Oliver Stone and The Doors - A Match Made in Pretention Heaven

Rating: Null/10 (5 September 1999)

After four bombastic head-trips (the first of which, "Salvador" was quite good) director Oliver Stone found his match with The Doors as subject matter. In fact, I could not imagine any other director doing justice to the band, at least in spirit. The Doors, after all, wore their pretentions on their sleeves and featured a lead singer who represented just about every chemical and sexual excess imaginable.
This is not to say that the Doors were not a good band - for the most part they were downright great, especially when it came to the darker side of things. In this respect the movie is quite successful, welding together an impressive number of songs on the soundtrack and reenacting their outrageous concerts with grandeur and sweep. And Val Kilmer, who has since earned a reputation as Hollywood's biggest jerk, truly takes you inside the skin of the Lizard King.
Unfortunately, the film is pockmarked with scenes of domestic strife between Jim and the band, Jim and his two wives and Jim and his drunken cronies that are awfully histrionic - if not laughable. And except for the sequences showing Jim and the group in their rather brief climb to the top, Morrison is portrayed almost incessantly as a swaggering lush who treats
his friends and lovers as so much trash.
To anyone who's a fan of The Doors, I say see the film for the way it represents the band as a musical unit. But if you want a full-bodied (and accurate) portrayal of them as people, read a book.