Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!
Review: This movie is absolutley stunning. What some people considered "shock value", is is really boundry busting film making. This movie ignores nearly every mainstream taboo, and despite of, or maybe because of this, it is a truly orginal film. If you like your movies with a demented (in a good way) edge, you will love this. Also if you liked Trainspotting this is a movie for you
Rating: 
Summary: My mixed feelings
Review: This movie was based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. I read the book before seeing this movie and liek the book the movie was very disturbing. The topics in this movie are as fallows: suicide, drug use, homosexuality, rape,and above all bad intentions. There is no entry character to be found in a film like this one. I had some trouble as I found not feelings for any of the chracters. This movie is about bad people who do bad things to each other. I tried to convince myself that I was watching a modernized version of "Catcher In The Rye." The most disturbing thing about this movie is the age group taht it has been marketed at. This movie is definetly not for the kids out there that are hoping to see "American Pie." So please check your head at the rental store.
Rating: 
Summary: Execrable--the worst movie of the year.
Review: Words cannot express the revulsion I feel toward this movie. The acting is tolerable, but there is something very forlorn and misbegotten about the entire affair. Why, for example, must we witness the suicide scene? What's the point in showing a college student who draws a bath, gets in the tub, lights some candles and slits her wrists? (We later see the dead body in the blood-filled bathtub). This is a sad, sad scene, very painful and agonizing to watch, and contributes nothing to the story, except the moribund nature of the film.The suicide is just one example of scene after pointless, depressing scene. It feels like the filmmakers were going after shock value. ("Let's take a character we know nothing about and watch her kill herself.") Also disgusting is the lack of humanity all the characters show. They are all nihilist, masochist people, who seem to find no joy in living. Even hedonism is more fun than this. It's not just the character's disturbing attitudes; I can take a film that has self-hate. Witness the excruciatingly painful montage where a guy goes off to Europe and has joyless, senseless sex with every woman he meets. These characters seem to transcend any logical reason for existing. I question the very reason why this film was made. I understand it was based upon a book by Bret Easton Ellis, who also wrote "American Psycho," and maybe the book is this pointless and miserable. The photography and editing are compelling and done with skill, but they ultimately add up to nothing. The characters are uninteresting. The situations are unremarkable. Not even the backwards story (told from the end to the beginning) does anything for the film, and it feels like the director only did it to be hip. It almost worked in "Memento," but it's entirely out of place here. Yes, I did sit through the entire thing, just to see if it would ever (finally) get better. Alas, it never did.
Rating:
Summary: May be one of the most underrated films of the year
Review: This film is suprisingly good. To this day, I still think about the movie and how it captured the reality of today's college kids. From the shallow, lifeless (my favorite line is Lauren's
"nobody ever really knows anybody" behavior to the way we all spend more time talking about who we've hooked up with this weekend. Biel and Van der Beek are unbelievable in the characters they are most likely to never play. If you didn't see this movie, you should have.
Rating:
Summary: Most people didn't 'get' it.
Review: ...I absolutely loved this movie. It's debaucherous, hedonistic, and maybe even masochistic (wow, that's a lot of ..words there...) A few various opinions:
I laughed out loud a lot during this movie (Paul and Dick were especially great).
I thought Van Der Beek was perfect for the role and played it well.
Roger Avery did a great job with the camera. His unusual style brought an unusual book to life in a very vivid fashion. In closing, I told my parents NOT to see this film. It would offend the hell out of my mom, and I figure that most people will be offended by its honest view of college, sex, drugs, and the massive amounts of stupidity involved with those things. But that's ok, I didn't want this movie to be something I could recommend to my Mom. When people ask me what I thought of the movie I tell them I loved it,...
Rating:
Summary: Rather entertaining
Review: Look, it's a social satire. If one hasn't lived the life or simply lived around it then one just won't get it beyond the superficial. La de da la de da da.Therefore if one enjoys good acting coupled with a certain edge then this is the film. Though remember, this isn't exactly cookie cutter material even with the editing. It's a cool story coupled with a cool movie. Far better than the movie American Psycho where the director simply didn't get it...and it showed.
Rating:
Summary: Great Satire
Review: I saw The Rules of Attraction at the theater a few weeks ago and found it out quite good. Though the film has been getting mixed reviews (so did American Psycho) but it will always be remembered and well-liked just as much as Psycho. I never actually read the novel by Bret Easton Ellis (a great author) but I should since I've been hearing the book is more detailed (aren't most?). It's a satire about a sexual triangle involving a hedonistic drug dealer Sean Bateman (Van der Beek, surprisingly good performance) who is the younger brother of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, who has a crush on a bored girl named Lauren, who has her eyes on a guy who's on a trip in Europe so she's waiting for him. Lauren's ex-boyfriend Paul is a bisexual who's lusting after Sean. The film can be disturbing for people w/ it's suicide theme and seeing all these college students pissing their lives away by constantly snorting coke and having emotionless sex w/ one another. Also another reason why someone would hate this movie is because all the characters are hedonistic and shallow so if you hate movies w/ nasty characters.. pass on it. But it's very typical Ellis characters. And no, Rules of Attraction definitely not a teen movie. It's not appropriate for most teens due to it's drug-fuelled, sexual, suicidal and violent subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: Holy Terrible Trailer, Batman
Review: After being force-fed the trailer for this movie- i had little to no interest in paying ...to see it. i simply couldn't shake the images of teen idols giving movie-of-the-week performances in a hodge-podge of Cruel Intentions, Varsity Blues and American Pie. That darned Puddle of Mud song "She Hates Me" playing in the background while Jessica Biel jumps around like an idiot seemed to sum up what i thought the movie was going to be. it was none of these things. The film was arty, well-acted, and utterly disturbing. If you are into these things (movies like Fight Club, Trainspotting, etc.)- this film really is refreshing. The subject matter verges on the trite: college students gone wild, but the visuals and surprising talents of the cast save the film from depths of the late night commercial. Get over your first impression of the movie, get ready to laugh, get ready to be grossed out, and get ready to disturbed. Then, be ready to be strangely fulfilled.
Rating: 
Summary: Upsetting in that it doesn¿t live up to its great potential
Review: The Rules of Attraction wants to be a better movie. It really does. I know I want it to be a better movie. And that just frustrates me, because it has so much potential, so many good ideas, but just doesn't fully realize them. The story, a satirical look at the lives of college students as many really are, uses actors normally portraying the more idealistic or silly versions of students in unrealistic films. The concept is great, just not flushed out enough. My likes and dislikes begin right away as the three primary characters are introduced at a big party, showing a character in a scene, then the film going in reverse to see another at the exact same moment. It's a great visual way to show the simultaneous nature of their situations, but it's overused. After you get the idea, the film is still going backwards, and it becomes boring. Fortunately, many other gimmicky devices are handled better, and do have a point. But my biggest problem is that the story is centered on three characters and their relationships together, yet they're rarely together in the film. They are always off with other people doing other things. While it gives them great character development and offers some great scenes, the three primary characters never really seem connected until the very end. This affects the impact the film should have delivered. What's good about it though are the performances the actors give. James Van Der Beek is great in his sinister, almost frightening role of Sean Bateman. Shannyn Sossamon is equally as impressive as a pretty, nice, grunge-wearing student. Perhaps, though, Ian Somerhalder as a gay student in love with Bateman gives the most touching performance. You feel more sorry for him in his impossible wishes then anyone else. Also, there are some great visual devices used to display symbolism. Several times in the film, a shot with intense meaning will make you want to love the film. And that's why I find it so upsetting that it didn't live up to its potential. There is just so much to love here. If the film had built a better cohesiveness among its primary characters, it would be great. As is, however, it's only mediocre. And a mediocre film with great potential is such a waste when so many films aren't even promising.
Rating:
Summary: Strangers in the Night
Review: The Rules of Attraction plays out like some over-indulgent exercise in film style. But somewhere along the way I loved it. Maybe its the dead-on observations, the voiceovers that are just long enough to not become intrusive and pretentious. Maybe it is the flagrantly brilliant character introductions. Maybe its the way the scenes take complete left-turns from their supposed pre-ordained destinations. Maybe its how a simple act of ripping a note can become a singularly despicable and depressing thing. Maybe its because when you're watching it, you're thinking "I shouldn't like this" but you do anyway. All of these things and more are here for your viewing. Its a wonderful film, as wonderful as a movie about sex-crazed deviant drug-addicted college students can be. It's poignant in very very odd ways. Where else can you watch a movie where you enter a mans thoughts as he is having sex, and he says "I can't remember the last time I had sex sober" That quote was magnificent, brilliance, that line alone sums up the entire character. Stuff like this is why I go to the movies. One can make the accusation that this movie is over-directed, you'll get no argument from me. The visual tricks utilized are occasionally just boring. But when the trickery hits brilliance, aka Victors introduction. Then you just have to take the winners with the losers. Watch this movie without any pre-conceived notion of what it will be, and you'll be surprised, its not really a comedy, its funny but not laugh out loud. It's more sad funny. But it hits you hard, especially after walking out and realizing what you have just watched, not much does that these days, and I'm not exaggerating.
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