Willard

Rating:
Summary: Crispin i love you
Review: Oh i love this film, i love it, i love it.
Crispin Glover's performance should win him an Oscar without a doubt. The only other actor of Crispin's generation i rate as highly is Sean Penn. You see Crispin like Sean does not care about looking cool and hip on screen, instead he wants to make the character he is playing as realistic as possible. I do not know how Mr Glover managed to deliver what must be, the greatest performance by a male actor since Sean Penn's performance in Hurly Burly. Yes Crispin is that good, this film will make all the under-dog men in the world, cry and laugh, as Willard fights back against his evil boss.
I love his relationship with the rats "Tear it Tear it Tear it up" I completly identify with his relationship with Socrates, animals are so comforting, in this cold hard world.
This film is beautiful to behold.
Please. Film-makers of the world, Crispin should be staring in more films as good as this one.

Rating:
Summary: Rats . . . And Interesting Psychological Thriller I Thought
Review: This movie was unique -- I thought of it as more of a psychological thriller. It caused the viewer to actually try to understand the cognitive mind of the main character Willard. It was interesting in that like most people Willard found solace in an animal that could not speak back. Despite his desire to befriend all of the rats he only favored one. Unfortunately, his favoritism of one particular rat nearly cost him his life as well as his sanity which was already ebbing away.

Rating:
Summary: Wooooooooooahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Review: Having seen Willard commercials on T.V a few times I thought it would be some sort of cheesy movie. But later as looking to see if any good movies were out I noticed Willard and was curious what it got. 3 out of 4. not bad... I started to get curious. I read a few reviews and then knew I had to see it. I love pets. Though I never had rats I had plenty of mice and they were wonderful. But anyways I tried to see this movie on opening weekend but it took me awhile. And then finally, on monday night I saw it. And I was deeply excited going into the theatre fifteen minutes before it started, and was the only one there. For awhile I talked to myself and to the Imaginary guy in the room where the movie player thing works (whatever it is called). Later two people came in but only saw me. So they left thinking THEY should SEE a BETTER MOVIE. Oh please, almost everything else at that time was crud, I mean I can barely think of any movies that were good that came out last year and the first few months of this year. But recently a lot of good movies have come. Now anyways about 10 people later came and soon the movie started. Boy, what an odd opening but I guess it suits it. Then the first lines came, "Willard, there are rats in the basement", I could've swarn it came from someone in the crowd behind me. Here, we see Crispon Glover (Seeing him for the first time, Now I'm a fan of his), going down and finding rats. Then he goes to the store (It seems almost like a T.V Ad!) and buys some rat traps. ... Well the acting is supperb, story is deep, atmospehere is dark, but not exactly scary. And for many of you, this movie may be too strong. I just wished it did well at the boxoffice. Just like Eight Legged Freaks. A fun chessy flick from last year. When seeing this movie don't think killer rats, but killer people... with RATS

Rating:
Summary: Willard- The ultimate cult movie
Review: When I first saw the commercials for this movie, i was a bit skeptical. It appeared to be one of those average American slasher movies that leaves you feeling nauseous and unfullfilled. I was wrong. I went to see the movie with a few friends, and was my eyes were riveted to the screen from beggining to end. Glover doesnt just play Willard...he is Willard. Willard is the kind of guy we can all relate to at times. Alienated, robbed of all his dignity, he yearns for a place in his life. That place was found the day his mother told him there were rats in the basement. It's not just a gruesome movie, as it first appears. It has emotion, psychological terror and most of all; depth. This movie can be percieved on so many levels. It portrays how our hate can manifest into horrorble things. How the way we act and treat others, will eventually come upon ourselves. For the more perceptive viewers, you will notice Willard's address is 911...which im sure is no mere coincidence. In short, this movie was great,but you would have to be of a certain audience to enjoy it. therefore, labeling this film a cult movie. No one who is squemish about rats or who doesnt like watching depressing movies should go near this. It's for people of a certain crowd...(an individual crowd no doubt) but I and all 4 other people in the theatre thouroughly enjoyed it.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Film
Review: I saw this advertised on tv and I thought it would be a good movie to go and see. Me and my friends all went and we loved it. Personally, I was hooked from the film's disturbing stop-motion beginning title sequence to the very last scene. It had the atmosphere of good episodes of "The X Files", "The Twilight Zone," and "Tales From the Crypt." It seemed to present itself more as sort of a dark comedy at some points ("Numm Nutts"). Crispin Glover (Back To The Future) was great as Willard. He really caught on to his creepy, pathetic, and strange personality. His version of "Ben" is very odd, too.
This film really isn't for people who don't like rats or small children. But if you want something genuinely creepy, then see "Willard."

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing---and not because of the rats
Review: The Willard of this 2003 remake (Crispen Glover) is infinitely less sympathetic than the original character (played by Bruce Davidson). He is extraordinarily selfish and disloyal, and his flawed, pathetic nature is what made this film so disturbing to me.

(I am not suggesting, of course, that this film is poor because it is disturbing. There are other reasons.)

Willard is self-consumed. He is completely asexual, unless you consider his affection for rats to have a sexual side. He ignores a woman who both likes and feels sorry for him, Katherine (Laura Harring). The saddest moment of this film comes when Katherine refuses to let Willard out of his trap---his home, which has become infested with the deadly rats that he trained.

Katherine recognizes at the end of the film that Willard cares for no one but himself. Indeed, Willard has a care for no one except for the rat Socrates, who was nothing more than an idealized extension of his self. Although his boss, Mr. Martin is a grotesque monster, he seems less of a caricature than he was in the original version and therefore the audience is less likely to root for his destruction than they did that of Ernest Borginine (who played Mr. Martin in the 1971 version).

Willard betrays not merely a woman who cares for him, but also his four-legged friends. Although the "dark" rat, Ben, is indeed menacing and deadly (he seems to represent Willard's darker alter ego, whereas Socrates represented his better dimensions), he is completely loyal to Willard until Willard betrays him.

Some other things to note: in the original version, Willard (Davidson) says, "I like myself now," before he sics his pet rats on Mr. Martin. In this version, Glover says, "Right now, at this moment, I like myself." The change is slight, but meaningful: it suggests that, for Davidson's character, the ownership of the rats was self-empowering. Glover's sick character, however, hates everyone in the world except for Socrates.

Although some of the more horrific scenes made me feel uncomfortable and nauseated (more so, in fact, than any film I can think of at the moment), I was disturbed by this film mostly because of its portrayal of the main character.

Technically, this film is slick but overdone: it is not as measured and well-crafted as the 1971 version, upon which it relies so heavily. Apparently, re-releasing a sober and compelling film like 1971's WILLARD is out of the question: one must "Disneyize" it.

I recommend the 1971 film, not this one.

Rating:
Summary: WHAT is the message here?
Review: The title character is stuck in a nightmare world where he has a boss from hell and a mother to make Christina Crawford look lucky compared to him. What message does the movie send as to his state in life? It must be that given a fate like his, you're jinxed no matter what. To accept his dead-end world with resignation would not be a desirable fate. But to fight his condition leads to equally unenviable results no matter what. He enlists the aid of rats living in his house, of all things. But even his relationship to his rat (friends?) becomes ambiguous at best. Looks like an animal-loving movie for a while, but the rats in the long run seem to function as symbols of chaos more than anything else. Don't expect any just or fair ending here. Don't expect any unambiguous and successful heores. The movie is caught in a no-man's land between sympathetic portrayal of the downtrodden on the one hand, and effective horror on the other hand. It doesn't much succeed with either, just as it doesn't succeed as a story about animals as either lovable or threatening.

Rating:
Summary: Where have all the good directors gone?
Review: This remake sure did loose something in the translation. The acting is forced an not very convincing and the directing well, lets say is overdone. Directing is a gift and comes from the heart. You have to have a feel for what you are doing. This director did not. Why the special effects? Oh ya, i forgot when you have untalented people in Hollywood you need special effects. Don't waste your time or money it's worse than the worse "B" movie ever made. Look up the original and really get scared and goosepimples.

Rating:
Summary: excellent movie?yes!!
Review: This movie you got to see!its about rats taking revenge for (crispin glover)a man.everybody is mean to him.so he and the rats take revenge over the people he hates.its a good movie.i rate this movie a 5 star.

Rating:
Summary: Rat Trap
Review: I vaguely remember the original Willard from my early youth, but chiefly associate it with reading that they used peanut butter on the actors to get the rats to swarm them, and seeing that bit in Love at First Bite where Renfield enjoys a clip from it on the inflight movie while transporting Dracula to NYC. When I read Crispin Glover was going to be in this remake, I promised myself I'd see it opening weekend and I loved it. It might take some time for this little gem to find its cult audience; the Crispin Glover legions are there already (and I'm among them!), but others will eventually come to its quiet sort of weirdness; if it's a horror movie at all, it's a subversive one.

The flaws: Vancouver's lush greenery is not what New Yorkers would recognize in the lead-up to Christmas. All the 9-11 references (the clock, the easy listening music channel, the room number in the psychiatric hospital, not to mention the box cutter and the Tora Bora rat poison) might imply this is a parable of NYC after the fall, but really the film could be set anywhere so might as well be. More exposition is needed, especially concerning Willard, whose problems certainly don't seem to have started with his father's suicide and his mother's illness. He seems so warped it's hard to believe he could have coped with school and university before starting work. We know Norman Bates spent years isolated in a businessless motel way out of town, and Edward Scissorhands spent who knows how long in the old castle after the death of the inventor. I'd like to know more about Willard himself.

On to the many strengths: the opening titles are an obvious nod to Tim Burton, even in the music, though some of the imagery would not be out of place on a Marilyn Manson CD booklet.The two principal interiors are great: the sickly greenishly lit retro factory (God alone knows what they manufacture there), where the computers still seem to be using Mosaic browsers, and the yellowing decay of the Stiles house. The details are often terrific: the mounting piles of unexamined junk mail in the Stiles house, or the furry collars on the refreshingly feline Cathryn's clothes (Laura Harring's announcement of quitting should make any crowd break out in applause: it's also a clue as to how she survives when Willard can't); watching to catch more of them will be one of the treats of repeated viewing.

However, the greatest strength of this is in the acting. I read an idiotic review of The Piano once which claimed no one in it behaved realistically. Of course not: it's a gothic melodrama! So is this, maybe more a gothic psychodrama with notes of revenge fantasy. Similarly, the characters here are types, forces of nature/warped nurture, icons of millennial industrialism. That said, Crispin Glover carries this: his performance is utterly fearless and sincere, so that his emotional moments actually made me feel voyeuristic, and his outbursts were genuinely scary (especially when Willard debases himself to plead for his job). There's both an innocence about his Willard as well as a great repressed frustration that makes his eventual revenge plausible. It's a disciplined performance, carefully designed, yet you never see the machinery working (this makes the confrontations with Mr. Martin so good: they are actually confrontations). And he looks great, in his gothic black suit and with his wonderfully angular face and Dwight Frye meets the Human League haircut and piercing blue eyes: probably no other contemporary actor but Crispin Glover could have withstood the intense physical scrutiny here: there's a lot of closeup. If you're in any doubt as to the shape of his nose, you now know the tip is square with a slight indentation. The revised ending is at once a clever nod to Hitchcock, and suggests chillingly how Willard has now become the rat in the cage of his mind.

This is more disturbing than "scary"; it creeps up on you more than it jumps out at you. It's a superb introduction to Crispin Glover if you haven't yet had the pleasure, a treat if you have. Recommended.