| Universal Pictures | Release Date: August 24, 1990 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
9
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
|
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Critic Reviews
Darkman, as unnerving as a gargoyle, is a classic nightmare, elegant and sumptuous, everything "Batman" should have been. But we're numbed after a while, as we are by the grotesquerie of the nightly news. Then again, maybe that's Raimi's intention. His work is beautiful in its scary way, and never only skin deep.
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What no plot summary of Darkman can provide is how much director Raimi ("The Evil Dead") brings to the party. In addition to giving us a conflicted hero - more disturbed than Batman - Raimi fills every action sequence and even routine plot scenes with fresh images that reflect his Darkman's rage. [24 Aug. 1990]
It's a fairly effective melodrama with an inventive visual design, swift pacing and convincing performances by Liam Neeson (as Westlake/Darkman), Frances McDormand (as Westlake's girlfriend) and Larry Drake (as the heavy). [24 Aug. 1990, p.4]
What many American movies do well these days -- action, violence, hell-for-leather street spectacle -- Darkman does better. That may be praise enough. [24 Aug. 1990, p.F10]
Darkman is big, stupid and wonderful -- an absurd, grand-scale adventure and a vicious comedy rolled into one nasty, unpleasant, hard-to-resist mess. [24 Aug. 1990, p.E1]
The film works because Raimi's motor-rhythmed pop sensibility was ready to take off in this movie, and does, in a series of wonderfully hyperkinetic comic-strip lurches. [24 Aug. 1990, p.34]
There are lively, compelling scenes, particularly in the first hour - Raimi has an indubitable talent for camp mayhem - but the picture escalates into absurdity and the last half hour, essentially a chase sequence, is marred by suprisingly cheesy special effects. [24 Aug. 1990]
Cult director Sam Raimi has come a long way since giving us killer tree limbs in whichever (I've repressed it) Evil Dead pic had them. With good leads and a few bucks, he's come up with a high-octane revenge piece mentionable in the same breath as its predecessors. [24 Aug. 1990]
There's just not much going on here once the plot finds its stride. It's goofy, and it's mean, but Darkman isn't nearly enough of either. [24 Aug. 1990, p.5]
Raimi does everything extravagantly and swiftly in Darkman. Instead of deriving from a particular comic book, he seems to be creating one -- or creating a film series. Or a TV series. Or two of the three. [24 Aug. 1990, p.R11]
Darkman is a spectacularly ill-conceived combination of Batman and The Phantom of the Opera. [24 Aug. 1990, p.6]
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