Rating: 
Summary: Enough Already!
Review: While I am disgusted with the critical reception this film was greeted with (as I usually agree with film critics), I can certainly understand why so many people were dismissive about "Bless the Child." However, the fault cannot be placed on the film. This is for one very simple reason: "Bless the Child", despite its R-rating (for violence and language), is, at heart, a Christian film. And unless one is a Christian, one can rarely enjoy a Christian film. "Bless the Child", starring Kim Basinger as a nurse attempting to wrest her kidnapped (and unusually Christ-like) young niece away from a demonic cult masquerading as a self-empowerment group, moved me to tears. It is a one-of-a-kind portrait of the very real spiritual warfare going on all over the world, in our country especially. It joins such films as "The End of the Affair", "Stigmata", "Dogma" and "Dead Man Walking" as a contemporary Christian allegory/critique which must dress up its true message with enough audience-grabbers like violence, obscenity and sex/nudity to avoid being labeled as "Christian." Were this to happen, the film would not receive big-studio backing and would be restricted to the well-intentioned but wholly mediocre ranks of "The Omega Code" and "Left Behind." It definitely wouldn't have gotten such upper-B list stars as Basinger, Jimmy Smits (as the cop on the case), Christina Ricci (in an unexpectedly small but crucial role as an escapee from the clutches of the cult), and up-and-comers Rufus Sewell (of "Dark City" fame, as the leader of the cult) and Angela Bettis (from "Girl, Interrupted", as Basinger's constantly troubled sister and the mother of the kidnapped girl). I will concede that even as a Christian film, "Bless the Child" is occasionally over-baked and, when viewed out of its Christian subtext, is basically your typical formulaic pseudo-spiritual Hollywood poop. However, if you are reading this and you are a Christian, I can practically guarantee your enjoyment and appreciation of this truly inspiring film which just happened to be a victim of bad marketing.
Rating: 
Summary: UNEVENTFUL TRASH
Review: I only saw this film because my girlfriend wanted to and I did try hard to enjoy it but it sucked big time. There are so many plot holes and hard to swallow plot elements. For example are we really supposed to believe that Kim Basinger is the sister of someone who is about 24 years younger than her? What on earth was that evil nanny supposed to be? What was the point in taking Cody to the dentist? And why did this film build up to such an unsatisfying climax? For a film that tried to draw its power from supernatural hokum the ending was spectacularly ordinary. The acting was exceptionally poor throughout and I am very surprised that Chuck Russell churned out such a piece of manufactured garbage. If you take equal parts of Rosemary's Baby, Devil's Advocate, End of Days and that awful Winona Ryder film Lost Souls, mix it up with a large dose of badly recorded ADR (99% of the film's dialogue) and you have this film. It might have been better if Christina Ricci had been in it more. I swear, she must have been in it for about 5 minutes absolute max. I also must mention the absurdly fake SFX that polluted the whole film. What were those flying demons supposed to be anyway? I give this film a big 1/10 The DVD is in Dolby 5.1 and is anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Worst Movies of the Year
Review: As far as wastes of time and money go, Bless the Child is one of the most successful. I can't think of another movie that contains as many cliches or poorly constructed symbolism. To see Kim Basinger "acting" in a movie that can almost be called a parody of itself is unfortunate. Actually, to see the movie at all is unfortunate. See anything else. ANYTHING.
Rating:
Summary: Give us back the Oscar, Ms. Basinger
Review: How does an Oscar winning actress come to find a home in 2 of the absolute most moronic films of the year. After i saw this film, i only thought that "I Dreamed Of Africa" was a good film. that is how bad this movie is. it makes bad films look more appealing. This film has the makings of what could have been a better fillm, the first thing being the actors. Here we see Basinger, Christina Ricci, and the great Rufus Sewell (Dark City). Do any of these actors give a performance that i remembered when i walked out of the theater? No, not at all. When walking out the only thing we could think of was ways that film would have been better. The main suggestion on how a film like this could have been better would be for it to have never been made in the first place. Now, let us all join forces and go to the home of Basinger and hubby Alec "i'm the annoying one" baldwin and get that Oscar back.
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly very good!
Review: I only ever see something at the cinema if I'm sure it'll be worth seeing. But for the first time ever, I decided to see this movie, even though I though I thought it wouldn't be any good. To my surprise, this turned out to be a very good movie. It was a little different than I expected, but I really enjoyed every part of it. It could be considered as a one-of-a-kind film, and I guess that's why I like it. But this film isn't for everybody.
Rating:
Summary: One more for my "10 worst of 2000" List
Review: Oh heaven help us! Hollywood is at it again, rewriting the scriptures for the screen. The formula is the same as always. Satan and God are going at it again. There is an innocent person involved somehow, everything happening is in the bible (of course no one has ever interrupted the bible to mean what the film does, but who cares....Easter Eve?????) A film like this lives or dies by one thing. One. Satan. If the Satanic character is good, scary, but likable (Satan has to be likable so we will sell our souls to him) and most of all, he must be funny. Lame as it was "End of Days" nearly got a positive review from me based on the Satan character (the same actor who was the priest, by the way, in "Stigmata") He was great, he made the whole film. The Satanic character in this film was boring and stupid and not really very scary. He has to pick on a little girl, what a loser. In the Exorcist the resident priest taunts the demon in Linda Blaire by saying, "You must be weak to chose such a little child as your battlefield" or something like that, that quote would be good here. Anything from any of the other ungteen thousand biblical apocalypse films would have been welcome. Anything. The film does have one incredibly terrifying thing, I was petrafied. Kim Bassingers unholly acting. I swear she was reading a TelePrompTer, really, it was that bad. Jimmy Smits was his usual awful self, he is every inch the actor Cindy Crawford is, every inch. Even a short, blessedly short appearance by the second best actress in film Christina RIcci, couldn't help this lackluster affair. No, heaven and hell will have to do better then this to get our attention, all the digital rats in the world can't cover laughable dialogue and unbelievable silliness, such as gangs of kids that look like the extras to a ninja turtle movie appearing out of nowhere and attacking people with guns in broad daylight and no one sees or cares. Or Bassingers Godawfull performance. Nope, the list has grown by one.
Rating: 
Summary: an okay movie
Review: okay.i will say this movie is kind of interesting.But it is so so easy to figure out what's gonna happen.i mean,you can tell if one part is a dream and stuff.if you really want to see this,wait until it comes out on video instead of seeing it in theaters
Rating: 
Summary: A pretty bad movie...
Review: This movie was a major disappointment! It centers around a child who's being targeted by an Anti-Christ group, which targets children that were all born on the same date. Don't waste your time or money seeing this one.
Rating:
Summary: An unholy mess.
Review: It's a wonder the devil has any spare time to cause evil given all the movie appearances he has made of late. Satan's most recent engagement (who's this guy's agent, anyway?) is in Bless the Child, a histrionic supernatural thriller that goes where plenty of other equally overwrought, good-vs.-Lucifer movies (including last fall's Stigmata and End of Days) have gone before. Bless's titular child is 6-year-old Cody (Holliston Coleman), a girl whose special powers include healing an injured bird with the laying-on of her hands and causing votive candles in a church to burst spontaneously into flame. Her aunt (Basinger), who has been taking care of Cody since her birth, wonders what's up. She finds out when the child, a saint in the making, is kidnapped and threatened with death by a Satanic cult. The movie is most effective when trafficking in such standard shock schlock as a room teeming with ravenous rats, a dark cul-de-sac beset by flying demons and the poor guy who has had both his eyes poked out with knitting needles. These images are supposed to scare you, and they do. But to what end? The movie's thrills are cheap and unearned. The basic plot is such Bible-rattling hocus-pocus that it reeks worse than Linda Blair's bedroom in The Exorcist following her pea-soup purging. Basinger plays her scenes at a fever pitch, as if she didn't trust the script, which may be a reasonable judgment on her part. Smits, after five years as Det. Bobby Simone on TV's NYPD Blue, slides easily into his role as an FBI agent who's aiding Basinger, but he hasn't enough to do. The best acting comes from Holliston, who brings real gravitas to her scenes.
Rating:
Summary: This movie should have had a different title.
Review: Movies rarely compliment the books they are based on, and this movie in particular is the essence of that shameful practice. Bless the Child by Cathy Cash Spellman was one of the best books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I have said since 1994 that it should be made into a movie. When I saw the first commercial for this movie, I was genuinely thrilled. I was the first person in the theater near my hometown. As the movie began, I was soon very very disappointed. The only resemblance this movie has toward the book is the title, the names of SOME of the characters, and the fact that a child is kidnapped. Other than that, there is nothing of the fabulous book. The movie is about the battle between good and evil, Christians and Satanists. The book is an intriguing tale about an old Egyptian myth of the Isis amulet and the Sekhmet stone. This movie with a different title, and no implication of similarity to the book would have been a wonderful movie. This movie as it is, is a joke. The screenwriters should be embarrassed, and Cathy Cash Spellman should sue them.
|
