Darkman

Rating:
Summary: A Sam Raimi Superhero Classic
Review: Man oh man does Sam Raimi know how to make movies. From the Evil Dead Trilogy to Spider-Man. Darkman is in the middle of these great films starring Liam Neeson as Peyton Westlake/Darkman and Larry Drake as Durant, the evil villain of the movie. The movie is a dark superhero film but it's no spider-man or superman. It's not based on a Marvel, D.C., or Dark Horse character, but based from the talented mind of Sam Raimi. It would be great to see comic books come out on this character though.

The is about Peyton Westlake, a very determind scientist researching skin replacements for people who have severly bad burned skin. As he is researching, his girlfriend stumbles upon secret papers at her work, that Durant wants that could get his employer in alot of trouble. So, Durant goes to Peyton's place and blows up the place, sending Peyton into a world of hell. Peyton is recovered with no I.D. because of his severly bad burnt hands along with a hideous freak accident burnt up face. Now, in revenge, Peyton sets out to get back those who ruined his life and his chance to marry his girlfriend.

It's an insanely wild movie that will guarantee fun and entertainment for all viewers. I haven't checked out the sequels, probably because they weren't directed by Sam Raimi and they came out straight to video tape. I heard they were ok, but not as good as its predecessor here, but I'll still check them out. For all of you Bruce Campbell fans out there (like me), Bruce has a little cameo at the end, so watch out for him.

Rating:
Summary: This Ain't Superman
Review: I've known about this film for years. I had the pleasure of finally seeing a couple of years ago before all of the Spider-mania. I do not see this as a superhero flick so to speak but rather as a revenge tale woven around tragedy and heartbreak.

You have Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson), a young and brilliant scientist who is on the verge of perfecting synthetic skin. Then, his life is turned upside down by the corruption his fiance brings home with her from the office. After being scarred and burned by gangsters led by Robert Durant (Larry Drake), Westlake sets out to turn the tables on those who wronged him. The scenes where he takes his revenge are so impressive that you almost lose sight of who the villains are and who is the hero.

This is a landmark film which should have received more credit than what it did. Too many times we are used to seeing these boy scout heroes on screen (e.g. Superman, Luke Skywalker) who are sometimes without real depth and have more prominence on Saturday mornings. With a movie such as this and a character like Darkman, you bring that reality element and it makes for a better picture.

Rating:
Summary: it;s all in the eyes
Review: I can understand why the producers cast Liam Neeson in this role. He has to express a great deal of emotion with his eyes alone that very few actors could have carried off. The plot is well established in these kinds of movies; Bad thing happens to good guy. Good guy Looses the girl, his career, his friend. Thought to be dead. Gets reborn as some psychotic version of his original self, beats the bad guys, saves the day (and, as expected, creats his secret lair in an abandoned warehouse). Are there really that many abandoned warehouses around? Maybe I just haven't been paying attention. Very nice performance form Liam. Other performances are forgettable but the mood, etc comes together nicely. I enjoyed it, and the few nice twists in how he disposes of the bad guys. This guy is batman without the millions of dollars but worth watching.

Rating:
Summary: WORST Subtitles, Closed Captioning ever on DVD boo hoo!
Review: I saw this on Australian TV recently and I presumes they got it form DVD source and it had the worst captioning , subtitles (even worse than Godzilla Matthew Broderick DVD even - read my review).

It kept on missing out 3 sentences at one time and only showed an odd line here and there every 5 seconds. It made no logical , narrative sense for people who are really deaf.

I saw a bit of the movie. Can't really comment as I didn't finish it. But it was unrealistic how he survivied the explosion in his science lab and very VERY brutal those thugs that killed the Japenese scientist assistant.

I'll post a proper reviews when I watch it all. But I just wrote this review so people don't get cornered in to buying this for it's SO CALLED subtitles, closed captioning feature , which obvioulsy the movie studio company failed in doing it's job!

Rating:
Summary: Sam Raimi is king...
Review: Hot off of "Evil Dead" and other successes, director/genius Sam Raimi set out to make a superhero movie: Raimi style! Part Batman, Part Shadow, all cool, "Darkman" keeps Raimi's interesting and dark style in tact and help pave the way for this young filmmaker for movies like "A Simple Plan" and "Spider-Man." Liam Neeson plays a scientist whose life is all but destroyed in a fire set by some evil gangsters. Now, he roams the streets seeking revenge on those who have scarred him. Evil Dead fans should relish the cool camera work and stylized violence that Raimi lays out here. While the action feels a tad toned-down, it's still brutal and awesome. Hail to the King, baby, for he is Raimi!

Rating:
Summary: Before Spider-Man, there was Darkman
Review: Sam Raimi, brilliant director of the cult classic Evil Dead trilogy and the current blockbuster Spider-Man, directed this entertaining action yarn hot on the heels of 1989's hit Batman. While many saw Darkman as a Batman rip off (sort of), Raimi's talented directorial skills gave Darkman a personality of its own. Liam Neeson (before he hit it big) stars as scientist Peyton Westlake, who has developed a synthetic skin, only problem is, it can only hold for 99 minutes before it deteriorates. When his lab is destroyed by Robert Durant (Larry Drake), Peyton is blasted into a nearby harbor. He is left horribly scarred, but when he recovers he uses the synthetic skin to get his revenge on his would be murderers while trying to get back with his girlfriend (Frances McDormand). Darkman is really entertaining and is a great twist on superhero movies, Neeson shines as the tortured soul hero, while McDormand is great as his girlfriend. Recommended to those looking for a comic style movie with a twist. A little side note, since this is a Sam Raimi movie, Evil Dead hero Bruce Campbell has a cameo as the "final shemp" in the film.

Rating:
Summary: The filmmakers have more fun than the audience
Review: I first saw "Darkman" in the theatres when I was 15-years old. Forced into comparisons with the first "Batman" movie, I found it to be a rambling, shoddy mess. Having recently seen it again in theatres, with my new 27-year old eyes, I still find it a rambling, shoddy mess.

Helping temper this feeling were a gaggle of Sam Raimi-files, stalking every corner of the theatre, laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity on screen. From every over-the-top acting moment, to the plethora of cheesy special effects, to the inevitable Bruce Campbell cameo (which got the biggest cheer I've heard in a movie theatre in a long time), they were lapping up the pudding that Raimi was serving. You can't help but get caught up in an atmosphere like that. "Darkman", to them, is a perfect, lowbrow, B-movie, kitschy Saturday afternoon matinee. I imagine, however, that non-Raimi fans will despise it much as I did back in 1990.

The problem is that it parodies a genre not ripe for parody: low-budget superhero knock-offs. These kinds of movie are jokes in and of themselves. Calling attention to their obvious flaws is like shooting fish in a barrel. Where's the sport in that? Raimi and gang try hard, injecting spot-me-if-you-can in-jokes and corny humour into every frame, but the whole never comes close to the sum of its parts.

There are, however, a lot of fine elements here.

The film opens as two rival mobs meet to discuss a territorial feud. One mob, seemingly outnumbered by another, employs a rather unique method of surprise to gain the upper hand. It's a thrilling moment, punctuated by car explosions and bullet-ridden bodies, that culminates in a ridiculous torture sequence. Larry Drake, who plays crime boss Robert Durant, is stunning in his role. He's cool, collected, reserved, but ready to pounce when something doesn't go his way (and he sports a before-its-time Caesar 'do that tops off the character perfectly). I remember Drake being the biggest surprise when I first saw the film, having only known him as the mentally retarded office boy on "L.A. Law". He's a fine super-villain here, stealing the movie out from under the two leads.

Liam Neeson (it shocked me when my hindsight informed me that this respectable actor was once "Darkman"; at the time, he was an unknown) is fine as the tormented scientist, burned beyond recognition. He's discovered a revolutionary new fake skin, that magically, after feeding a couple of Polaroids into a photocopier, can create a mask of anyone's face. Unfortunately, the masks only last 99 minutes in the sunlight. Neeson, in his Phantom of the Opera garb, plays Darkman as a manic depressive little boy: fraught with pitiful agony one moment, intense with rage in another. He's paired with Frances McDormand, one of my favourite actresses, who plays his do-gooder lawyer girlfriend. McDormand is all icy cold exterior, but she gets to break down in anguish too. Neeson and McDormand, two actors who later gained reputations for superb control, are a messy mishmash of emotions here, playing broadly to the rafters. Though I prefer them in their subtler moments, I guess it's all called for here, fitting in with the overall tone of the film.

Raimi, a visually kinetic director who I've admired for a long time, has a lot of fun with his camera here. He blatantly cops many of Alfred Hitchcock's most famous shots, only with amped-up hysterical flair. The famous zoom-in/pan-out shot from "Vertigo" is employed what seems like a dozen times throughout the film, always with some fiery blaze in the background, the better to understand Darkman's subconscious(!). And he even tries his hand at "Psycho's" shot of the drain morphing into Janet Leigh's eye. Only he reverses it. It made me think, "This guy's sure having a lot of fun from his director's chair."

But I have to come back to my original point and say that, sadly, this member of the audience didn't have as much fun as the filmmakers. I just couldn't get past the shlockier aspects of "Darkman" to give my heart to it.

Rating:
Summary: More than another Batman clone
Review: Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is 'Darkman', an emittered and scarred genius who has developed an artificial skin that allows him to impersonate just about anybody'for about an hour and a half. (As long as there's no light out, he's safe; infra-red radiation causes the faux skin cells to break down). Once a happy and innocuous scientist, Westlake is severely and almost fatally injured by thugs. (The joke is that Westlake's assault has nothing to do with him ' rather the thugs are searching for an incriminating memo left with him by his crusading attorney girlfriend played by Frances Mcdormand). Ofcourse the beating and burning (the thugs trigger a gas explosion that blows Westlake clear before it incinerates him completely) so brutalize Westlake, that he becomes impervious to pain and super strong. Horribly disfigured, nobody knows that he survived the explosion. Putting together his battered machines, Westlake rebuilds his lab but with plans of revenge ' against the thugs, Robert Durant (Larry Drake), their deadpan sadist of a leader, and the corrupt businessman who employs them all.

This was a great flick, though it obviously suffered in following a string of wannabe 'Batman' flicks that flooded theaters and TV schedules. 'Darkman' followed the quickly popularized formula of a dark hero, only barely removed from evildoers. Blame for that rests mostly in the lack of a suitably matching villain (imagine 'Batman' without Jack Nicholson; or just go see 'Batman Returns'). Though Larry Drake is fun, there's just so much you can do when your performance boils down to snapping people's fingers off without cracking a smile or wincing. The corrupt businessman who employs Durant is no better ' if he were, Durant's presence would be superfluous, right? But it still excels because of the fun switches it throws ' Darkman's 'origin' seems patterned closer to those of famous comic book supervillains rather than heroes. The explanation for his powers is so baldly improbable, you'll be shouting 'holy'er'!#@t' at the screen, even as you won't be able to tear yourself away. But it's also an unmissible because it is so obviously a Sam Raimi flick ' even if you've never seen any one of the 'Evil Dead' movies, didn't recognize perrenial Raimi headliner Bruce Campbell walking off into the sunset as the disguised Westlake, or missed the Oldsmobile he drove in 'Army of Darkness' ' you'll soon realize you're watching a distinctive flick with the director's signature on at least every other frame. Whether it's the incipient 'Stoogemania' with which Darkman dispatches his enemies, or the rapid zooms that Raimi's camera works on his actors, you know this is no straight-to-video Batman clone. Just remember, this is what 'Spiderman' would have looked like with the crude CGI of 1990.

Rating:
Summary: MINDBLOWING SAM RAIMI PIC!
Review: Guilty as charged, I only watched this film just because it's from the director of the infamous cult horror classic, The Evil Dead! And ever since, I plan to watch all of his films albeit the story is just ok. Don't expect me to watch the succeeding installments of this inventive but "mindblowing" film.
I won't tell you the plot as you may already know courtesy of my co-reviewers but I will glady share to you the ingeunity of the director's creativity in the silver screen. If you happened to watch or intentionally watch The Evil Dead then you know you're in for some wild ride in utter violence and gores abound in this film! There are obvious references of this film to the aforementioned horror classic. One, the camera shots. Not to mention some of the make-up effects it unabashedly parlayed. At times, the great Liam Neeson acts as "Ash" wonderfully portrayed by Bruce Campbell. I literally laugh out loud when I saw Bruce as the 'final shemp' (Raimi fans should know this) acting up as the last mask of Liam! Talk about last minute appearances!

Going back to the said movie, who knew that Sam would later direct the most successful movie opener ever, Spiderman? But the reason I mentioned this is because long before the wallcrawler, there was the 'Darkman'. Not your average superhero but a misunderstood human who has but no choice has to take the law into his hands! Admittedly, I was surprised when I saw that the starrer is Liam Neeson. He figured prominently in my mind as Oskar Schindler. And in the case of Frances Mcdormand, the Oscar winner in Fargo (Raimi fans should also know why she was cast). So, it's a double treat for me to watch two great actors in this kind of movie. Lastly, Sam's famous brother, Theodore or Ted is here for the first(?) time as a villain. So, what any Sam Raimi fans could asks for?

Treat yourself or friends to see Darkman if you want some kind of a movie that blows you away!

Rating:
Summary: It's a Dark Comic Book Movie.
Review: This is a rather dark movie, based off of a comic book. The film came out not too long after BATMAN and that movie's influence upon DARKMAN is clearly evident (Danny Elfman composed the score and it sounds like he just recycled some of his BATMAN stuff). The story is about a brilliant scientist who is turned into a mutant after his lab is destroyed by some hired criminals. Liam Neeson does a decent job of acting considering how much cheese and cliches are involved in his scenes. Frances McDormand is a great actress but her skill and beauty are wasted here and she looks like she just took this gig so she could pay the bills. Sam Raimi is a talented director and his skill as a filmmaker continues to improve with each movie he makes. By the time he made DARKMAN he was becoming an established talent, and his skill is what keeps the movie together. The script isn't horrible and contains some allegorical connotations. However, the film doesn't allow for those issues to really be examined and explored. Overall, the movie makes for a nice piece of jawbreaker-mind-candy.