This is probably the worst movie I've ever seen

Rating: 1/10 (15 December 1998)

Dear Ari: I appreciate that you are only 14 and that you haven't seen very many movies, and that the issues raised (exploited is more like it) by "X" moved you on a personal level. But please, please, please, see some more films, especially from Hollywood in the the '30s and '40s and Europe and Japan in the '50s and '60s, and then go back and give this thing another try. Norton gives it all he's got -- which is about three different performances, all against actors who aren't on his wavelength -- but the film is TERRIBLE on a craft level, full of overblown camera work, corny musical cues, and badly edited sequences. I'm not talking about the script, which even Kaye said he hated, or the content, which is volatile, but the movie as art unto itself. There is so much more that cinema can do, and this shockem-sockem item, designed for MTV addicts, is operating on a very low level -- even if that's where a lot of people respond to it. Seriously, get a DVD or tape of "The Seven Samurai" and then see how "History" looks.