Search

Categories

Opera

Archives

Recent Entries

Gothika

Before Halle Berry was bouncing her boobs around in a leather cat suit, she was bouncing her boobs around in a white t-shirt as a brilliant/crazy psychologist in the movie Gothika. I just got around to watching the movie last night, and while it’s not as bad as I imagine Catwoman to be, it wasn’t her best film either. I mean, at least in Swordfish and Monster’s Ball you got to actually see her boobs (Link is Not Safe For Work).

The rest of this review contains potential spoilers…

But in case you don’t want to read them, my overall rating is 3/5. Some things in the movie just don’t add up, and I wasn’t really satisfied with the ending.

Some things just don’t add up in this movie. Presumably Halle’s character kills her husband Doug because she is possessed by Rachel Parsons, the girl that her husband raped and tortured. If this ghost-girl has the power to possess Halle and make her kill someone, why does she spend the rest of the movie simply scaring the shit our of her instead? Why does she throw her around the cell, and slash her arms instead of just possessing her again and having her walk out of the prison that way? Or by attacking all of the guards in the place and helping her escape. Or actually, why didn’t the ghost girl just kill Doug herself? She later cuts and attacks Halle in prison, so why doesn’t she just attack Doug and the Sheriff herself? Instead she scares Halle over and over until she finally gets the clue and breaks out of prison to figure out what this girl wants. The story is a bit like The 6th Sense now that I think about it. She sees dead people, and has the help them right the wrong that caused them to be killed.

Both Halle and Penelope Cruz do a pretty good job of playing crazy people, though Halle is a little irritating at times. She keeps saying she’s not crazy, but then she’s constantly acting like a crazy person! She freaks out, she’s violent, she goes into crying fits, etc. Admittedly she’s being haunted by a slashed up ghost girl, but still… If she wanted to appear sane, you would think she would be able to considering only a few days before she was the one diagnosing and treating these people.

It also would have been fun if there were more clues as to what actually happened, rather than them just springing it on you at the end. Most psychological thrillers give you clues at the beginning that make you go “oh yeah…” at the end of the movie, but for me, there wasn’t really any clues that I noticed. You just find out that this seemingly normal guy likes to lock up girls in his basement and torture them. But perhaps this was done so that we are as confused as Halle was about what could have happened, and why she would have killed her husband.

I also don’t get the ending… How is she all of the sudden released from prison? Demon Possession or no, she violently murdered her husband, attacked several guards, broke out of prison, then killed the sheriff! There were no witnesses to her killing the sheriff, and considering everyone thought she was crazy, why didn’t they assume that she murdered the sheriff, rather than killing him in self defense? And why was she alone with the sheriff anyway? Shouldn’t there be a guard or at least some other personnel in a police station besides the sheriff and a prisoner? Where was the FBI that was supposed to be taking over the investigation? Had they just not arrived yet? Why was Chloe released from prison as well? She slit her step-father’s throat, and was then released from prison all of the sudden? Maybe her sentence just happened to be up. And I guess Halle could have got off with temporary insanity since she was possessed or whatever. So it sort of makes sense, but they never really explain anything for sure. Then they set you up for the sequel at the end by making her see another ghost of a kid that has been reported missing. Whoopty doo. I hope they leave the I’m-a-ghost-and-I-need-help type movies to M. Night Shyamalan in the future.

Rating: 3/5

yeah man…I thought this movie sucked. I’m sure catwoman will suck as well.

I thought this was the only good Halle Berry movie I’ve ever watched. There are very few movies of any kind that I really enjoy and can sit through the whole thing, this one wasn’t too gory like horror movies, but scary enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, adrinaline pumping, and wondering the whole time! I do agree that it doesn’t add up in the end when you think about it, how she got out of prison or why the ghost girl didn’t kill them herself…but it was still a good movie, I thought.