Rating: 
Summary: Predictable,But Entertaining
Review: The critically bashed film known as "Gothika" isn't a bad movie,even though the minute Halle Berry says "I know the murder had something to do with the girls ghost" it's pretty obvious what's going on.But...it's happening.People are managing to write good horror films again and this is one of them.Berrys stars as Miranda Grey,a psychiatrist working at a mental institution is driving home when she sees a girl standing in the middle of the road.She investigates but the girl suddenly bursts into flames and Miranda wakes up in the same mental institution she works in and she has supposedly killed her husband.But when the ghosts begins to mess with her,she befriends one of her patients named Chloe (Penelope Cruz) who believes Satan comes into her cell and rapes her.The movie is fastpaced,never boring really,there are surprises and stuff that is supposed to be surprsing,the film also stars Secret Window's Charles S.Dutton as
Miranda's dead husband Doug and Robert Downey Jr. as the doctor treating her.B for the movie.Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Gothika-it was awesome till the end, what happened????
Review: Gothika is a fun thriller with a fast pace. Protagonist Halle Berry stars as a psychiatric doctor working in a modern day mental institution. Things get fun when she encounters what seems to be a demon and passes out, then awakens inside the mental institution as a patient and learns that she is being accussed of killing her husband(which she has no memory of)...Gothika starts a bit slow, but heats up with a heart pounding pace. Halle does a great job of keeping her audience, as she plays a strong female character(that female audiences will embrace), while Male audiences will embrace Berrys curvy body running and bouncing around in tight clothes. Penelope Cruz(although with a annoying accent) pulls off a superb Co-starring performance, but unfortunatly she had less screen time then she deserved. There was many times watching this film when I thought (wow, this is the best film I've seen this year), but the end of the movie ruins everything. For such a strange and unique movie, the cheezy ending is not what you crave. It's the biggest dissapointment in a ending since M. Night Shyamalans Signs. There is nothing worse then a great movie that completely falls apart at the end. acting=4 stars
FX=4
ending=1 star
atmosphere=5 stars
Directing and Editing=3.5 stars
storyline=3.5 stars
meaningfullness=NA
replay value=2 stars OVERALL= 3.29 stars Gothika isn't perfect, but its still very much worth a look. While it's not worth purchasing on DVD, its worth a rent or a movie ticket purchase. Go for fun, not a masterpiece
Rating:
Summary: GREAT FILM
Review: Gothika had so much hype around it that I had to see this movie, and I'am glad I wasn't dissapointed. This film would be a great addition to any collection out there. If you are a fan of good thrillers then you will love this. There are a ton of goog scares on this film, even when you can sense it coming you still have to jump. Like when she bent down and that girl was behind her, or when the girl was in the pool I had to jump. The casting for this film was great, they couldn't have cast it any better. Halle Berry did an excellent job on this film. She did an even better job then I thought she was capable of. Penelope Cruz did an amazing job with her part on this film, in fact the same could be said for Robert Downey Jr., Charles Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, and Benard Hill. The entire cast did amazing work on this film. On the production side Sebastian Gutierrez wrote a wonderfull script. What kind of mind do you have to have to think of this. Also Mathieu Kassovitz did a great job directing this film, along with Mattew Libatique they shot this film amazingly. The camera work on this film is great. Also Limp Bizkit's remake of Behind Blue Eyes is a great addition to this gloomy film. Other then the questions left at the end like How did Halle and Penelope get out, they still did murder people so that dosn't make sense. But the ending with the little boy makes up for it. Over all this is a good film, while at times predictable it's still pretty good. I would say it is worth buying, I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: misunderstood
Review: Just to clarify for those people who have nothing good to say about this movie. You obviously didn't pay attention while watching. The end scene does not take place in the mental institute!! Dr. Grey goes out of town to her husband's "other" house, remember? While she is there the police show up and take her to the police station. She is stuck there all night in lock-up. The only person missing is probably the officer who should be on duty to watch her until morning. I assume the Sheriff tells the other guy to leave when he shows up in the middle of the night to talk to Dr. Grey. In the end there are a lot of plot holes, but I was entertained and that's all that counts. It doesn't hurt to use your own brain once in a while a figure things out for yourself. I don't want everything spelled out for me. This is not oscar worthy, but relax people and just sit back and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Well-Executed Isolation, but Weak, Contrived Story.
Review: Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is a prison psychiatrist trying to make sense of her patients' apparent delusions. Driving home from work one night in the pouring rain, she veers to avoid a pedestrian who is standing the middle of the road. Miranda wakes up three days later to find herself confined to the same psychiatric ward where she used to work. Accused of murdering her husband and terrorized by violent hallucinations, she remembers nothing since her encounter with the pedestrian in the road. I have to give "Gothika" some credit. This supernatural thriller understands that isolation is the key to horror. Miranda Grey suffers the worst form of emotional isolation because she is considered insane. Her behavior is understood to be irrational and dangerous, ipso facto, because she's crazy. -As opposed to her being considered crazy because of her behavior. Halle Berry is pretty convincing. Robert Downey, Jr. is underused as a fellow psychiatrist at the prison. Penelope Cruz is fine as a troubled inmate. But "Gothika" suffers from the most common horror film flaw: People do not behave as people actually would. The psychiatrists are utterly goofy. The plot is full of holes and implausible coincidences. But, director Mathieu Kassovitz has managed has created some real -if spotty- suspense nevertheless. "Gothika" isn't without entertainment value. It's a worthwhile rental if you're looking for something spooky and mindless. The DVD: Bonus features include a music video for "Behind Blue Eyes" by Limp Bizkit and a solid audio commentary by director Mathieu Kassovitz and cinematographer Matthew Libatique. I was pleased to find commentary by the cinematographer, as I've wished for it on so many movies. The result is a lot of discussion of lighting, set design, and filming.
Rating:
Summary: This ghost story puts Halle Berry through the wringer
Review: "Gothika" is one of those movies that is not as bad as you heard that it was although certainly it has some major problems. For one thing the movie tries so relentlessly to be eerie with all the spooky lighting and music that it threatens to be carried along by the style rather than the substance. Then there is the fact that we know that in the "real world" a prison psychiatrist is not going to end up in the same prison where they practiced if the world decides that they are insane. Doing so would mess up the treatment of every patient she had been working with, so we know that Halle Berry's Miranda Grey is there for a reason, which gets us thinking ahead of the plot and trying to figure out whodunnit. Is director Mathieu Kassovitz being so heavy handed that he is obvious or is he skillfully setting up a red herring? Good question. You can answer it for yourself after you see the film. Miranda is a psychiatrist in a dark and dreary prison where we are introduced to her as she is working with patient Chloe Sava (Penelope Cruz). Miranda seems clinical and cool, if not cold. One of the other staff psychiatrists, Pete Graham (Robert Downey Jr.) seems interested in her, but she has recently wed her boss, Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles S. Dutton). That night, after taking a swim in the prison pool, she drives home during a thunderstorm and is forced to take a detour. The figure of a ghostly girl appears in the middle of the road and Miranda crashes her car. Miranda tries to help the girl, who looks like she has been the victim of something horrible, but then the girl bursts into flames. The next thing Miranda knows she wakes up a prisoner in her own institution where she is told by Pete that she has been accused of brutally murdering her husband with an axe. Miranda remembers nothing. Chloe explains to Miranda that once you are declared to be officially insane anything you say will automatically be considered to be the ravings of a lunatic. Miranda is put in the impossible position of convincing her captors that she is sane. However, that is really not much of a problem because she is so distraught and confused that she convinces both herself and the viewers that maybe she is insane, and if that is true, then maybe it is true that she killed her husband. Berry's performance bounces back and forth between screaming hysteria and a guarded detachment in an effort to survive everything that is being thrown at her by not only the authorities trying to convict her of murder but also of her own mind. For those that thought Berry's Oscar for "Monster's Ball" did not prove she was a real actress, "Gothika" proves she is clearly more than a pretty face. There is a paradox in this film, what some may consider a fatal flaw, in that in the final analysis all of the pieces do not fit. Even once you know what is going on it does not really explain everything that is happening. Watch the film a second time and you will see this is clearly the case. However I think this was really more a question of keeping us guessing rather than having problems with story construction. Kassovitz and screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez are developing a sense of mystery and terror that literally extends to the end of the film where the final scene provides another piece of what is really an unfinished puzzle. Listen to Kassovitz's commentary on this DVD and he will repeatedly talk about what they did to make individual scenes scary, without a clear regard for what it meant for the logic of the film. Either you buy into the end result or this movie is going to grossly offend you. There probably is not going to be any middle ground on this one. Final Note: Kassovitz earns points by filming a group shower scene with Berry, Cruz, and over a dozen other women that is totally in keeping with the atmosphere of the film. These women are all naked, but the scene is filmed in such a way that they are not nude (that will make sense when you see it). When that scene started I was mentally rolling my eyes at what I thought was going to be coming up next and Kassovitz simply did not go there. That says something.
Rating: 
Summary: give me a break
Review: what would u think if i told u put halle berry in a horror movie youd say she would suck well u were right in a movie whose title scream hurry mtv gap fans this is another lame scream level horror film to appeal to kurt loder fans halle berry starts reliving life of a psychopath killer toobad she couldnt relive someones life with some acting ability i found this movie about as scary as slicing a watermelon maybe its intense to younger crowds but adults with laugh at the cheesy gore for gore sake being scary has to be actually scary this movie forces it on u with gods of fake blood like i said it woulda been better if the cast all died and it said the end that woulda been the only decent scene avoid this movie its not worth 2 dollars and change
Rating:
Summary: Predictable,But Entertaining
Review: The critically bashed film known as "Gothika" isn't a bad movie,even though the minute Halle Berry says "I know the murder had something to do with the girls ghost" it's pretty obvious what's going on.But...it's happening.People are managing to write good horror films again and this is one of them.Berrys stars as Miranda Grey,a psychiatrist working at a mental institution is driving home when she sees a girl standing in the middle of the road.She investigates but the girl suddenly bursts into flames and Miranda wakes up in the same mental institution she works in and she has supposedly killed her husband.But when the ghosts begins to mess with her,she befriends one of her patients named Chloe (Penelope Cruz) who believes Satan comes into her cell and rapes her.The movie is fastpaced,never boring really,there are surprises and stuff that is supposed to be surprsing,the film also stars Secret Window's Charles S.Dutton as
Miranda's dead husband Doug and Robert Downey Jr. as the doctor treating her.B for the movie.Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: turning the matrix into a cliche` vanity filled horror
Review: dark castles has had a bad past for putting out horror movies with over made computer graphic creatures, shakey plots, and good-looking woman with cues to scream, and show skin, disbelieving in the actuall acting talents they're suppose to give. Instead they go to the cgi graphics. dressing the movie up. In the opening credits I saw joel silver...mixing the producer of the matrix movies, and dark castles which helped put out movies like house an haunted hill, the haunted, and 13 ghosts -- it's the oil and water mix at it's worst. The elements are very watered down and over done!! if you like computer generated horror movies that make up more than 40% of the movie you might like it, but if you're a classic horror lover you might not like it.
Rating:
Summary: Halle in a screamer
Review: This movie is wonderful. I like it because it's really dark and quiet. The movie is a little predictable, but what movie isn't these days? My question was why does rob downey's character gotta be so darn sarcastic? It brings the movie down in my opinion. I understand they can't just believe her from the beginning, but did she really look like she could do that with the axe? come on. Anyway, I really liked the movie and I hope everyone gives it a chance. Halle's the best in the game right now so give her some love.
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