It's a pity ...

Rating: 7/10 (10 March 2002)

I couldn't get myself to like "From Hell" entirely. Unfortunately the story isn't as gripping as I thought it would be. I mean, hey, this is a JACK THE RIPPER story! A *mystery* unsolved since the 1880s ... Visually the film is great, the performances are great either but somehow I expected more, more, more ... I don't know what. More suspense? More dark alleyways and shadows? More hints instead of explanations? More mystery for the mind to digest? But this film gave me no puzzle, no riddles to solve, no heated discussions at the end about some details that just can't be explained ... But then again it was good fun to watch, it just shouldn't have been so clear and stylised and ... simple. Maybe I knew too much about the story beforehand.
---MAJOR SPOILER! DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE FILM!--- You can't expect a film to be true to the facts but anybody who is interested in the real facts knows that the theory about Dr Gull being Jack the Ripper doesn't hold up (I was surprised to see that Donald Rubelow, author of a great book on the real Jack, was involved in the making of the film if you believe the credits--he must have told the Hughes that the theory was nonsense).