A new writing segment, "Ten Items or Less" is an attempt to consciously cutback and restrict how much I write. I get ten sentences or less to discuss a movie. That's it. Let's see if some genius comes out of working around my self-made obstacle.
Sam Raimi's passion project Darkman is a strange movie, more interesting than good really. Raimi shoots the films with a kinetic direction that gives the film a charisma that carries it through its unsubstantial and crazy plot. But it is a film that feels like Raimi ran amok with the big budget of a studio and it led to something occasionally inspired but more often simply peculiar. A scientist (Liam Neeson - at his gravel-voiced finest), badly burnt and disfigured in an explosion, uses his experiments with synthetic skin grafting to temporarily restore his appearances or adopt the appearances of the men who wronged him in order to get revenge. This means that most of the film features Neeson covered in bandages and hugged in a heavy, black trenchcoat, walking around hunched over and growling angrily to himself. Neeson is committed to the role, if nothing else, and the film embraces its craziness (gangsters, shady real estate developers, a tragic, moody antihero) which makes it more readily acceptable. This embrace leads the film to some curious but fun moments, and the film's sugar-rush pacing and Raimi's atypical, energetic directing makes it all go down much more easily. It's a superhero-action film that grunts and laughs in the face of superhero conventions -- a precursor to the dark comic book adaptations such as The Dark Knight trilogy. The film is not trying to take itself serious -- although it takes its hero's tragic state and his descent into darkness quite seriously -- but the self-consciously absurd tonality and narrative still makes for a film that is not entirely satisfying but at least, thankfully, is not forgettable.
Grade: ★★
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