Reviews

I just can't understand why anyone would be willing to have spent all the time, effort, and money it takes to make a film on something like this. It really takes a lot of effort to make a movie. More than a few people in this world felt passionately enough about this thing to write it, direct it, shoot it, rehearse it, finance it, etc, etc. My god! It's not that it's really bad or anything, there just doesn't seem to be any point in it existing. It's a boring movie about everyday people doing everyday crap. Sometimes they hang out at the beach. Sometimes they bicker. There's some kissing. Why? Why not just do nothing instead?

i thought the soundtrack was quite bad. there was too much blood & guts to take the movie seriously as a drama. many of the more comic elements seemed misplaced. i did however like the acting of jeremy davies & guy pearce.

it seemed like they were trying to marry a more high-minded drama to a low-brow genre flick & it didn't work out like ang lee with the hulk.

I've often thought that I wouldn't like a great deal of the eighties cult classics that I do if I was exposed to them today. I think Repo Man might have proved my little theory. Like some people are saying "I don't get it". I never watched this in the eighties. Although I got a few chuckles the humor seems mostly to be very amateurish. I also don't get why this is supposed to be a punk rock movie. There didn't seem to be that much punk rock in it just a lot of surf music and a few cliche punk rocker thugs.

This film is painfully boring! It's also way too long. It was so bad that I started staring at the walls and ceiling of the theater rather than look at the screen. Not one moment of each inexplicable sequence really resonated with me in the slightest. I think at least eight or more people left the theater before it was finished.

There is no plot at all. That in itself doesn't bother me, I don't think that a film necessarily has to have a narrative structure. However, the way in which this was done just didn't work for me. I've seen a lot of comparisons to David Lynch in people's comments. I personally don't see it. I love most of Lynch's films.

It seemed like the sort of film that an autistic person would make, cold and lifeless with no discernible emotion. The film treats inanimate objects and people almost as if they were the same. There is very little humanity or empathy to be found anywhere. Not to mention that there's no dialog.

I just couldn't relate to it at all.

I have never read the Melville story on which this movie is based but I plan to because the story is excellent. Crispin Glover is also perfect for the role of Bartelby.

Having said that, I must say that this movie is somewhat of a failure. First of all it starts off with a brief but rather unnecessary summary of the life and career of Herman Melville. Then the movie starts, and it goes on far too long.

For reasons I can't quite put my finger on this movie seems a lot like a television sitcom. And that is very bad. I don't know if it's the lighting, the sets, the acting or what but it seems to have that "T.V. look" to it.

The cast, except for Glover, is made up of mostly character actors who don't do a very good job. There's also theremin music throughout the movie which might have worked for something else but seems inappropriate for this. Maybe one of the many other adaptations of this is better.

If it weren't for crispin glover this movie could have degenerated into something quite bad. The man is a master at playing these creepy, bizarre characters. I love the way his face twitches or his eyes seem to glaze over in some of the more intense moments of the film. It's great to see this hopelessly underrated actor in a lead role for a change.

The film itself had a great look to it. a very stylized sort of Tim Burton thing only creepier. I loved the opening title sequence. It reminded me a little of Seven. There are a few nods to the original which are a nice touch.

On the down side, this film is also a bit dull and overly long. I've never seen the original film or read the book so I couldn't really compare them. I don't think it's all that important anyway. The film should stand on it's own. There seemed to me to be way too much time spent on Willard interacting with the rats. Since the rats can't speak it was difficult to figure out exactly what was going on and why Willard behaves the way he does towards them. They try to solve this by using his dialog to explain things but it doesn't work very well sometimes.

To me this film was a lot funnier than it was scary and I don't mean that in a bad way. However, the audience I was with (what little there was) didn't quite seem to get the humor. I think people were expecting more of a traditional horror film and I for one am glad they didn't get that.