Unimpressive Devil-Dabbler (The Ninth Gate (DVD))

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	The Ninth Gate (DVD)
Date:	13/04/01 (45 review reads)
Rating:

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Roman Polanski is hardly a prolific director so when he does bring something new out you might expect it to be rather good.It usually isn't. Johnny Depp is a great actor, so when you see him in amovie you think that he may have been able to pick and choose a role in a great movie. He usually doesn't. It wasn't my choice to rent ths movie - if it were, I never would have touched it with a bargepole and I would have been damn right as well. Its a stinker.

A horror/thriller set amongst the world of private book collecting...the mind boggles. But if it boggles a little more then there might have been a movie here worth watching rather than Polanski's dumbass offering here. Depp plays a ruthless book collector whose 'charms' have earnt him something of a repuatation, a reputation which attracts the attention of a book collector who wants him to investigate the most heinous of books - apparently written by or in conjunction with Satan himself. Depp of course says he'll take the job, and spends the rest of the movie in one investigative scrape or another...

To say more would be to give the plot away, not completely but for a movie which rests entirely on the way its story unfolds, to give much more away would be a crime to anyone who still wishes to watch it afetr reading this review. Why you would is beyond me but...each to their own. That is not to say that this is a bad movie, but rather that it is so completely unremarkable, that given the gift of hindsight you would be hard pressed not to find something more appealing in the video shop. There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot from the outset, lots of strange characters and interesting situations, but the movie never really grabs your attention. Right from the start this movie reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe, which to me is not a good thing, because I have always found all of the televised adaptations of his work to be dull and ultimately to amount to nothing. That
is exactly how this movie plays out. At first however it is intriguing but after he first 25 minutes you will have worked out exactly what is going on, what role all the characters have(even down to working ou tthe roles of characters who have yet to even appear in the plot!) and how it will all end up. It is quite honestly that obvious. We are however spared the stupid devil in a sharp suit scene or with a goats head dancing in the fire which I expected throughout, but are treated to some equally daft moments which makes one wonder whether they simply didn’t have the budget for something sillier. The movie tries to rely upon mystery and intrigue to hold the viewers attention and fails because both are simply not there. The plot is not clever enough playing again on the extremely tired old ‘evil book summons up devil’ theme once again and as a result for the most part things are all pretty damn obvious - because we have seen it all before. Furthermore, in trying to be clever the story takes you on a journey full of twists and turns but in being a little slap-dash leaves a number of loose ends left untied and asks the watcher to ignore some obviously pressing and unanswered questions. For example, if this book is so damn precious and the owner knows that other people are after it and willing to kill to get their hands on it, then why give it to a scrawny PI to run about with as opposed to keeping it in his Fort Knox style library and photocopying the pages? They get photocopied later to protect it - why not at the start? Furthermore, I’m still not too sure what everyone wanted to do with the book anyway - this never being adequately explained.

Johnny Depp is ok in the lead role but not brilliant, certainly one of his mediocre performances, whilst everyone else acts as if they are just along for the ride, the attention of the movie being placed frimly upon his exploits. Later he is joined by the supposedly mysterious figure played by x
xx xxx who is also quite watchable, but nothing more special. The special effects are non-existant apart from in two places where they are pretty 1960s to say the least and quite funny to watch in a modern movie.

I think one of the main problems with this movie is that the director had a number of different ideas in mind when scripting and filming. We have elements from the satanic horror movies camped up during the late sixites and early seventies by such people as the Hammer Horror studios, combined with a gumshoe type private detective movie, alongside some poor attempts at to lighten the proceedings with humour in the wrong places and some badly played gothic imagery. All these are blended together quite well, but none are ever investigated in enough depth to draw you the viewer into story. You skim the surface, you peek under the covers, but never delve deep enough to be entirely wrapped up in a story which is ultimately weak and unfulfilling. If the director had gone for an all out hammed-up gothic tale in the style of someone like Tim Burton then it may have worked, but as it stands as a mishmash of various styles it fails to impress. As a result, this is a movie which all but the most avid fan of Johnny Depp will want to avoid. Wait for it to come out on television or hit the bargain bucket in the video store before you watch this one.

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