The Ninth Gate ought to be a good movie. It boasts a famed director, some very accomplished actors, truly elegant locations, and a story overflowing with possibilities. Yet, for some reason, the film simply refuses to take these ingredients and make something interesting out of them. Quite frankly, this film is DULL. Not in a `there-not-enough-fighting-and-guts' way, but a `why-am-I-supposed-to-even-remotely-care-about-these-people?' way. For one the cast's performances are uniformly dull. In fact, whether they are supposed to be excited, angry, frightened, or dieing, everyone seems downright BORED. Things aren't helped much by the clichéd, unnatural dialogue either. Truly artless direction, surprisingly enough, is the final nail in the coffin. Somehow, poor Mr. Polanski has found a way to suck what little energy might have been generated out of the film through a plain, painfully unimaginative, job that occasionally borders on amateur (the Peter Pan-like wire work during the obviously over-rehearsed `fight' scene is especially embarrassing). Ultimately, The Ninth Gate recalls the campy B-movie relics of the fifties (the ones we keep around to make fun of, not the ones that actually stand the test of time) in a very bad way. There are simply too many obvious and inexcusable flaws to take it as anything other than an example of how even promising ingredients can fail to survive the trip from the page to the screen.
Review of The Ninth Gate
