When Oliver Stone goes to hell Jim Morrison is gonna be waiting for him ready to kick his head in.

Rating: 1/10 (7 February 2000)

I cannot put into words just how appalling this film is from the point of view of a lifelong Jim Morrison/Doors fan.
Firstly, after seeing the movie in full (I walked out of the cinema the first time I went to see it), I amazed as to how Ray M and John D had gotten involved in the movie when they themselves could see how fictional it was. But then again, Ray and John were always Judas's to Jim in life so why not in death....even their versions of history have been bent to paint themselves in a less heartless light in my opinion.
Val Kilmer...what can I say. The man is wooden at the best of times and he was diabolical as Jim. If you have to make a movie then Jason Patric would have made a FANTASTIC Jim.
Oliver Stone, known for portraying history in Stoneworld Vision, came at this subject from a sensational and almost entirely incorrect angle. As someone who knows a hell of a lot about the history of The Doors I can categorically say that 80% of this film was fiction, 15% was a grossly distorted version of true events and the other 5% was to some extent true. I also hate the way Stone makes composites of characters.
I think this could be justified by some people if it was actually a good film anyway but it just wasnt. I never felt for a second I was in the 60's, terrible wigs/false beards, the wardrobe was consistently poor, the script was dire, terrible casting (in particular Kevin Dillon, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer and what the hell was Billy Idol there for?) and the overall feel of the movie was all wrong.
However, Stone did pull some nice shots off from a cinematography point of view and there were some good choices of location. The score was obviously good (except when Val tried to sing) but that was to be expected surely.

He got the characters wrong, he got history TOTALLY wrong and he tried to ruin the memory of an intelligent man. He was only ever going to film Jim as The Lizard King but he didn't even get that bit right; Doors fans should know what I mean by that.
I hate this movie passionatly and could tolerate it if I thought it would help gain new fans of the music but I don't think it does.
If you want the real Jim Morrison/Doors then your best bet is to go read a book like Angels Dance and Angels Die or No-One Here Gets Out Alive (as flawed as that is).
Jim had a sense of humour but I bet it would be sorely tested by this pretentious, self serviant piece of fiction that dares to claim it is a rock documentary. I can only hope that when Stone meets Morrison in the next world Jim isn't too drunk to knock him out.