Wow! Amazingly terrible! Zoinks!

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2002)

I can't believe that this movie was as bad as it was. Quite a feat, really. I knew it wouldn't be so hot, but with a film this big, you've got to see it or you're out of the loop for the month it's soup du jour. Mainly, the screenplay fell completely flat, suffering from the exact same trevails as Koepp's "Panic Room" (not real long-running plot, simple little scenes with no development, concepts, ideas, and "important facts" are mentioned then never dealt with again, no rise/fall in tension overall, and the horrendous "sense of humor" that is basically just a facade for his own knowledge of how bad his writing is by making fun of himself, the movie, and the dialogue while it's happening). Raimi's magical visual style is cluttered by the video-game special effects, which start in the very beginning with one of the most amateur looking credit sequences (stolen nicely basically from "X-Men," much like most of the rest of the movie, be it the "Batman" score, the "Batman Returns" end fight scene, and numerous homages to "Superman," enough to the point that one wonders how much was a joke and how much was them just saving their own ass) I've seen since, well, again, "Panic Room." The acting bordered on just plain awful for pretty much everyone, but it was so difficult to tell what was supposed to be "funny" because of how melodramatic everything was or what was just not done correctly. In the end, a huge mess with a frustrating feel. Even the action sequences and entertaining moments weren't so entertaining. Raimi should stick to his two forte's: slow character pieces or parodying action-adventures (which, this could have been had there been a better screenplay) and Koepp needs to go teach a "how to write a formulaic, basic, and easily sellable screenplay" class in film school.