Ugh

Rating: 2/10 (15 August 2002)

I recognize that I'm definitely in the minority here, but I thought this movie was terrible. It's pretty rare that I shut a movie off, but I didn't think that this one was worth my time.
To me, the movie's pace seemed to be at cross purposes with its subject. There seemed to be more frolicking than terror. It just rapidly leaped from sequence to sequence, maintaining a very light-hearted feel the entire time. There was far too much romping for me to feel any suspense, and the only horror that the story was capable of producing came from its God-awful quality.
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Let's see here...there's an investigator whose new methods are contrary to his superiors. He's a person that has lots of fun little gadgets of his own design. His mother died because she was wrongly accused. Is there anything even remotely resembling originality here? Not even Depp could rescue this cardboard character. And I will grant that there was an original treatment of the actual legend by going with crime investigation, but this was also terrible. The investigation seemed to move forward by very, very thin strands of logic that struck me as ridiculous. Finally, this movie has a love story even worse than the one in Pearl Harbor. Depp and Ricci meet, and by the third scene together they are in love for no apparent reason.
I'm not particularly familiar with Tim Burton, but between this and the disgusting remake of Planet of the Apes, I don't think I want to. The story is ludicrous, the characters shallow pieces of trash, and the mood right out of a Ren and Stimpy cartoon. I have nothing against Ren and Stimpy, but that's because they weren't trying to be scary.
This one was too busy trying to be hip to be any good. 2/10