Reviews

Blair Witch Project meets Oliver Stone's JFK and puts both to shame. Nasty, brutish, and short (85 minutes) and true to life in every other way too. Highly sophisticated and intelligent, it cuts right to our most primal fears while presenting itself in a deceptively primitive fashion. Explores the shadows in our recent history and national psyche with acute, paranoiac vision.

If you're a fan of De Palma's work from SISTERS through BODY DOUBLE, you'll love this film. De Palma returns to his roots, his earliest passions and obsessions, with a more mature sense of refinement and precision, along with a more liberated flair for the outrageous. You can't critique this film on the believability of its plot, the depth of its characters, its moral sensibility, or the quality of the acting--you just have to sit back and let it take you on its joyride. De Palma takes nothing serious here except his love of cinema and his technical bravura, and sometimes that's all you need. If you feel the need for something more, see another film.

An exhilarating joyride. Through great acting, direction, and a carefully crafted script, the film lures you into the central character's head so that you experience almost firsthand his amused discovery of his powers, his awkwardness and tentativeness at learning to control them, his rage toward the criminal who murders his uncle, the pain of every punch and blow he receives, his tentativeness at assuming the responsibilities of a superhero, and his ultimate joy as he transcends gravity, leaping and swinging above the streets of New York. And then there's the romance: Kirsten Dunst is just right as your Queens girl-next-door. She never comes off as a movie star, as anything less than genuine. Tobey Maguire's eyes and silences speak volumes as he gazes at and tries to speak to her. I've never been in a movie theater before where the audience cheered and clapped when the boy and girl kiss. How amazing that this film pulls this off, that action and romance enhance each other and never detract from the whole.