title: "Gothika"
starring: Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Penelope Cruz, Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, Bernard Hill, Dorian Harewood
genre: psych. thriller
"Gothika," the newest hype-driven psycho-thriller (see: "The Ring," "Stir of Echoes"), is a compelling spookfest, filled with ghosts, creepy-crawlers, and a surprisingly convincing turn by the illustrious Halle Berry as a patient locked in a psych ward...and her mind. The film is dressed as the cliched fright - thunderstorms ramble, lightning flashes, and dead girls appear in the prison shower. It's atypical of a psychological film not to express its main character through foreshadowing camerawork. This time, it's off balance, off-key, and numbingly dizzy, all key metaphors for Berry's off-the-cuff hallucinations and thoughts. In "Gothika," she's Dr. Miranda Gray, a seemingly down-to-Earth analyst who, in the beginning, interviews a broken-down Penelope Cruz. But then, the fun-house of madness begins, and director Mathieu Kassovitz takes art to it's limits with blackened shadows and dark terrors. Gray wakes up on the other side of the hospital, a patient enveloped in her own occupational hazards. "Gothika" is, at times, melodically moody, and Berry can only do the best she can to ward off already-thought-of scares. Kassovitz takes a page from David Lynch, when he uses electricity to represent ambient "wrongness" and the feeling of upcoming dread. Robert Downey Jr. costars as a straightforward doctor, but with all the recent hoopla about his...ah...extracurricular activities, you'd figure they would cast him on the other side. Although there are twists-a-plenty, the film leaves several small, albeit, head-scratching holes, making us wonder if we've gone crazy. It isn't perfection by any means, but it's enough of a satisfaction to drop the kids at "Cat in the Hat" and become psyched-out. grade: B
cool scenes: the mirror(s)
look for: flames
MPAA: R
Quick Flicks:
"Cat in the Hat": Endearing but indirect adaption of the Dr. Seuss classic finds Mike Myers suiting up in fur to have tons of fun with children Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin. The Seussian world is cool and colorful, but Myers comes off more as a pedopheliac cat than an imaginative rhyme-scheme. Witness the feline's fart jokes and unrelentless adult inneuendo. C-
"Sylvia": An astounding performance by Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath highlights this moody and melodramatic telling of the life of the gifted poet. The movie, both tedious and boorish, is saved by its grace and beauty, and Paltrow's remarkable Oscar-caliber descent into the depresses of Plath. The movie is more a Cliffnote version of her life than a fully expressive one, but it's a sturdy adaptation, and deep and remorseful just like Plath herself. grade: A-
out there:
"Looney Tunes: Back in Action": D
"Master and Commander": B-
coming up:
"Cat in the Hat"
"The Missing"
"Bad Santa"
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