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Film Review - Darkman
5 years ago
I’m not trying to be contrarian, it just happens that many films that have the “classic” label stuck to them don’t really do it for me, while I find many “bad” films unironically entertaining.
Darkman is one such film. Hailed as a classic, but I found it too silly to take seriously, too serious to work as a comedy. Amazing practical stunts and effects placed alongside bad effects that pulled me out of it.
-Plot-
The plot is that a scientist (Liam Neeson) working on an artificial skin unwittingly comes into possession of a memo that proves a crime. The criminals break into his lab, kill his assistant, and blow up the lab leaving him horribly burned and presumed dead. Once he’s recovered, he goes out for revenge.
His main ability is he can make realistic masks from people he has a photograph of, but once the fake skin is exposed to light, it melts 99 minutes later. There is mention of him having super strength and immunity to pain, but that rarely comes up, if ever.
Where the story gets bizarre is that all the characters treat him as a freak unfit for society. I understand him wanting to hide his burns from his girlfriend, but him being cast out and called a monster makes no sense to me.
-Problems-
As mentioned, there are some great effects. The burn makeup is great, and there’s a spectacular sequence at the end of the film where there’s a helicopter flying between tall buildings with a man hanging from a rope. It looks like they really did it too, but then it’s intercut with shots of Liam Neeson in front of a bad rear projection.
The tone is completely buggered as well. The film is quite dark and gritty, and at the same time tries to be a slapstick comedy. You can have dark films with comedy, just look at Robocop or Army of Darkness, but here it’s out of place. Imagine the scene in Robocop where Murphy is getting killed, but the lead bad guy is hopping around on a pogostick complete with cartoon sound effects. During the helicopter scene, they fly low to try and slam him into traffic, and we cut to a loony toons like shot of him running across the top of the cars.
-Overall-
That’s not to say it’s completely awful. I can see why it got a cult following. That said, I didn’t care for it.
Darkman is one such film. Hailed as a classic, but I found it too silly to take seriously, too serious to work as a comedy. Amazing practical stunts and effects placed alongside bad effects that pulled me out of it.
-Plot-
The plot is that a scientist (Liam Neeson) working on an artificial skin unwittingly comes into possession of a memo that proves a crime. The criminals break into his lab, kill his assistant, and blow up the lab leaving him horribly burned and presumed dead. Once he’s recovered, he goes out for revenge.
His main ability is he can make realistic masks from people he has a photograph of, but once the fake skin is exposed to light, it melts 99 minutes later. There is mention of him having super strength and immunity to pain, but that rarely comes up, if ever.
Where the story gets bizarre is that all the characters treat him as a freak unfit for society. I understand him wanting to hide his burns from his girlfriend, but him being cast out and called a monster makes no sense to me.
-Problems-
As mentioned, there are some great effects. The burn makeup is great, and there’s a spectacular sequence at the end of the film where there’s a helicopter flying between tall buildings with a man hanging from a rope. It looks like they really did it too, but then it’s intercut with shots of Liam Neeson in front of a bad rear projection.
The tone is completely buggered as well. The film is quite dark and gritty, and at the same time tries to be a slapstick comedy. You can have dark films with comedy, just look at Robocop or Army of Darkness, but here it’s out of place. Imagine the scene in Robocop where Murphy is getting killed, but the lead bad guy is hopping around on a pogostick complete with cartoon sound effects. During the helicopter scene, they fly low to try and slam him into traffic, and we cut to a loony toons like shot of him running across the top of the cars.
-Overall-
That’s not to say it’s completely awful. I can see why it got a cult following. That said, I didn’t care for it.
