whats the matter with Bilbo?

Rating: Null/10 (18 February 2002)

Recently I read an interview with the Hughes brothers in a Sunday supplement, which described their disadvantaged childhood and how they triumphed eventually thanks to their incredibly supportive mother. (For example: they were bought only 2 pairs of trousers per year yet when she found out they were interested in film-making, she bought them $500 worth of video equipment.) Also I have read the graphic novel this year and was suitably blown away by it's passion for the subject, it's imagination and it's intricate form-reinventing structure.
So despite the horrendous trailers ("If you think you know evil, you don't know Jack ")and casting of Hollywood stars who look like everything thats ever passed their lips has been molecularly examined, as downtrodden 'unfortunates', I went along to 'From Hell' expecting something special.
Instead it lived up to the trailers, being a sub mediocre thriller tacked onto Romantic Storyline No.63, with overblown visuals in the style of Francis Ford Copella's 'Dracula', that could have been directed by any of a thousand Hollywood hacks. And it's not even fun.