Re: The Wing Kong Exchange
A young, widowed lawyer is sent to a remote village to handle the estate of Alice Drablow, who owned a manor known as Eel Marsh House. Once the lawyer gets to the village he soon notices that many of the locals are suspicious and tell him not to go near the house. He doesn't believe their superstitions and so ventures out to the house to see it for himself. What he discovers is a horror beyond his imagination and a spirit hungry for revenge.
The Woman in Black is a film that seems to be getting a lot of praise, though I'm really not sure why. It doesn't break any new ground in the horror genre, has no real purpose and generally meanders about for an hour and a half with no payoff. It's basically a carbon copy of several other, better films that have come before it, including another version of this same story that was released in 1989. Along with that it basically insults the intelligence of its viewer time and time again before it mercifully closes out with a whimper rather than a bang. What's sad is that this seems to be the standard horror film released today, at least by the major studios, and that is something that really needs to change soon. At the end of the day, The Woman in Black is tired, tawdry and timid, nothing like what was promised in the trailer. I guess at this point I shouldn't really be surprised by that, only saddened.
"There's only one way to go from here and its where the film goes too."
Directed by James Watkins and written by Jane Goldman, the film is based on a novel by Susan Hill. As I mentioned earlier, it also inspired a film released in 1989, which you would do well to seek out as its way better than this one. Hill's source material is faithfully adapted, so I can't blame Goldman for the mess that this film becomes. She does what she can to craft a suspenseful and morose tale, though in the long run it ultimately fails. The reason for this is that the film plays as if it were meant to be a slow burner but never really delivers the payoff. At the end you're basically left wondering what the point of that elaborate set up was when nothing materializes. I'd say Watkins was slightly unsure of himself but I've seen his other film, Eden Lake, and it was certainly better than this so I'm not entirely sure what causes this film to be so bad. Suffice to say, if I was the star, I would have picked a better vehicle to try and break out of my previously typecast character.
This is Daniel Radcliffe's first real foray into the acting world after several years of playing the character of Harry Potter in that franchise. To his credit, it didn't take me long to forget Radcliffe was Harry Potter, so that's a good sign for his future film work. I felt this was a good role for him to take as it still follows with the Potter theme a little in terms of its darkness, so he can properly segue out of that role and into other fare. The trouble is, he has very little to do here except walk around a house and act scared, which isn't going to be enough to gain him any new fans. Again, the blame can't lie with Radcliffe, he's not responsible for the script or the direction, but it should definitely serve as a wake up call to him that he can't just take any old film that comes along. Outside of his relatively good performance, the only other one of note is Janet McTeer as a woman suffering from some severe mental trauma. She basically steals the show in her few scenes and provides some welcome dialogue to a film that doesn't have a lot of it to begin with.
"We ain't going to Hogwarts."
As is the norm around here, I will look at the positive aspects before I focus on the negatives, though unfortunately there aren't a lot of them. I really did like the set decoration and the house itself literally became another character in the story. That's a good thing too because it showed more personality than everyone else in the film save for Radcliffe and McTeer. To be fair, the other characters are meant to be uneasy in their portrayals, so they do a good job getting that point across even if they appear bland most of the time. Along with the house, I enjoyed a scene where a rocking chair rocks by itself (technically not as the woman is rocking in it but Radcliffe can't see that because she's a ghost and all) because let's face it, chairs rocking by themselves are always pretty cool...in a creepy way. It's just one of those sight gags that never gets old. There's also a neat little sequence where the body of a boy rises from a murky grave that is very well shot. The ambience and mood of the film isn't totally awful and at times I found myself slipping into its world. The trouble is those times were too few and far between for me to care enough to invest totally in it, which is a real problem.
"Now that's what I call some good advice"
One thing I really disliked in this film was the constant shots of the woman in black. I felt repeatedly showing the ghost was a bad move and really took away from the mystery of the whole thing. In fact, at one point the ghost appears over Radcliffe's shoulder when he looks out a window and I said to myself, "it's not scary when it's just stupid", a line that applies many times to this film. There's another point in the film where it lists a character's cause of death as "self-murder" which I felt was very appropriate considering I thought of doing the same thing to myself several times while watching it. There were times where I honestly didn't know what was going on since the film seemed totally disjointed and poorly paced. There is an uneasiness to the film that I believe is meant to be part of the atmosphere, but it comes across as more of a detriment than anything else. So basically what he have here is a film with a creepy atmosphere and a relatively strong lead performance that ultimately goes nowhere. It also didn't help that I've seen this exact story done so many times before in better films. It really is a shame, because Hammer Films was once a great studio that churned out a myriad of excellent works. When I see a film like The Woman in Black, I long for those days while sadly realizing that they may never return. It just seems too easy for studios to churn out these pale imitations and the fact that most of them profit doesn't help in the slightest.
"One thing's for sure, she's better looking than Radcliffe!"
The Woman in Black was shot on a budget of $17 million and has so far earned more than $46 million at the box office. Amazingly enough, its also received widespread critical acclaim and I have to ask what the hell these people are smoking? There isn't a lot about this film that I can recommend outside of a chance to see Radcliffe play a character other than Potter, and that's probably not enough for most people. Seriously, find the original film or better yet, just read the book on which they're based. It's a nice film to look at, but so are paintings in an art gallery, and you won't have to pay for popcorn there.
5/10.
"Until we meet again my lovelies....."
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