Morrison Hotel!

Rating: 5/10 (17 April 2019)

The film's called The Doors, but it's most definitely not about The Doors. The Doors were a band that have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Around the late 60's/1970 they were also frequently lauded as being one of the most exciting live acts in the world. If you're looking for a film to give you an inkling about such a band's history, this again, is not it.
What this is, is an almost two and a half hour attempt by Oliver Stone to get inside lead singer Jim Morrison's head. Predictably to any one who knows anything about Morrison (and Stone), we get plenty of sex, drugs (including alcohol), but surprisingly not a great deal of rock 'n roll for a movie of this nature. Supposedly based on John Densmore's memoire Riders on the Storm, the film ends with a footnote thanking the surviving Doors members for their cooperation. However since its release, the Doors have criticised the film, as not truly being representative of the group nor Morrison himself.
With good reason I should think. We know Morrison lived life to excess to such an extent that he died prematurely aged only 27, but do we really need the vast majority of the movie's running time to focus on that way too excessive lifestyle? We get the message very clearly early on. There's virtually no screen time focusing on the recording success of the first American band to have 8 consecutive gold records and sell over 100 million albums world-wide. The other three band members are given no back-stories and subsequently have no more than a shadowy impact in the story. I guess it is pretty difficult, when the Morrison character is almost in every scene. This is to take nothing away from Val Kilmer's wonderful performance as Jim Morrison. Besides looking incredibly like him, he does sound much the same too. Meg Ryan pops up intermittently as Morrison's (main) girlfriend (later wife) Pam, but she is given very little with which to work too. She either seems to. be in bed with Morrison or throwing things at him, just about in equal measure.
Again with live performances, Stone just seems to concentrate on the controversial, headline attracting elements. The film is a bare cupboard in terms of providing evidence of the band's electric reputation as a live act.
The end when it comes, rather ironically, comes very quickly. We hear a little of the group's final (very successful) album LA Woman haphazardly, as Jim attends a suburban party with the band, where he tells them he's going to Paris. Next thing we see is his Parisian grave ... The End! There is just no consistent balance to the narrative at all and in a film of this length, it really stands out.
Bohemian Rhapsody tells a similar story as The Doors, but just does it so much better. It also primarily focuses on Queen's lead singer Freddy Mercury, who like Morrison lived a way too hedonistic lifestyle, also dying prematurely. But we do get a greater collective sense of the band itself and a very welcome focus on their music and live performances, which Oliver Stone's The Doors seems to completely forget about, to its detriment.