|
Post by GP on Jun 28, 2007 18:37:54 GMT -5
The version I watched was the 'Unseen' extended edition (not unbloodyseen enough for my liking).
To cut a long story short the movie addresses the thorny issue of whether a presented behaviour which is disturbing and contrary to normal personality traits should be viewed as a symptom of mental illness or evidence of something more profoundly spiritual resulting from an external source and that can only be addressed through spiritual means. It's kind of like the science versus faith debate at the core of the snoretastic scifi bore Contact. Unfortunately it suffers from the exact same problem in that it falls firmly behind the churchy argument and totally demerits any argument to the contrary through an alarmingly glib dismissal in which our protagonist, a feisty female defence attorney who normally defends evil men, paraphrases the input from a shady doctor thus, "So someone who's crazy doesn't know they're crazy?", to which he provides a Eureka moment and thereby dismisses one hundred years hard earned knowledge of psychiatry. By this reckoning anyone classed as mentally ill, but displaying insight, can reasonably be argued to be possessed by the devil!
All of this hogwash wouldn't matter so much if Emily Rose didn't portray itself as a true story with a valid moral point of view. Sadly it does and, as such, stands alone as a monumental bucket of snot that, if anyone bright actually got suckered in by it, could set back the treatment of mental illness in less enlightened areas a couple of hundred years.
Interestingly the story upon which the movie is based is that of a European girl whose backwards family drafted in the local priest to exorcise the devil from her body, ultimately resulting in her brutal and tragic death. In Europe the tragedy of this case is generally accepted as a result of blinkered narrow-mindedness and ignorance of the realities of chronic schizophrenia. Amazingly the movie flips that on its head and declares that science and medicine are hopeless in the face of the demonic possession that can afflict anyone, anytime.
Utter, utter bullshit and a big fat zero out of five.
|
|
|
Post by GL on Jul 6, 2007 12:28:26 GMT -5
“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” wasn’t anywhere as bad as it could’ve been, but it’s still not a great film.
**SPOILERS**
After a long battle, Emily Rose, (Jennifer Carpenter) succumbs to a strange illness, and Erin Bruner, (Laura Linney) is asked to represent the priest, Father Moore, (Tom Wilkinson) who looked after her in the later stages of the ordeal. Accepting the deal on the condition to let him tell his side of the story, the trial begins. As she and Ethan Thomas, (Campbell Scott) battle it out over what really happened to her, more clues come to the surface and they start to believe that she was suffering from demonic possession. As she gets further and further into the trial, the dark forces that had supposedly been after Emily come to haunt her outside the courtroom, and decides to get the trial over as soon as possible.
The Good News: This wasn’t anywhere as bad as it could’ve been. This is helped greatly by it’s really good possession and shock scenes. The opening scene that sets her up to becoming possessed is one of it’s best sequences, as the long corridor shot of the hallway showing something at the end of it, and the unearthly voices floating around give it an unearthly feel. The first scene where she might be possessed, in the classroom and sees a demonic face appearing in the window through a cloud of mist is quite creepy, and to turn around to view a student’s face and see them turn into a distorted demon’s face giving off an unearthly roar makes it quite shocking. Running out into the rain and seeing more demonic faces give off the same unearthly roar is a bit cliched, but it still helps to sell the mood. The long, suspenseful and chilling exorcism is the film’s selling point, coming off with any number of creepy ideas and scenes in such a drawn-out style is one of the best scenes in the film. With so many great moments in it, there’s no shortage of memorable moments and it stands up quite well against any other possession/exorcism scene in the genre. Otherwise, beyond the shocks and the exorcism, there isn’t much else to like about it.
The Bad News: Simply, only the supernatural elements in the film is any good. Therefore, everything else in it doesn’t really work, which is only relegated to the courtroom battle drama. It’s marketed as being a supernatural possession film, and the best moments come from those scenes, but the fact that the majority of the film is a courtroom battle with the supernatural elements coming in the form of flashbacks is a real misstep and is likely to confuse those coming in expecting the other kind of film. It’s not that they’re boring or anything, it’s just that it’s out of nowhere that it becomes that way, and it can be a disappointment. The fact that these are slow and really long don’t help matters, extending this out far longer than it should. This could’ve easily been an hour and a half, or maybe a little longer, but the two hours running time forces it to keep the courtroom antics to keep going for no reason other than to extend the running time. A few extraneous scenes could’ve been snipped as well, including the introductory scenes at the bar that repeat information we already know and also keep the running time going, and most of the time simply elicit a feeling of wanting to move along and get to the good scenes. These really harm the film.
The Final Verdict: In between wanting to get to the possession/exorcism scenes, there isn’t a lot to really like here. These are filled with courtroom battles that don’t do much else beyond eating up time, and only those who have a large love for these kinds of films will find an entertaining time here. Otherwise, proceed with caution.
Rated PG-13: Language, Mild Violence and intense demonic and spiritual themes
|
|
|
Post by GP on Jul 10, 2007 20:22:24 GMT -5
In between wanting to get to the possession/exorcism scenes, there isn’t a lot to really like here. These are filled with courtroom battles that don’t do much else beyond eating up time, and only those who have a large love for these kinds of films will find an entertaining time here. It's like a Halloween epsiode of LA Law's poor pretentious cousin.
|
|
|
Post by GL on Jul 11, 2007 10:12:23 GMT -5
I've never seen LA Law, so I don't know what that means.
|
|
|
Post by GP on Jul 11, 2007 12:04:02 GMT -5
LA Law was a long running and ridiculously successful drama series about lawyers. Just typing about it nearly made me fall asleep.
|
|
|
Post by GL on Jul 12, 2007 10:32:47 GMT -5
Oh, I thought it was that cop show that everyone made a big fuss about because they were going to be drop the "S" bomb on network TV, or am I thinking of another show? I think I am, but doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence eitherway.
|
|