Aaah, this took me back to the seventies... trippy visuals, psychedelic landscapes, style over substance, sadly also rather wooden acting, unconvincing dialogue and emotionless direction.
This was actually very enjoyable; there's a solid serial killer plot, beautiful art direction, and a very good performance by Vincent D'Onofrio in various guises. It's well put together, reasonably gripping, and even made me squirm.
There is nothing original here - the standard theme of finding the victim before suffocation has appeared in various films and TV episodes, usually involving coercion of the kidnaper. Go back to 1971 and Dirty Harry for an example. Entering someone's dreams has also been done, although admittedly rarely as well as this (Dreamscape, Freddy Krueger series).
Although very pretty, the movie does ultimately come across as a pop video. Great visuals, good enough for a second viewing, with lovely set pieces. However, it doesn't haunt you. The concepts don't stay with you as they did with "Videodrome" or "Altered States", and while suspension of disbelief is important in cinema, a little effort to explain HOW J-Lo was getting into the imagination of another character would have helped. Telepathy? Drugs? Virtual reality?
Good but not great. Still, its an fun combination of modern serial killer thriller and hallucinatory cinema.
This was actually very enjoyable; there's a solid serial killer plot, beautiful art direction, and a very good performance by Vincent D'Onofrio in various guises. It's well put together, reasonably gripping, and even made me squirm.
There is nothing original here - the standard theme of finding the victim before suffocation has appeared in various films and TV episodes, usually involving coercion of the kidnaper. Go back to 1971 and Dirty Harry for an example. Entering someone's dreams has also been done, although admittedly rarely as well as this (Dreamscape, Freddy Krueger series).
Although very pretty, the movie does ultimately come across as a pop video. Great visuals, good enough for a second viewing, with lovely set pieces. However, it doesn't haunt you. The concepts don't stay with you as they did with "Videodrome" or "Altered States", and while suspension of disbelief is important in cinema, a little effort to explain HOW J-Lo was getting into the imagination of another character would have helped. Telepathy? Drugs? Virtual reality?
Good but not great. Still, its an fun combination of modern serial killer thriller and hallucinatory cinema.