realizations that I went through as I started to "get it". The acting is really superb, the characterizations are interesting, the snippets of "The Orchid Thief" are great. The real story is the writing of the story, and the jabs that are directed at us, the movie watcher. Wonderful stuff.
Rating:
Summary: An imaginative, wacky and original movie.
Review: Spike Jonze's new movie, "Adaptation," is a funny and entertaining look at insecure screenwriters, Hollywood hokum, and the lengths to which people will go to get what they want. Nicholas Cage is terrific in a dual role. He is Charlie Kaufman, a real-life screenwriter who has been commissioned to write the movie script for Susan Orlean's acclaimed novel, "The Orchid Thief." Unfortunately, Charlie has a monumental case of writer's block. He is also an insecure, nerdy guy who has trouble connecting with women and who is ashamed of his unkempt appearance. He is chubby and he wears a flannel shirt with the tails hanging out throughout much of the film. Cage also plays Charlie's twin brother, Donald, who is confidently writing a screenplay of his own. Donald's screenplay is formulaic and derivative, but he manages to sell it for a bundle. In addition, Donald has no trouble getting a beautiful woman to be his girlfriend. The conceit of "Adaptation" is that Charlie proceeds to write a screenplay about his inability to write a screenplay. There are hilarious vignettes with the wonderful Meryl Streep, who plays the writer, Susan Orlean, as a repressed journalist who is depressed because of a lack of passion in her life. Chris Cooper almost steals the movie as the eponymous orchid thief, a toothless, lowdown individual who somehow connects with Orlean. Jonze and Kaufman are making several statements here. They are saying that Hollywood is a place where desperate people will do anything to succeed, include writing formulaic potboilers. The way to survive is to adapt, to become whatever the public wants at the moment. You need to "get with the program" in order to succeed in Hollywood and in life. "Adaptation" is also a movie about passion, about loving what you do, loving someone else, and loving life itself. You need to take risks, even if you wind up falling on your face, or else your life is meaningless. "Adaptation" is confusing, exhilarating, beautifully acted, and one of the most intriguing films that I have seen in a long time. See it, and you will understand what all the fuss is about.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Adaptation, simply put, is probably the greatest movie to come out this year. It is that one movie that as astonishing as it may be during a first viewing, it is all the more astonishing afterwords, as it sticks with you and doesn't let go. To give away too much of the plot is to give away the substance of the movie itself, since, as you will soon discover, it is the idea behind the movie that drives it. But that is not all that this movie has. Terrific acting, especially on the part of Nicolas Cage as both Charlie and Donald Kaufman. An amazing script by the main character, about the main character himself writing a script about himself. A great score and some very memorable scenes including the screenwriting seminar given by Robert McKee (Brian Cox).
The movie attempts, as its protaganist comes, to be overly original and avoid the Hollywood formula that movies usually follow. Unfortunetely, despite its best attempts, it gives in at the end, tying together all the small plot details that seemed at first to be insignificant and teaching us a lesson at the same time. Still, in its attempts to be overly original, it succeeds in being just that. It is truly one of the most original movies I have ever seen, running as a continuous stream of thought in Charlie Kaufman's head, making you frustrated when he is and proud when he feels that way. It is a movie that doesn't only tell you how things are happening, but also why. It is hard to explain why this movie works, but ultimately, it is close to flawlessness, mocking itself, its creators, and Hollywood all at once.
It has been said too many times in too many ways, but this is a movie that stands by itself and can only be judged by you. To me, Charlie Kaufman is a genius, and the movie worthy of every Oscar it will recieve a nomination for. It is worthy of recognition that it will probably not recieve for a while. But in the end, it is a movie that will not be forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to love, but you'll be in awe
Review: Adaptation is one of those movies that produces deeply ambivalent feelings while you watch it. The movie is both about Kauffman's tortured attempt to adapt a work of sprawling non-fiction (Orlean's The Orchid Thief) to the screen and simultaneously IS the film adaptation. Now, it's hard to say much about how Kauffman finally figures out how to adapt the book without spoiling the movie, but suffice it to say that things take a VERY unexpected turn that is, well, less than satisfying. But was Kauffman the character's movie less than satisfying or Kauffman the real-life screenwriter's movie less than satisfying? It's really difficult to say because by the end of the film, the story of Kauffman has totally merged with the story of The Orchid Thief. One might dislike the ending, but on anther level, the quality of the ending is itself part of the meta-story of the adaptation. The multiple levels that Adaptation operates on makes it impossible to develop much of an emotional connection with anything that goes on in the movie--you just feel way too manipulated. Not even Kauffman's character himself manages to hold your empathy after the bizzare final third of the movie (thanks the plot manipulations of the real Kauffman) But the brillance of the movie is that you can be in total awe of it and be frustrated with it simultaneously and not feel conflicted about it. I should also mention that the acting is excellent and much of the film is hilarious. See this film!
Rating:
Summary: Staggering Genius+Fatal Flaw = Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation
Review: In Adaptation, screenwriter and main character Charlie Kaufman concocts a complex web of glimpses into the mind of a neurotic, the artistic creative process, the slow, gradual building of Susan Orlean's book The Orchid Thief, human longing and desire, sibling rivalry, and the business of Hollywood. Kaufman allows us to see his characters' private thoughts, secret shames, bad art, and the result is a heady, voyeuristic experience. The varied themes are deftly and organically interconnected so that the resulting structure of the movie evokes the theme at its heart-natural change aka adapation. The movie skips lightly around months and years, unfolding in a giddy, haphazard order, and is richly embellished with striking real-life references, imaginings, dreams, and fantasies. Jonze guides the script in a humane and tender direction with plenty of visual panache. Cage (in his best performance in years), Streep, and Cooper are brilliant in imbuing these characters with complexity, depth, and a poignant rawness. Like Jonze/Kaufman's previous collaboration, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation is full of invention, novelty, and a true freshness. Adaptation is a better work of art, however, containing moments of deep insight and honest emotion that its predecessor lacked. Unfortunately, the last quarter of Adaptation degenerates into a farcical, unreal fantasy of human ugliness and cynicism. The ending cruelly devalues the characters we have grown to care about, and brutally disavows the profound insights so lovingly cultivated in the first three quarters. I came away feeling infuriated by the cruel, senseless ending, and asking "why? why would a brilliant artist maim his own work?" Yet I was still awed by and grateful for this heartbreaking, staggering work of genius (to paraphrase the title of Dave Eggers' similarly self-referential, wonderful, and flawed work), and hopeful that next time around Kaufman will deliver on his promise. This is a must-see.
Rating:
Summary: Better than "Jackass the Sequel" might have ever been!
Review: I truly enjoyed settling comfortably into my stadium theatre seat, cell phone and contraband Raisinets at the ready, whilst sipping generously from a large plastic cup of Father-In-Law's award-winning Napa Valley wine. In Adaptation, wunderkind-turned-enfant-terrible director Star Jonez continues to make good on a whiny, relentless, and vague adolescent promise (which he privately articulated to me some time ago) to saturate every possible medium with his predictable but "innovative" message that universal psychodrama is somehow inescapable. Toward that end, Adaptation represents only a modest and self-congratulatory success. Here, Nicolas Cage, nee Coppola, reprises his role, perfected in Dead Ringers, as a bifurcated snobbish Graceland divorcee who specializes in botched abortions, only his new birthing method occurs only on parchment paper with burnt edges, and even then, only hypothetically. (As a well- disguised executive producer of Shakespeare in Love once said, "it's a mystery"!) Bravo and thank you for this self-obsessed movie, even though it only occasionally reminded me of yours truly.
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