As dreary and drab as the band itself

Rating: 3/10 (21 June 1999)

When the opening credits rolled at the theater where I saw this movie, someone in the audience yelled, "Dude, crank it up!" He must have been disappointed when it was all over. Alas, "The Doors" is no party movie, and it is indeed the guest that will never leave.
As he showed in "Platoon" and to a lesser extent "Born On the Fourth of July," Oliver Stone is a capable storyteller, but the problem here is with what he has to work with -- the pop career of a pretentious singer/poet/warlord and his three mediocre comrades. Let's face it: The Doors had one real moment of creativity ("The End") and that's not really enough to make an entire movie out of. So Stone resorts to ugly globs of surrealistic flashbacks and foreshadows.
Do yourself a favor and rent "Apocalypse Now," enjoy Coppola's use of "The End" and forget about this misguided biopic.