Stylistic and empty

Rating: 5/10 (25 February 2002)

Let me start off by saying _From Hell_ is not a bad film. It is stylistically very striking, and the Hughes Brothers have done a great job in getting London dirty in recreating Victorian times. The atmosphere, the characters (with the exception of the luminous Heather Graham, the cleanest whore in all of London!) are all consistent with a dank, dirty city. The murders are well shot, all the actors are hit their marks, and the film doesn't sensationalise the violence to a great extent.
But... having read the graphic novel the movie is based on, I was disappointed. Alan Moore's tale sought to humanize a group of people preyed upon by the Ripper while bringing some motivation to the Ripper murders. The murderer is known from the outset, and it is the character interplay and the metaphysics of the story that provide the fiction's flavour.
The Hughes Brothers have instead chose to make a whodunnit of the tale, and have cut out a lot of the story away. I could see the trails of the original narrative trailing throughout the movie, but that only left me disappointed when I saw other bits left out. Mr Moore's narrative would I have been very difficult to film, and would have lasted for hours. Even so, I felt more could have been done. In chaptering the style of _From Hell_, I feel the Hughes Brothers have left out the heart.
And I feel for those confused by the end of the movie. It makes some sense in the graphic novel, but really seems dropped out of nowhere in the film.
Overall, not a bad film, but it was unable to live up to the source material.