Rating: ![2 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-2-0.gif) Summary: Gratuitous sex was never so boring Review: Neither even the stellar acting of the great actors William Defoe and Christopher Walkin, nor the nearly continual gratuitous sex that permeates throughout, could save this boring film nor its weak plot. The sex scenes, which are numerous and ordinarily include several women at once, were actually well done though peculiarly uninteresting. Walkin and Defoe are on their game, and nearly make it a worthwhile viewing, but the script writer and the director were both asleep at the wheel. As a science fiction film, it contains nothing interesting either. The story is boring, and plods through irrelevant scenes. I had high hopes for this film; thinking it was similar to 'Blade Runner' and possibly half as good. After watching the first few minutes, I was minded of 'Liquid Sky'. However, it wasn't even half as good as 'Liquid Sky', and that is not a great film either, but at least it held the viewers interest. I wouldn't suggest purchase of this film to anyone who hadn't seen it first, and then only if they didn't fall asleep.
Rating: ![2 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-2-0.gif) Summary: Confusing Narrative!!! Beware!!! Spoiler below!!! Review: New Rose Hotel has a great plot. Two corporate spies (Fox and X) are hired by a company (Hosaka)try to steal this Japanese scientist (Hiroshi) from one of their rivals (Maas). The two spies end up using a call girl (Sandii) to seduce the scientist and convince him to switch sides. X soon falls in love with Sandii and has trouble accepting her affair with Hiroshi(despite the fact that's what X and Fox hired her for). However, everything is going according to plan and Hiroshi defects to Hosaka. Because of this, X and Fox become millionaires overnight. Unfortunately, the plan backfires when Sandii backstabs Fox and X by defecting to Maas. In the process of her defection; she is able to reprogram a DNA sequencer (?) that ends up killing Hiroshi and all of the top minds at Hosaka in a lab in Marrakesh that Fox and X set up to hide Hiroshi. Hosaka first makes the millions of dollars they paid X and Fox disappear before they even had a chance to spend it and then come after Fox and X (who they believe double-crossed them when in fact Sandii double-crossed them too). Fox gets killed and X ends up hiding out at the New Rose Hotel reminscing about what went wrong. Great story, right? Well, if you watched the movie, you wouldn't have been able to made sense of the plot above. It was only after reading Mr. Gibson's story that I understood the plot. This movie is incoherrent and if it wasn't for the strong performances of Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento, this movie would be a total waste of time. Abel, you can do better!! The movie was pleasant to watch for the most part. No technical glitches or cheap effects. However, what good is a movie if you can't understand what's going on? That's the problem with New Rose Hotel. That's why I give it such a low rating. Unfortunately, this film reinforces the often mistaken reputation of its director for stressing style over substance.
Rating: ![2 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-2-0.gif) Summary: Confusing Narrative!!! Beware!!! Spoiler below!!! Review: New Rose Hotel has a great plot. Two corporate spies (Fox and X) are hired by a company (Hosaka)try to steal this Japanese scientist (Hiroshi) from one of their rivals (Maas). The two spies end up using a call girl (Sandii) to seduce the scientist and convince him to switch sides. X soon falls in love with Sandii and has trouble accepting her affair with Hiroshi(despite the fact that's what X and Fox hired her for). However, everything is going according to plan and Hiroshi defects to Hosaka. Because of this, X and Fox become millionaires overnight. Unfortunately, the plan backfires when Sandii backstabs Fox and X by defecting to Maas. In the process of her defection; she is able to reprogram a DNA sequencer (?) that ends up killing Hiroshi and all of the top minds at Hosaka in a lab in Marrakesh that Fox and X set up to hide Hiroshi. Hosaka first makes the millions of dollars they paid X and Fox disappear before they even had a chance to spend it and then come after Fox and X (who they believe double-crossed them when in fact Sandii double-crossed them too). Fox gets killed and X ends up hiding out at the New Rose Hotel reminscing about what went wrong. Great story, right? Well, if you watched the movie, you wouldn't have been able to made sense of the plot above. It was only after reading Mr. Gibson's story that I understood the plot. This movie is incoherrent and if it wasn't for the strong performances of Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Asia Argento, this movie would be a total waste of time. Abel, you can do better!! The movie was pleasant to watch for the most part. No technical glitches or cheap effects. However, what good is a movie if you can't understand what's going on? That's the problem with New Rose Hotel. That's why I give it such a low rating. Unfortunately, this film reinforces the often mistaken reputation of its director for stressing style over substance.
Rating: ![4 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-4-0.gif) Summary: Another love-it or hate-it film. Review: Notice that almost no one gives this film its average score (around 2.3 stars)? It's a classic bimodal distribution: hate it or love it. Well, maybe "love it" is a bit strong, but for those who 1) don't know the plot ahead of time, and 2) carefully follow the plot as it develops in the film, particularly in the last quarter, the story is quite gripping. If you've read the story ahead of time, or lose the plot while watching, it will just seem like a very low-budget muddle. Like many of Gibson's stories, this is hardly science fiction-- in fact, it's more purely noir than many other more noir-y looking films that come to mind. As such, it's about money, love, betrayal, women, memory, machismo--that sort of stuff. Having read the story after seeing the film, I'd almost say the movie was better, while still being true to Gibson's spirit: less of the narrator's whiny voice, more Fox; more mystery, less pseudo-futuristic-cosmopolitanism. And a much better finish. The best part is really the much-maligned last quarter, which in its memory flashbacks leads you to discover for yourself who betrayed whom and why. The conclusion, if you care about these sorts of issues at all, is really quite sad and moving. Not knowing when it would end, I jumped up close to the TV to hear Argento's reply to Dafoe's last line. To end there shows that these guys knew what they were doing.
Rating: ![4 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-4-0.gif) Summary: Another love-it or hate-it film. Review: Notice that almost no one gives this film its average score (around 2.3 stars)? It's a classic bimodal distribution: hate it or love it. Well, maybe "love it" is a bit strong, but for those who 1) don't know the plot ahead of time, and 2) carefully follow the plot as it develops in the film, particularly in the last quarter, the story is quite gripping. If you've read the story ahead of time, or lose the plot while watching, it will just seem like a very low-budget muddle. Like many of Gibson's stories, this is hardly science fiction-- in fact, it's more purely noir than many other more noir-y looking films that come to mind. As such, it's about money, love, betrayal, women, memory, machismo--that sort of stuff. Having read the story after seeing the film, I'd almost say the movie was better, while still being true to Gibson's spirit: less of the narrator's whiny voice, more Fox; more mystery, less pseudo-futuristic-cosmopolitanism. And a much better finish. The best part is really the much-maligned last quarter, which in its memory flashbacks leads you to discover for yourself who betrayed whom and why. The conclusion, if you care about these sorts of issues at all, is really quite sad and moving. Not knowing when it would end, I jumped up close to the TV to hear Argento's reply to Dafoe's last line. To end there shows that these guys knew what they were doing.
Rating: ![4 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-4-0.gif) Summary: Another love-it or hate-it film. Review: Notice that almost no one gives this film its average score (around 2.3 stars)? It's a classic bimodal distribution: hate it or love it. Well, maybe "love it" is a bit strong, but for those who 1) don't know the plot ahead of time, and 2) carefully follow the plot as it develops in the film, particularly in the last quarter, the story is quite gripping. If you've read the story ahead of time, or lose the plot while watching, it will just seem like a very low-budget muddle. Like many of Gibson's stories, this is hardly science fiction-- in fact, it's more purely noir than many other more noir-y looking films that come to mind. As such, it's about money, love, betrayal, women, memory, machismo--that sort of stuff. Having read the story after seeing the film, I'd almost say the movie was better, while still being true to Gibson's spirit: less of the narrator's whiny voice, more Fox; more mystery, less pseudo-futuristic-cosmopolitanism. And a much better finish. The best part is really the much-maligned last quarter, which in its memory flashbacks leads you to discover for yourself who betrayed whom and why. The conclusion, if you care about these sorts of issues at all, is really quite sad and moving. Not knowing when it would end, I jumped up close to the TV to hear Argento's reply to Dafoe's last line. To end there shows that these guys knew what they were doing.
Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: Give New Rose Hotel a chance Review: Now look people I know this isn't the Matrix and it's not the best movie out there but I did read the story New Rose Hotel and the movie was closer to the story than Johnny Mnemonic did and beside anything with Chris Walken in it is worth atleast giving it a try. So why not lay off New Rose and go pick on Godzilla or something.
Rating: ![1 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-1-0.gif) Summary: Bad, Bad , Bad,... Goes Far too Slow just to get Nowhere Review: The great cast of Dafoe, Wlaken, and Argento, winds up in a techno thriller without any thrills and a dud of a plot. Abel Ferrara proves, once again, that he is one of the most hot and cold directors that has ever existed in the history of cinema. For every Bad Lutentant, King of New York, and The Funeral, he also serves up a Dangerous Game, Addiction, and, now, New Rose Hotel. Basically, Chris Walken and Willem Dafoe play a game of genius stealing from a corporation by hiring Asia Argento to get a Japanese mega-brain to defect to another side. But, Willem ends up smitten with Asia, our hooker with the heart of gold, and everything, quite blandly, doesnt turn up roses. Willem spends the final half of the movie in a cubicle moaning over the first half of the movie, flashing back to several scenes we've already seen and some we didnt need in the first place. The story has no life to it. It feels like they just figured a good movie might pop out of thin air because scene after scene is lifeless and bland. Walken and Dafoe do some far too obvious improvising, and, although they do appear to be having fun, it doesnt work. Argento comes out the worst, simply because she seems the most at ease with her character, is smooth in her acting, so it ends up being a shame that she is so good in, yet another, bad, bad, bad movie. Walken and Dafoe have proven thier talents elsewhere, but Asia has yet to find the movie in witch she can shine. It just goes to show, you can have a great cast, a sometimes notable director, some money, and a crew, but, if you dont bother to have a good story to launch from, the movie is dead from the start.
Rating: ![1 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-1-0.gif) Summary: Mezmerizingly bad! Review: The only reason I was able to view this film in its entirety was that (I am convinced) there was some sort of subliminally hypnotic signal in the tape which made it impossible for me to turn off the VCR. Like a helpless observer of some horrible accident, I felt a morbid fascination to continue viewing, so as to see just how bad this thing ultimately could become. The lighting and sound seem to have been handled by members of the wrong union, for the scenes were often far too dark and the tv's volume had to be increased to the point of distortion to compensate for the terrible sound. This was not a matter of actors mumbling, although they did indeed do that. No, this was a matter of someone apparently using a "Mr. Mike" to record the film. The plot itself was terribly shallow and quite absurd. For those who feel compelled to watch this film for the strange sensation of being able to claim they have seen something really bad, at least they can look forward to the unintentionally hilarious sight of seeing the usually wonderful Mr. Walken trying to do a silly softshoe dance. That, however, is not worth the price of this stinker.
Rating: ![1 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-1-0.gif) Summary: Absolutely Awful Review: There's really very little I can say about this film, except that it was absolutely awful in every aspect. One of the worst pieces of cinematic trash in recent years, the film is so dull as to be essentially unsalvagable. Most of the budget appears to have been blown on hiring DaFoe and Walken. The special effects are laugable. In one scene, Walken uses his ultra-advanced bioneotek PDA in a conference with his contact Mr. Cane. A camera closeup reveals that this is a PALM PILOT III with BLACK ELECTRICAL TAPE across the top to hide the lettering. Presumably, the Producer didn't want any damage to the precious $179 organizer because they planned to return it to Staples. It also appears that the crew ran out of money, since SPOILER ALERT Walken dies after falling off of a mall balcony FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER and the second half of the film is devoted to DaFoe grimacing in psychic agony as he remembers flashbacks of IDENTICAL scenes from the first 45 minutes of the movie. So truly bad, this movie cannot even aspire to cult status.
|