empathielabs/imbd_dataset_v0 huggingface dataset:
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Really? Is this necessary? How can somebody make such a film? Disgusting!!! Seteven Seagal with funny hair and fat like an elephant. Stunts all the time, cars persecutions with an annoying soundtrack. Not to mention the Ending. Completely nonsense with the presence of the little girl.
Steven Seagal wants to be Robin Hood!!! Well, at the beginning a fortune teller answers something, nobody has asked. Seagal's wife has nightmares and she can see the future. They must be kidding. Steven Segal passes out after a car persecution, and I know he can't act. It was terrible. Nothing can save that film.
I lost 90 minutes of my life! See you


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The film quickly gets to a major chase scene with ever increasing destruction. The first really bad thing is the guy hijacking Steven Seagal would have been beaten to pulp by Seagal's driving, but that probably would have ended the whole premise for the movie.
It seems like they decided to make all kinds of changes in the movie plot, so just plan to enjoy the action, and do not expect a coherent plot. Turn any sense of logic you may have, it will reduce your chance of getting a headache.
I does give me some hope that Steven Seagal is trying to move back towards the type of characters he portrayed in his more popular movies.


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What a crap that movie is. The script is simply non existent. The movie at times seems like a music video. But it cannot even be that since the soundtrack does not really match. Pathetic way of combining action and rap. One might think it being a recipe for a successful flick... here it fails miserably. Dialogues in this flick just killed me. The scene when Harlan is interrogated by some policeman is merely pitiful. Generally speaking, recent Seagals films are hardly watchable. What the hell happened to the guy? I know he's old but can't he get "Hollywood" to drop him a decent script or something? Is he running out of dough for his escapades to India that he takes on anything they serve him?


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Honestly, this is a very funny movie if you are looking for bad acting (Heather Graham could never live this down... it has three titles for a reason- to protect the guilty!), beautifully bad dialog ("Do you like... ribs?"), and a plot only a mother could approve, this is your Friday night entertainment!
My roommate rented this under the title "Terrified" because he liked Heather Graham, but terrified is what we felt after the final credits. Not because the movie is scary, but because somebody actually paid money to make this turd on a movie reel.
Horrible movie. There are a few no-name actors that provide some unintentional comedy, but nothing worth viewing. Heather Graham's dramatic climax also was one of the most pathetic and disturbing things I have ever witnessed. I award this movie no point, and may God have mercy on its soul.


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I got hold of this film on DVD with the title Evil Never Sleeps, it gives front cover billing to Carrie Ann Moss, but she plays such a minor character that I didn't really notice her in the film.
I'm afraid that I consider this one of the worst purchases I have ever made. The dialogue was stilted and the delivery wooden, I found the acting to be disconnected from the plot. Graham's performance to me was of someone who's wondering whether she's left the gas on at home.
All in all both my wife and I found this film painful to watch, and it is not a valuable addition to my collection, watch it at your peril, but spending 90 minutes having your fingernails pulled out would probably be a better way to spend your time.


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I was looking through TV Guide last night and saw a movie starring Heather Grahm on, who I liked in movies like Boogie Nights, and Austin Powers, so I decided to watch it. It started out ok, but you could tell the story was lacking, and at about half way through, it started to deteriorate. I do not remember this movie being in the theaters, and I'm sure if it was, it wasn't there long. The acting was stale and unconvincing, the dialogue was silly and predictable, and the story was confusing and stupid. Definately one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I like movies like the ones this has been compared to like Fight Club, but this one doesn't come close!! Heather Grahm has done much better things since. I gave it a 2 out of 10 but thats because I clicked on the wrong number, I meant to give it a 1.


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This film has it's heart in the right place, but unfortunately, it isn't much of a film. It is more of a documentary under the guise of a narrative. Bamako is basically a newspaper op-ed piece put on celluloid. However, your average well-researched op-ed piece is far more cogent and concise than anything presented here. The filmmaker is trying to relay to the viewer the hardships of African life, in particular the country of Mali, due to the unethical practices of the IMF, G8, and World Bank, by using the setting of a mock trial against the aforementioned. There is an extra 10 minutes dispersed throughout the film that makes a half-hearted attempt at a narrative plot, and a bizarre Hollywood Western-style shootout scene, where the director seems quite pleased with his own cleverness (hence, the frequent Godard comparisons).
Of course, as the film begins, what and who is on trial is never explained, but as we know by now, the French refuse to spoon-feed their audience.
There are many impassioned arguments made, but they are often long-winded, delivered in a shrill monotone (one that becomes quite easy to tune out after awhile), and very light on specifics. The last point is the most frustrating of all since there is a very well-reasoned specific case to be made against the institutions on trial here. Unfortunately, all we get in 2 hours is that the IMF and G8 are evil oppressors and should forgive 3rd-World debt. We are given no more than the occasional hint to the specific reasons why the organizations on trial are guilty, but never a clear case. The mock-trial arguments and the footage of the surrounding village makes the suffering of these African residents clear, but one wonders why we must sit through 2 hours of it, when a far more precise picture could be painted in a 20-minute Newsweek article, or Bill Moyers episode. In the end, there is something very important to be said on this issue, it simply isn't presented very well, or very clearly, in this pretentious, indulgent piece.


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Abderrahmane Sissako may have known what he was doing when he made "Bamako," but the rest of us can just sit back in mystification and confusion trying to figure out what that purpose might have been.
The nominal "plot" involves a young African singer who's planning on leaving her unemployed husband to find work in the city. But far more of the screen time is taken up with what the publicists for the film describe as "a mock trial against key financial institutions" dealing "with the overwhelming economic hardships of Africa." That's all well and good, I suppose, but when the arguments and ideas are put forth in as undramatic and pedantic a way as they are here, they lose both force and impact. Put another way, if the director had found the means to actually incorporate issues such as the injurious effect of colonialism on the African people and the problem of African debt into anything even remotely resembling a compelling storyline, the film might have achieved the intellectual and emotional resonance it now so clearly lacks.
The topics the movie is dealing with may be relevant and important, but trying to pass off what amounts to two hours worth of speechifying as an actual, honest-to-God movie is not likely to garner much of an audience for one's message.


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Endless repetition about the evil World Bank, IMF, Globalization, and the Americans are blamed for all of Africa's problemsand the movie is long, about two hours, but it seems longer. The French actually occupied Mali, the country in which the movie takes place, for centuries, but are only peripheral bad guys.
One doesn't learn enough about any of the characters to really care what's happening to themthey are completely marginal to the preaching, which goes on and on and on. There's no plot, no character development, no humor (except for a few pokes at Bush and Wolfowitz, but that's almost cheating it's so easy) and the production values are mediocreno redemption there.
It is amazing that a movie can spend two hours preaching about such a big topic and convey utterly zero real information. The Irish ballad "I was dying, and then the famine came" has more content.
The movie is boring, the sub-titles are tough to read, there is no real content about the subject of the film, and the propaganda is relentless.
Skip this one.


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If this film won the Lumiere Award for Best French-Language Film, then what kind of garbage is coming out of France these days??
The subject matter is an important one -- how the African economies are kept as economic hostages by the international organizations that are supposed to be helping them, namely the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. About 40% of the governmental budgets of several African nations go to payment of Western debt, while their people suffer from disease, dehydration and illiteracy.
... but the subject matter was treated in the most dry manner that could be conceived by man -- dryer than the Sahara that surrounds the country of Mali in which this film takes place. More monotone and action-lacking than any documentary I've ever seen (and I'm a fan of the genre), one "witness" after another comes forward in this "trial" that is "captured" on film that condemns the World Bank & IMF. Some critics may site the colorful visual asides within the film, but they were out of place and had no complementary soundtrack when they were on the screen. They belonged better in a coffee table book than in this film.
Even the characters in the film say something like "This trial is boring" and "When will it be over?" Everyone in the theater laughed. Were those people on the screen reading our minds??
Danny Glover had a brief appearance in this film. It is a televised movie within "Bamako" and it was set within Morocco or Mali. It was also more ridiculous than any spaghetti-Western I've ever tried to avoid. The only redeeming part of these five wasted minutes was where a Caucasian bad guy accidentally shoots an African woman carrying a baby and shows no remorse whatsoever. Perhaps it was to symbolize the insensitivity of the World Bank and how it is unintentionally killing Africans.
And one last technical parting shot, the subtitles were difficult to read with so much light colors on the screen and not enough black outline to the subtitles themselves.
I've already summarized the movie for you. Don't be fooled by the hype. No need to see this film. You'll never get these two hours back in your life.


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Flockhart's performance is very disappointing. It seems she is trying to make up for her lack of emotion by substituting obscenities. Why the R rating includes 'sexuality' is beyond me. There is no nudity or steamy love scenes. The plot is old and tired.


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Another movie from Swedish hillbilly country, which is always the Northern part. If black people were shown this way, there would be shouts about racism and for good reasons.
This is a farce and you are supposed to laugh at the "clever" farce clichés. But it's mostly tiresome. A gangster comedy, with the bad Russians (as always) and the bad (and stupid) Finns. And most stupid of all is of course the Norwegian, according to Stockholm prejudice.
Andreas Wilson is the only one who tries to make a performance reminding us of reality. This is not funny. This is not even exciting. A burlesque too raw to make you interested in any way.


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Although I rarely agree with filmkrönikan, I have to say that this film while not awful, just didn't make me care at all... and it all just seemed to be out of place... it had its moments... three or four ones that made me snicker... but most of the time I was just sitting and wondering why? why did the characters do this? even Hot Shots characters felt more thought out and fleshed out...
If you want to see a nice norrlands-film then watch Pistvakt. There it was more than random ethnicities that just walked around shooting each other on the Swedish tundra...
I am so disappointed...


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My only reason registering to this site was for the opportunity to write a comment to this movie. I felt that I had to get rid of some of my anger by writing it off me.
The movie "Babas bilar" must be just about the worst film I ever seen. I really do believe that the script may have seen to been able to become a pretty good movie or at least OK, but somewhere on the line something happened. What makes it even more odd is the fact that the cast appears to be quite alright on paper. Put to practice both script and the cast fails to deliver. There are to much action, it happens to much things and you can't help wonder why it happens. And then the cast, the actors make such a poor effort that you almost start to cry.
If you have to much time at hand I would say you can see it. If not - don't.


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Hey, I know Angel isn't the kind of show that gives people a happy ending, and I know they couldn't just make everything perfect, but I couldn't believe the ending to Angel. I absolutely love the show, it's possibly the best show ever. However, I really hated this ending, as well as the whole way the 2nd half of Angel season 5 went (similar to Buffy season 7). My favorite characters deaths were pretty much pointless and did nothing for the plot. Cordelia was one of the best characters on the show, and once she and Angel were finally going to get together she turned all evil and into a demon. I wanted so badly to have her back, don't get me wrong the episode where Cordelia comes back is fantastic, but I was still really mad she was gone. Then on earth was up with Fred dying, right after she finally got with Wesley? There was no sacrifice, it was pointless, it did nothing whatsoever for the plot, and blue haired demon girl is an awful, useless character. They spent way too much of the end centered around her. Another big problem is they didn't connect the elements well enough. I know those dudes in that black thorn wanted to bring about the apocalypse, but there wasn't even a date set for when it was supposed to happen. The apocalypse should have been carried out and discovered throughout the entire season, rather than just mentioning there are some evil dudes an hour before the season ends. One of the biggest problems is every character who the audience cares about is either dead or has nothing to live for. My three favorite characters died, and Angel, Spike, and Gunn (who I'm not sure even survives) have no office, aren't even back to their helping the helpless, are in the middle of a huge battle, and have lost everyone they care about. Angel and Spike are never redeemed, they lose the girl they care about, and just about everyone's dead, and they still have to fight this weird evil army. I get the whole you never stop fighting, but it was stupid to end it right in the middle. Couldn't there have been some redemption, with knowledge that there would always be many more battles to come. I don't get why this episode is so highly rated, because I think the Buffy ending was 10 times better, and I wasn't even a giant fan of that one. Why did they have to slip at the end, season 3 and 4 and 1st half of five were so amazing, then they went and messed up the show.


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I was a fan of Buffy and hoped it would come to a proper end when Angel got only one more season. But when the end came closer I was exited to see that. And what did we get? This episode called "NOT FADE AWAY" was the very last one.
I was so disappointed by this episode. This is absolutely the worst way to this series. Why couldn't it get a happy ending? Why did have a few of the main characters to die? Why did Angel not become a human and was reunited with Buffy again? No. Angel has to sign this bloddy piece of paper that he'll never become a human. How stupid.
And the end is a cliffhanger.
What could have been worse? The Buffyshow began so great, such as Angel, but the hole Universe ended so crappy. Somebody should put a spell on the man who wrote the screenplay to this episode and make sure he get's lost in hell.
So don't bother watching this, it's so bad, it hurts! Totally 1 out of 10.


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Any fan of Russian cinema will have great difficulty in believing the sub-par performances phoned-in by Mashkov and Bodrov Jr., and will perhaps be utterly perplexed by Bodrov Sr.'s hackneyed and confusing script, which is coupled with uncharacteristically weak direction. Most of the characters wander through the movie as though they have no idea who they are or what they are doing. It is also sad to see that Jennifer Jason Leigh's acting skills have not advanced one iota since FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, and her screen exposure is mercifully limited. This is a terrible mafia movie; so much so that it makes the GODFATHER III look like a winner in the genre. To see the key Russians at their best, check out Bodrov Sr.'s work on PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS (which also features Jr.), Mashkov's turn in VOR (THE THIEF), and Bodrov Jr.'s new criminal in BRAT.


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This movie came very close to being a good flick. The direction needs to be a bit smoother to progress from one piece to the next to make it more plausible. In particular: The main character's need to escape is not explicit enough. Is he trying to kill himself? Is he trying to escape? His life does not seem to be that bad, so it makes it more difficult to swallow that he wants to leave his life so much. Also, it is not very clear how much "in love" he has fallen with Jennifer Jason L. If the movie was reworked with some more attention to these details, it would have been Great. On the other hand, for an indy flick, it's pretty good! Maybe if you have a couple of drinks, to dull the logical thinking, it would be more fun...



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I wanted to see this movie because I liked "Kavkazskij Plennik" ("Prisoner of the Mountains") and "Brat" ("Brother") with Sergey Bodrov, Jr. and "Vor" ("The Thief") with Vladimir Mashkov. Well, unlike the other movies, "The Quickie" was a total waste of time. The story that makes little sense, very uneven acting (Lesley Ann Warren was especially bad), really awful dialogs, poor cinematography, what else could go wrong? I find it amusing that in practically every American-made movie, when the same-language-speaking foreigners (Russians in this case) are left alone, they prefer to communicate with each other mostly in broken English (and when they happen to speak Russian, for some reason translators feel obligated to add a lot of "f**ks" in the sentences, which have no profanity, literal or non-literal). At the same time, native-English-speaking actors choose to speak in broken Russian. Why is that? Getting back to the story, most of the subplots of the movie (e.g. betting the house, inviting Latin American paramilitaries, etc) either make no sense or do nothing more than confusing the viewers. It is too bad that Bodrov, Mashkov, and Leigh (all good actors in my humble opinion) got themselves involved in this disaster.


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THE QUICKIE (1 outta 5 stars)
Pretty poor movie... an old-as-the-hills story about a high-ranking gangster who wants to quit, passing on his empire to his inept son. Of course, it's not going to be easy for someone in that line or work to just quit... so a contract is put out on his life. After throwing a big party an exterminator (Jennifer Jason Leigh, who I guess is *never* going to act in anything other than TV movies or low budget direct-to-video trash ever again) is called to the scene. Our "hero" makes a pass at her... offering her big money for a "quickie"... she turns down his offer, even though she needs the money... but winds up staying overnight anyway... even after being brutally harassed by the overzealous son who thinks she was sent to kill his father. Ugh. The story just goes on and on... you can see every "twist" and "turn" coming a mile away. Weird soundtrack by some group called "The Tiger Lillies" will drive most people nuts... but I thought there was one kind of cool track towards the end. Or maybe I was just excited because I could tell that the movie was almost over? Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer... what the hell happened to you?


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"The Quickie" tells of a decadent Russian mob family who lives in Malibu and...well, frankly, this awful attempt at drama isn't worthy of commentary.
Jason Leigh introduces herself to Mr. Mob-guy as being from "Pacific Exterminators" with huge letters in plain sight on her back which say "West Coast Exterminators". Eventually the mob-guys get suspicious because she was exterminating in a bedroom. (duh).
In another scene Mr. Mobguy plays Russian roulette giving a hooker $4000 to bet whether he'll live or die. She has 5 chances out of 6 of keeping the money if she bets "live". Well, she bets "die". (double duh) Later she complains it wasn't fair and wants to play again. (Triple duh).
The list of flaws just goes on and on while this intelligence insulting film stinks and sinks in a quagmire of lousy music, mediocre camera work, poor direction, boring story, etc. Pass on this loser. (D)
Note - The barebones DVD which I rented had no English same language subtitles or closed captions.


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This flick is so bad its beyond belief.Even for an independent low budget film...it just, well, sucks.I can't even believe even Troma would put out such crap.I have been a fan of some Troma flicks for years(Toxic Avenger,Squeeze Play,Rockabilly Vampire to name a few).But LLoyd, come on,this goes way beyond the boundaries of any taste.It features some of the worst acting imaginable.I think it would have been possible to find unemployed street people who could have been as good...oh,wait, that is what they did.I mean it,these characters have negative charisma.With any luck, the producer and director of this film will have a huge karmic debt because of this atrocity.As will the special effects people.But beyond the terrible acting and the horrid special effects,the dialogue is absolutely traumatic to the ears.The script is full of plot holes the size of Alaska, and there are severe continuity problems.The worst part however, is that it not entertaining in even the smallest way.And this is the most unforgivable sin in film making.But, don't take my word for it.Go out and waste four bucks renting it.Just don't say I didn't warn you.


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I vowed some time ago to never get another Joe Castro film (perhaps after "Near Death") but I sort of ended up with this one by accident, since it was a Troma release & I didn't read the cover carefully. Oops. Well, I watched it, and it's by no means good, but it's, I guess, sort of "tongue in cheek"....if it's not, it sure seemed that way. Some intrepid folks from the University of the Rio Grande set out to find if the Chupacabra exists, because of surveillance camera footage from someone's GOAT BARN that shows this weird thing hopping across the field of vision. And also because the person that this thing supposedly killed was the uncle of the leader of the expedition. There's a couple of camera men, one of whom whines the whole time, and there some ex-Marine named "Army" (?!), who is some kind of munitions expert or something. At any rate, the do find the Chupacabra on some guy's ranch & set out to find it, getting involved with two supposed witches along the way. The creature itself is rather ridiculous-looking, with spines on its back & a great big long tongue that Gene Simmons would die for. Eventually, after a bunch of folks done get killed, so does the Chupacabra, and they take it back to the university for an autopsy. So, is it from another planet? Is it a genetic creation from some lab in Puerto Rico? Uh, they don't tell us, really. Not exactly intriguing but not quite terrible either. Definitely not a wide audience for this one. 4 out of 10.


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The chupacabra, according to this mockumentary, is a mysterious
creature that has been killing and eating Hispanic goats in Latin
America and Mexico for years. One has crossed the border into
southern Texas, and a cute, intrepid cryptozoologist (no, I did not
make up that word) go to an isolated ranch to find one. Her uncle
was killed by the creature, and some grainy video footage of the
monster exists. She takes a badass black guy with a gun and two
cameramen (for easy-to-edit coverage), and they go ahuntin' for
chupacabras. Ten minutes into the film, they find it.
The rest of the film has the team of documentarians getting
attacked by the bloodthirsty monster, and stilted dialogue. At one
point, the team runs into a couple of hottie witches who lead them
to the chupacabra's nest...for $100. If only the FBI knew about how
cheaply Tex-Mex witches could be bought as informants. Whole
decades of mythical beast reports could be cleared up with a
blank check.
In the end, after the bloody deaths of characters you don't give a
goat's patoot about, a chupacabra is captured, killed, and
autopsied. The only point of the autopsy scene is to highlight the
makeup department's efforts in such a cheap film.
The film is shot on video, just like "BWP," yet the cameraman
characters never reload their tapes or recharge their camera
batteries. The lead actress here is awful. The beauty of the
average "BWP" was its use of improvisation during the production.
Here, all the lines are written, and are delivered like a poorly
rehearsed Christmas pageant.
The film is tinged with racism, as well. The only African-American
here is a loudmouthed gun nut. At one point, as the crew breaks
into an abandoned house, they find a trio of illegal immigrants who
comically ask them if they are from the INS. Chortle, chortle.
The monster itself is a guy in a rubber suit, and nothing more. For
such a lumbering and awkward beast, he is able to sneak up on
the cast pretty quietly, whether they have idiotically locked
themselves in a giant cage as bait, or cannot seem to get their
only vehicle started.
The gore is gruesome, but when surrounded by this kind of
stupidity, it loses all of its effectiveness. I do not know if this was
shot before or after "BWP," but I can honestly say this is the worst
film ever made in southern Texas about a mythical beast. Pray
there are not any sequels, I will start a letter writing campaign to
Troma.
This is rated (R) for strong physical violence, gun violence, strong
gore, and profanity.



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We rented the movie and it maybe the worst movie ever. The box they had in the video store had a cool looking monster on the cover but in reality the monster was a creature from the black lagoon mask. Awful, awful, awful...you actually might have to rent it it's so bad. It feels like you are watching a bizzare-o home movie.


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This movie had very little good points, the special effects and acting was horrible for sure. But it was a movie made on a low budget so you dont expect much from it, it does have some laughs (I doubt they are intended though :) ). The scene where the old woman bends down and touches dung that was on the floor, then puts it to her nose and goes CHUPACABRA! in a really stupid raspy voice was priceless. All in all if you have nothing else to watch and just want to laugh at a really crappy flick trying to cash in on the Blair Witch Project's success, then grab it other then that dont bother.


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I did here this movie was good from various people. Plus I do like Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem as well as the director Milos Forman. Yet after watching this movie I really had nothing to admire about it.
First off the acting was very much below average. The performances were just not powerful enough to really feel shocked by what the inquisition did. Javier Bardem did give a solid performance and was probably the only one who actually had as Spanish accent. It is pretty obvious why this Bardem was the only one. Natalie Portman, who I think is a very good up and coming actress did not really make me feel sorry for her being tortured. Like the movie there was nothing to admire about her performance. Stellan Skarsgaard who I do like gave a very average performance, like the other actors giving a boring performance. This movie was essentially about him since he plays Goya. Yet he did not become what he needed to be to make this movie good. What about Randy Quaid? You have just got to be kidding me. Him playing King Carlos IV. Look he is great in comedies but him playing a King that just describes the whole movie for you.
The directing was just horrible in this movie. When a movie is a mess there are usually two people to blame for that: the director and the writer. I get the feeling that Milos Forman really didn't want his actors to put a Spanish accent on. From the very few battle scenes in here they were all displayed horribly. Also as a director he needs to give you the feeling of shock of what the inquisition did. After this movie I felt like I could careless about the event. To sum it all up he poorly shot the scenes and misguided the actors.
The writing which was also done by Milos Forman was just as bad or maybe even worse than the directing. There really was nothing memorable of the movie except for one seen where Bardem does get the same treatment that Portman's character has gotten. Other then that the movie did not give you the feeling of the time period and at least it could have made up for it with a quote or two.
After finishing this movie I was just looking at the T.V. thinking OK why should I care about any of this. I do care and are very much interested in history but when movies like this come up it feels like the producers robbed you of something good that could have been taken away from the movie. When movies are this bad we highlight a lot of the technical faults in a movie than if it was good. Like the accents. I'm not sure people would have emphasized the lack of Spanish accents if this movie was good.
Thw whole point of this review is to say just don't watch it.


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Perhaps I missed something, but I found GOYA'S GHOSTS to be a tedious costume melodrama. As to the story it was trying to tell, I found that a confusing mish-mash that went off in all directions. And perhaps it should have been made by a Spanish director with the appropriate languages subtitled rather than in unconvincingly accented English. I can't judge the historical veracity of the story but it seemed to move along with a similar "artist's model's tragic fate" plot line as GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. Was the movie a commentary on the religious injustices of the Inquisition, false piety, torture then and now, or what???? I never seemed to be able to figure that one out. Natalie Portman's various characters also seemed ridiculously stereotypical. And ultimately the movie was crowned with the concluding melodrama of a disheveled Bardem's head and body hanging on the edge of cart heading off into the sunsetwith Ines and Goya following along behindCan't Milos Forman do better than that?


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then the second half of this movie is hard to follow. I got the first part with the Spanish Inquistion, but the film skipped many years forward with the French ruling Spain. The movie does little to fill you in on what happened, and I don't remember much about it. So, the movie gets confusing then. The movie begins when Ines, daughter of a rich merchant, is accused of Judiasm by the church, specifically Father Lorenzo. She is put to the Question and forced to confess. Even her family's wealth can not buy her out of prison. Her father forces Lorenzo to sign a confession saying he is the offspring of a chimp, in hopes of getting Ines released. All it does is give a reason for the church to condemn Lorenzo, who runs off to France.
Then, the movie skips many years, and the French Revolution is in full force. Ines is released from prison. It was very good make up work to make Natalie Portman look that tore up. She finds her family dead and seeks Goya for her help. She tells him she had a child in prison. Goya sets up a meeting between her and Lorenzo, whom is now with the French and in power. He is the father. Goya sees the daughter and tells Lorenzo, whom decides it's best to send her off to America, so no one will find out. But before his plans get carried out, the British join the Spainish, and Spain reclaims power and he is now the persecuted. That part is not well told in the film. It's like the film shows this to happen in a day.
FINAL VERDICT: The movie is good until it skips many years in time after the Inquistion, then the movie expects you to understand what is going on. It just got too confusing to me then.


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I had this DVD to watch, thinking that I would see a type of biography o painter Goya, but the movie was about everything but Goya. This movie is about a young woman taken away from her family by the Holy Inquisition, allegedly because she practiced Jewish rituals (only because the poor girl did not like eating pork!). The rest of the movie is about torture, humiliation, driven by a poor script (can't believe it is by JC Carrière as I could not believe this cr** is directed by Mr Milos Forman) centered on a religious man and that young woman and that is all.
Ah, and there is Goya, I forgot, playing a completely peripheral role - that could be the role of John, Paul, Peter, Manuel, Joaquim, Jose or anyone. Very disappointing - one one these movies that will be forgotten for ever (if it has not had happened yet). Rent "The Name of the Rose" if you want a movie about the Holy Inquisition. And I don't know what you should rent, if you want to watch a movie about Spanish painter Goya. Maybe a director of a good caliber, not Forman, still needs to make it. PS: the Spanish painter, Goya - the title role who is lost in the plot - is portrayed by a Scandinavian actor, something that makes this film even more difficult to be taken seriously. Maybe next time we should send Javier Barden to play the biopic of Norwegian painter, Edvard Munch!


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Having watched this movie several times, I have come to the conclusion that Milos Forman made a very daring decision to manufacture a muse for Goya, when the artist led what most would consider a tempestuous,passionate life while the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era raged across Europe, surely one that would have sufficient drama upon which to draw. While I do understand that Mr. Forman was relating in the microcosm of the tragedy of Ines' life the devastation of the world at that time, I was left feeling that there was just so much of Goya left out, so much of his humanity. The strongest and most eloquent point this film made was that because of man's fallen nature each of us is a potential villain in the stream of life, each of us has evil within us that we must fight with the help of God. How eloquent when Goya says he should have helped Ines more, how true for all of us! We must defend and protect the innocent. The superbly ironic scene in which the once imprisoned priest sentenced to die pronounces the death sentence on Lorenzo who condemned him originally is the stuff of genius. I was left wanting something more when the credits rolled. Maybe less of the unreal coincidences, and more of the inner life of the characters.


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This isn't exactly a complicated story. It's not a mystery, or a plot you have to spend time re watching because you missed an intrinsic part of the dialog. Claiming a movie has to be seen multiple times for you 'to get it' may apply to a very few films, however this isn't one of them. Those type of movies have substance and are so involving it's easy to miss an important portion of dialog, or a subtle nuance to plot details you may have overlooked. With Goya's Ghosts this doesn't apply. The main flaw in this movie is an absence of detail. It jumps from one character to the next, never giving enough substance to any one set of scenes to allow the involvement of those watching. Because of that you don't connect with any of the characters. You don't get to the point where you care. Either the main actor is gone just as the movie seems it's going to redeem itself, or their actions are despicable and you're not inclined to anyway. Goya's refusal to go very far to help Ines is a good example. His refusal to commit himself further mirrors the overall tone of his part. The only characters you may momentarily feel for are Ines, when she's being questioned and then tortured. After her rape by Lorenzo any focus on her character is pretty much gone. Following that the only other in depth involvement comes from the best scenes in the movie centered around Lorenzo's invitation to supper with Ines' family, and her fathers all out attempt to force Lorenzo into signing a bogus confession and getting his daughter back. Then just as things start to be developing again, they're gone from the movie. I've read a lot of the comments here about how the movie didn't know what it wanted to be, etc. I found that basically it succeeded in not being much of anything. From Lorenzo's return and the coincidental viewing of Ines' daughter by Goya, everything seemed nothing more than contrived. Without much of a storyline, no effort to really examine the turbulent times they lived in took place. The essence of who Goya was didn't materialize, other than his actions, or lack thereof, proving him to be more self-centered than anything else. As for his art, the movie seemed intent on examining a few of the paintings he did but again frittered away another opportunity in examining the reactions to this work rather than the work itself. To sum things up best, the movie had no cohesion, it grossly lacked the substance to delve into the historical environment it covered, and upon ending, left you feeling like what you'd just seen was a series of aborted attempts to engage the viewer by switching from one thing to the next without adequately engaging the viewer in any of them. You can't watch something like this several times expecting it to improve with added examination. There's just not enough to it to waste the time. It's not a case of your missing out on something, it would just be more proof that the ingredients needed to make this movie good, just aren't there. As for best film ever made? It's not even the best film I've watched today.


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This film is just another waste of time. The plot is ridiculous, forced USA drama. The characters were all really weak, especially the uncharismatic Goya and the bad interpretation of Bardem, who only was alright in his classic interpretation, when acting as french ally.
Just another chance lost of have spent the money in a good film. I guess it was no a low budget film. Definitely not recommended. Maybe the director's should think a bit whether the film has sense or not before wasting so that money. Maybe they do not bother as they have profits before launching them in the cinema.
No more hope in cinema...


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I didn't even watch this whole movie. Now, I like 50's sci-fi movies even when they are wildly inaccurate but this one just annoyed me. For one thing, one member of the crew on the spaceship talks and acts like he might have made it into the tenth grade. He sounds like he ought to be on a bowling league, not a space ship. Out the window of the spaceship the crew is marveling at Earth and this boob says 'Can you see Brooklyn?' and another guy says 'Sure'. And the boob says 'Gee, I wonder who's pitching?' Pardon me a moment, I think my sides are splitting.
When they first get up into orbit the boob says 'The moon is just for looking at! Take me back down!' Watching the crew making stretched mouths and screaming from the G-forces of acceleration during takeoff is also not one of the better moments of the film. (Perhaps the film's best moment can be identified by a big "THE END" on the screen.)
We also find out that they can't open the hatch because 'the boob' greased it before they took off. Sure, a space vehicle is going to be 'greased' by a member of the crew, who we later learn has never even had a space suit on before and doesn't know anything about zero gravity. As Baby Huey the overgrown fat cartoon duck once said, "That sounds logical!" The no-gravity-in-space effects are so bad it's painful to watch. (Everyone knows, in the absence of gravity, everything tends to go UP.)
How this movie gets 6.3 stars out of 10, when other vastly superior films don't rate any higher, is a mystery to me. I really do like old sci-fi movies but this one is not realistic, and the lame attempts at character humor by throwing in that boob from a gas station grease pit does not work at all - it just ruins the movie. I think in retrospect it's not the whole movie I hate so much as the fact that 'the boob' is so obviously not someone who would be on a space ship - not even to 'grease the hatch.' OMG. I wonder if he checked the fan belts too. Maybe if they'd left 'the boob' off the trip it might not have been QUITE so excruciating. Even so, it's only average. What everyone else is raving about, I don't know.
You want to watch a neat 1950's space movie? 'Rocketship X-M' beats it all to heck. Maybe not so much 'realism' but a more serious story and less goofy characters.


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This movie may bear some historical importance, and it sure seems astonishing how well the facts are together, the setting, the rocket, the space suits, the surface of the moon, all scream "a classic" - but in the end, the result makes a pretty dull movie for todays eyes, and the 50ies tech scenes you might hope for in a movie like this are by far not enough to reward sitting through all the tacky dialog and predictable plot developments. The characters and plot may reward a scientific sociological analysis, but bear too little entertainment value many times.
Much of this movie seems like a good movie for nine-year-olds. The mature themes, the human drama and the violence are kept to a level suitale for children as well.
The images of the earth and the moon seen from space may actually be more accurate than the ones in "2001", but so what if their use is dramatically inefficient. Especially 2001 may seem like a stretched out meditation over themes of this movie, and, has Star Wars not somehow modelled it's space-scrolling opening titles on the opening titles of this Film? But then again - the inheritance is marginal.
If its a real groundbreaking and mega-influential mature 1950ies Sci-Fi classic you are looking for however, check out "Forbidden Planet".


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The actors are so bland that it's almost impossible to tell them apart (Pauline Kael said of this movie: "The actors have names, but they're truly anonymous"), and the special effects are really bad. They simulate weightlessness with people hanging on cables and by recycling the trick that let Fred Astaire dance on the ceiling in "Royal Wedding" (but none of these guys move well enough to make it look convincing).
The low point of the movie is when one of the characters, an airplane tycoon, is trying to convince some other "giants of industry" to come in with him in a moon-rocket consortium, and he shows them a Woody Woodpecker cartoon that explains how a rocket works at a 2nd grade level! (And to think that Robert Heinlein worked on the screenplay...)
The only plus is that the production design manages to communicate a sort of "Amazing Stories" sensibility, and even that is done much better in the producer's (George Pal) subsequent movie "When Worlds Collide", which has similar bad acting, but is much more entertaining. However, Pal's best sci-fi movie has to be "The Time Machine".


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