Ya know... I hate reviews of movies that I harbored genuine hopes for, by filmmakers that I like... with stars and talent that I like... Reviews that just tear a film like that apart... and because I know this Arte Bremer.... and usually... I agree with him. I'm hoping this might be one of those cases where I feel ol Arte... well, that he missed the boat... but his review... well, as usual he seems to have done a very precise job of telling it as he saw it. Here's Arte...
Review of "Bless the Child"
I don't really feel bad for Kim Basinger. She's got her Oscar and is already moving into the downslide of her career. I don't feel bad for Jimmy Smits. He's lucky to have a movie go theatrical. I don't feel bad for Christina Ricci as she's been in worse ("Desert Blue") and survived it to move on. I kind of feel bad for Rufus Sewell as he's kind of trapped in B-roles, but as this isn't being sold on his name, it won't hurt him too bad.
But when it comes to the new movie, "Bless the Child" which apparently will finally slink its way onto a screen around mid-August, the person I feel most sorry for is Chuck Russell. Russell, the director of "The Mask," "Eraser," and "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" among other things, I feel, is a genuinely talented guy. To have "Bless the Child" permanently etched on IMDB next to his name, well, that really sucks.
No bones about it - "Bless the Child" is one of the absolute worst movies of the year. It plays every single last cliche in the book and is an amalgamation of "End of Days," "The Omen," and the "Prophecy" movies. My first thought as I walked out of the screening was, in fact, that the movie could've been saved if it had a no-name cast, went straight-to-video, and was titled "Prophecy IV." If you keep track of Christopher Walken's screen time in "Prophecy III," you know he's just punching the clock and they'll soon do one without him. "Prophecy IV: Bless the Child" could've been it.
The movie starts out with Jenna, a strung-out drug addict, dropping off her virtually newborn daughter into the arms of her sister, Maggie, played with jawdroppingly awful acting skills by Kim Basinger. Maggie, in a series of quick cuts, raises the newborn - named Cody - as her own despite the fact that she's "different" and believed to be autistic. What that really means is that she has weird little abilities that are never, ever truly explained in the movie. When Cody is 6, a series of murders begin happening in NYC as a devil cult begins hunting for the chosen one. Rufus Sewell hams it up as the cult leader of the scientology-esque devil cult and Jimmy Smits plays the FBI agent who once was in the seminary (it's only mentioned once and you keep thinking it's going to pop up, but never does).
I won't give anything more away, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots in this formulaic by-the-numbers disaster. There is nothing redeemable about the film. Even the Onward Christian Soldier themes where angels step in from time to time to give oblique and distant encouragement to our heroes when confronted with CGI devils and demons seems hackneyed and almost like a propaganda film. The movie never really decides what the hell it is about. Is it a cult film or a Christian film that tries to posit another round of Satan versus God arguments? Is it a family drama or just another "Stigmata" retread.
Needless to say, this movie is going to tank soundly. The trailers have been trying desperately to paint this as some sort of "The Sixth Sense" knock-off, but "Bless the Child" has virtually NOTHING in common with that movie. "Bless the Child" is a B-movie that should've gone straight-to-video. At one time, there might've been some hope that they could've done some sort of "Rosemary's Baby"-esque thriller or something, but everything got muddled as the story never really had a direction. It never even explains why Maggie is seeing the same things Cody is, but no one else can.
I hope the rumors are true that Russell and Darabont are working up "Doc Savage" as I would like to see Russell put a lot of distance between himself and this movie. The only decent thing I can say about this movie is that it makes the other devil-worship film of this year, "The Ninth Gate," look positively excellent. At least the first half of the Polanski pic made for a great thriller before falling off at the end. "Bless the Child" starts in the middle of nowhere and never finds its way out.
Arte Bremer
