The Shaft

Rating:
Summary: CAMPY WARNER
Review: Remember, folks, this movie was made before the awful disaster on 9/11. Wisely, the movie got held until later. So, if you consider that, the terrorist implication and the jokes about Bin Laden perhaps formed a sort of foreshadowing or warning. At any rate, I found "The Shaft" rather enjoyable. It has several really disturbing scenes: the death of the skateboarder was incredibly paced and filmed; the floor dropping out was mindboggling; and even the decapitated security guard's death was nerve-wracking. Add some really "humorous" asides: the foul mouthed day care teacher was way out of left field. The performances were adequate. Take Naomi Watts off of her post-Shaft pedestal (Mulholland Drive/The Ring) and you get a young actress doing the best with what she had. James Marshall who also worked with Lynch on Twin Peaks is effective, not great. Eric Thal did a nice job as his friend Jeffrey; Michael Ironside, Ron Pearlman and Dan Hedaya were effective in their almost cameo roles. Even Edward Hermann looking more and more like a younger Rudy Vallee captured the right amount of commercialism in his role. Maybe they did use the f word a little too much, but have you noticed that if the f word gets used a lot in a critically acclaimed movie (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, etc.) no one gripes about that.
Take THE SHAFT for what it is--an above average thriller that delivers.

Rating:
Summary: CAMPY WARNER
Review: Remember, folks, this movie was made before the awful disaster on 9/11. Wisely, the movie got held until later. So, if you consider that, the terrorist implication and the jokes about Bin Laden perhaps formed a sort of foreshadowing or warning. At any rate, I found "The Shaft" rather enjoyable. It has several really disturbing scenes: the death of the skateboarder was incredibly paced and filmed; the floor dropping out was mindboggling; and even the decapitated security guard's death was nerve-wracking. Add some really "humorous" asides: the foul mouthed day care teacher was way out of left field. The performances were adequate. Take Naomi Watts off of her post-Shaft pedestal (Mulholland Drive/The Ring) and you get a young actress doing the best with what she had. James Marshall who also worked with Lynch on Twin Peaks is effective, not great. Eric Thal did a nice job as his friend Jeffrey; Michael Ironside, Ron Pearlman and Dan Hedaya were effective in their almost cameo roles. Even Edward Hermann looking more and more like a younger Rudy Vallee captured the right amount of commercialism in his role. Maybe they did use the f word a little too much, but have you noticed that if the f word gets used a lot in a critically acclaimed movie (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, etc.) no one gripes about that.
Take THE SHAFT for what it is--an above average thriller that delivers.

Rating:
Summary: I Always Knew Elevators Were Evil!
Review: The first thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that the acting is not good at all. Not even Naomi Watts (whom I enjoyed in 'The Ring') could deliver a line like she really meant it. You don't realize how annoying bad acting is until you see an entire movie full of it.

The second thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that every other word spoken by anyone is the F word. At first, it was cute. After the 600th time I heard it, I decided to give up swearing for good. The only other thing more annoying than bad acting? Over-use of the F word.

The third thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that the elevators are evil! I've heard of people being evil. I've even heard of buildings being evil. But...an elevator? Actually, it may be more than just one elevator, but something freaky is happening in the Millennium Building in New York, and people are dying. Naomi plays a reporter who thinks there's a lot more to these deaths than just a malfunction. So, she teams up with an elevator repairman to get to the the bottom of it. Is it terrorists? Is the building built over an Indial burial ground? (yes, believe it or not, that was mentioned as a possibility.) Or is the elevator just a quick way to travel to hell? A couple of the scenes in the elevators reminded me of the elevator scene in 'Speed', and I wished I was watching that instead. I will admit that a couple of the evil elevator scenes were kinda cool, but the ending was just downright silly (and not well-explained).

The fourth thing you will notice about 'The Shaft' is that it could have had potential - not to be a box office horror hit, but to at least be a decent straight-to-video release. Of course, they would have had to recast the entire cast, rewrite the script and explain themselves a little better in the end. If the movie had been done correctly, it should have made me scared to death to ever set foot in an elevator again (I've never liked elevators at all), but I'll still take my chances if it's 4 or more floors I have to travel up.

Do not waste your time on this. If you want to see Naomi in a better-acted, better-scripted movie, get 'The Ring'. If you want to watch a movie about an evil building, try 'The Shining'. But if you want my advice, I'd suggest taking the stairs.

Rating:
Summary: Good time killer
Review: The only reason I really rented this was because of Naomi Watts, after loving her performances in the Ring and Mulholland Drive, I decided to check it out, it seemed good enough. Boy was I wrong, Shaft pulls one of those have Naomi's pictures in the title letters thing. That had to be taken from the Ring cover. Anyway, Naomi's role is basically a supportive one and her character is almost identical to hers in the Ring. Naomi did her best she could with the [crummy] dialogue but it is so obvious that she didn't even want to be on the set. The male lead is just horrible, I had to laugh. There were some cool death scenes, my favorite being the skater boy. Poor guy. Anyway, like the title says it's a good time killer and like the other reviewer said, there are some good death scenes but other than that, trash it.

Rating:
Summary: A UNIQUE HORROR MOVIE!!!!!!
Review: THE SHAFT IS AN EXCITING HORROR MOVIE EXPERIENCE!! IT HAS A STRANGE STORY ABOUT A BUILDING IN WHICH THE EXPRESS ELEVATORS DEVELOP A MIND OF THEIR OWN.
ALL OF THIS IS EXPLAINED OVER THE COURSE OF THE FILM.
I'M SURE IT SOUNDS A BIT STRANGE, BUT IT'S WORTH A SHOT IF YOU ENJOY STRANGE HORROR FILMS.
JUST KEEP AN OPEN MIND AS YOU WATCH AND MARVEL IN THE EXCITEMENT OF THE SHAFT!!!!
HONESTLY, IT'S BETTER THAN MOST THEATRICAL RELEASE HORROR FILMS.
SPECIAL EFFECTS WERE PUT INTO PLACE, BUT YET NOT OVERDONE!!
IT IS DEFINETELY A UNIQUE HORROR MOVIE EXPERIENCE AND IT IS GUARANTEED TO CATCH YOU OFF GUARD AT LEAST A FEW TIMES. ENJOY!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Hmmmm...
Review: This movie does for elevators what The Legend of Boggy Creek 2 did for Mad Dog attacks. It's all about elevators with human brains that force women into premature labor, teach skaters not to smoke pot, pose as terrorists and kill men, women, children, the blind and their seeing eye dogs. James Marshall stars as an ex-marine elevator repairman that plays air guitar. He's really come a long way since his Twin Peaks days-this is the male equivalent of being spit out of the bottom of the porn industry. Naomi Watts' portrayal of the smut journalist rivals that of James Earl Jones in The Ambulance. I must warn you that she is much, much less naked than she is in Mulholand Dr. It boggles the mind that she made Lynch's Oscar nominated tribute to ambiguity, The Ring and The Shaft all in the same year. The rest of the cast is a duck gallery of B-movie actors: Ron Perlman (the brilliantly played retarded/perverted monk Salvatore in The Name of the Rose as well as Konstantine Konali in Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow), Dan Hedaya (Karla's ex-husband on Cheers, Richard Nixon in Dick and Alicia Silverstone's father in Clueless), Edward Herrmann (the head, middle-age single mother chasing vampire in The Lost Boys), Michael Ironside (from Starship Troopers, and Seaquest fame) and many more that I'm tired of looking up. Martin McDougall and John Cariani star as a pair of porn-obsessed night watchman that are salute to the bumbling law enforcers in Plan 9 from Outer Space. Well...maybe they are. The movie works on many levels, e.g., most of the people who rent or buy this movie end up feeling like they got The Shaft. I really can't figure out if it's good or bad. It's either very, very clever or one of the worst I've ever seen. Nonetheless, I'm buying the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Silly horror movie and a horrible DVD release
Review: Um... can I have the last 109 minutes of my life back please?

I think what writer/director Dick Maas tried to do was make a horror comedy of sorts (goofy stuff abounds), but "The Shaft" falls flat in both respects. The ending is a little suspenseful, but the silliness still gets in the way. The comedic elements are just plain stupid. Overall, we're treated to relatively bad acting, an overly long running time and a lack of the horror element.

Little of the dialogue in "The Shaft" rings true. At least 20 minutes could have been left on the cutting room floor. (What works on paper does not always work on screen.) Although Maas did try to flesh out the characters, little of it is successful, including Naomi Watts and her portrayal of a tabloid reporter. Watts operates purely on automatic pilot and displays relatively no acting ability whatsoever.

I almost hate to say it, but there are some decent moments. There's some gratuitous nudity right from the start: two building security guards spying on a couple of nude hookers and a guy. A decapitation scene is pretty well done. A scene where the elevator floor drops out to send more than a few passengers plunging to their deaths is impressive (although reminiscent of "Speed"). The New York exteriors are done well and contribute to the feeling that you're watching something other than dreck. However, the bottom line is that this is indeed dreck.

One other note: There are several shots of the World Trade Center in the movie. In addition, the police blame the killings on terrorists. A cop makes mention that terrorists almost took out the WTC "ten years ago." Another cop says something to the effect of, "If you see [Osama] Bin Laden, say hi." I don't object to images of the WTC in existing movies (and would have liked to have had the Spider-Man WTC trailer on the DVD), but the whole thing made me kind of uncomfortable. (The film is copyright 2001; the trailer on the DVD actually has a copyright of 2000.)

As for the DVD itself, Artisan has released "The Shaft" in pan 'n' scan with a trailer as the only special feature. The original aspect ratio (OAR) is 2.35:1 (available on the German region 2 DVD release--called "Down") and the full frame transfer on the Artisan DVD severely crops the picture. It's difficult to even call this a pan 'n' scan release, however, because there is an annoying lack of panning--with fairly important characters and objects missing from the frame entirely. It is inexcusable that Artisan has released this shoddy pan 'n' scan transfer. However, money is everything. Note the similarity of the artwork on "The Shaft" to that of "The Ring"; the Artisan DVD release of "The Shaft" is clearly capitalizing on Naomi Watts and her notable performance in "The Ring."

Rating:
Summary: Elevators Gone Wild
Review: What's so damn stupid about this movie is that its so corny, but the presence of Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr., Le Divorce) doesnt even matter. The effects and situations are so stupid. A frickin elevator with it's own mind!!! come on people, what next, shopping carts that take you hostage and make you do things you dont want to particapate in, please, come on. Come on, we've seen peoples heads get chopped off but not if it turns into a special effect right away and the evelator shooting up with those people is so cheesy. The climatic end sucks, the beginning sucks and no one knows how to act except of course Watts and Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Blade II), cuz he rules. Also stars James Marshall, Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers, Major Payne), Eric Thal (the Puppet Masters), Edward Herrmann (The Lost Boys) and Dan Hedaya (the Usual Suspects). All in all ladies and gentlemen, this is bottom of the barrell right here.