
by Maxx
Director: David S. Goyer
Writer: David S. Goyer
Actors: Odette Yustman, Meagan Good, Gary Oldman
Run Time: 86 minutes
One might expect more from Goyer, who wrote Dark City, Blade, and Batman Begins and co-wrote Dark Knight. But this movie is a reminder that he also wrote the screenplay for Jumper and produced the likes of Ghost Rider.
The premise is ok, if unoriginal; but then how many original premises are out there anyway. Girl starts having bad dreams about a spooky kid, which turn into real hauntings that cause her to seek out and find things about her family’s history as well as her own. Friends, colleagues and rabbis get trampled in the ensuing paranormal outburst.
The problem mostly lies in the script, which apparently is Mister Goyer’s fault. And the director (also Goyer) is forced to rely on the periodic (chronic might be a better word) jumpings-out of twisted humans, ugly children, and demonic beasties usually yelling or screeching, often with their heads upside-down (because that’s weird, right?) – because the sound might startle you if the image didn’t do it – to horrify in place of the story itself, which should do but doesn’t. And the forms and nature of these spooks adheres more to the motif of CGI than it does Kabbalistic pattern, made to horrify but not to maintain the integrity of the tradition.
Odette Yustman, who plays protagonist, Casey Beldon, is lovely, and you’ll get no objection from this quarter to her appearance on the screen, often partially clothed, and does fine with what she was given, but is hardly enough to carry this film. Gary Oldman phoned it in as Rabbi Sendak, who comes to her aid and performs an exorcism, but wasn’t on-screen enough to do much good anyway.
The potential was there, the material was not. Jewish mysticism in place of Christian, either trying to be different or for Goyer’s personal familiarity is a nice twist but not perhaps different enough to grab the viewer’s curiosity. Now maybe a Muslim exorcism, dervishes and imams abjuring djinns or devils - that might inveigle a closer look see. Unfortunately, this one didn’t have it and doesn’t cut it. Goyer’s creation lacks substance and runs a bit amok. Take out an aleph and put this one in the ground.
2 out of 5.