Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Here's an example of sites working together. I turned one of our chatters, Rob, on to the screenings that CHUD regularly does in Atlanta, and Rob now attends the screenings all the time. This time, he took advantage of his early peek to send in a review of Mark Pellington's THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES. I liked the script for this one, and reactions are all over the place, ranging from extremely positive to total dislike. Sounds like one you should see for yourself, definitely, and I know I'm going to check it out this weekend, along with STORYTELLING and Rin Taro's METROPOLIS.

Anyway... here's Rob with a review he also pimped out to Garth, our buddy at DARK HORIZONS:

M,

Caught a preview screening of THE MOTHMAN PROHPECIES tonight in Atlanta. I've been following this project for some time -- it's based on the book by John Keel and is, by his account, a true story. It’s great source material. I only wish it was a better film.

(Minor) SPOILER WARNING

Richard Gere plays John Keel, an all-star reporter for The Washington Post. He is a man who has it all -- great career, beautiful wife, and a nice car. After spending an evening shopping for the perfect house in Georgetown, his wife is injured in a car accident.

She claims to have seen (and driven through) a strange dark creature with glowing red eyes, which forced her off the road. She is, of course, suffering from a head injury, and as it turns out, a rare form of brain cancer as well. Was she hallucinating? Or did she really see something?

She fills notebooks with sketches of this strange creature during what time she has left, before she finally succumbs to cancer.

Fast Forward two years. John Keel is now an All-Star reporter on the national stage – A talking head on the Sunday shows – But he still hasn’t gotten over his wife. Late one night, while driving from DC to Richmond to interview the Governor, Keel somehow ends up on the West Virginia / Ohio Border. He has traveled 400 miles in 2.5 hours. He has no memory of the trip. His car breaks down, and he finds himself knocking on the door of a stranger, asking for help. The stranger claims that Keel’s has come to his door every night for the past three days.

And THAT is how John Keel gets to Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The only town in America where the nice, normal, god fearing townsfolk have been reporting encounters with a creature which remarkably resembles the one sketched by his wife. And John Keel, ace reporter from The Washington Post, is going to get to the bottom of this.

The next 90 minutes are spent trying to figure out what the hell is really going on? Is Keel Mad? Is he just caught up in the events of his wife’s death? Are the townspeople nuts? What is the Mothman trying to tell them?

END SPOILERS

This is a good story – the material for a good, if not great, movie. The strength of this story is that it is believable and down-to-earth. It’s a hodgepodge of strange events which happen to everyday townspeople, and it has the potential to scare the hell out of you. It ultimately fails because of the acting by the leads, and the direction of Mark Pellington.

The supporting cast is great. Their performances are subtle and well crafted, and they make the most of what little screen time they have. Debra Messing (WILL & GRACE) steals every scene she is in, and her presence haunts the entire film. Shane Callahan gives a great performance as Nate, and Alan Bates simmers as Alexander Leek, subtly providing what little exposition there is. The supporting cast is almost enough of a reason to see this film.

Regrettably, the leads fall flat. Very flat. Richard Gere is almost devoid of emotion until the film’s climax. As has been said of others, his acting runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. He really phoned it in on this one, and it’s a shame. Whatever happened to that guy who owned the screen in AMERICAN GIGAOLO? What happened to the range we saw in AN OFFICER AND A GENTELMAN? He manages to suck the life out of (almost) every scene he is in.

Although it pains me to say it, Laura Linney is nearly as bad. She plays a local cop, foil and friend to Gere’s Keel. Maybe it’s just that most of her scenes were opposite the black hole that was Gere’s performance. Her performance, like Gere’s, lacked any depth or emotion… any real sense of fear or dread. The Stars simply didn’t earn their checks on this one.

My second beef with this film is the direction. Mark Pellington (Arlington Road) is a music video director gone straight. He never lets you forget his past. Every time Richard Gere gets in a car, the lights start playing tricks. Time-lapse crap, which looks really cheesy and is totally unnecessary. Pellington has a story to tell. What makes it scary is the shock – the glimpse of the otherworldly thrown in with the mundane. When you make the everyday look like a bad acid trip, the otherworldly doesn’t seem so strange. This diminishes the core of the story.

Another problem I had with the story was the way in which the Mothman interacted with the characters. Keel is told numerous stories by the townsfolk of their encounters with the creature, and the audience is presented with flashes of their memories. We never get a first-person encounter with the creature in real time – it’s always told in flashback. Although the character may have feared for their lives, we know they survive the encounter. It makes it less scary.

Pellington did do some smart things, however. First, you never get a clear look at a mothman, which “appears differently to everyone who sees it.” (which, of course, kinda raises issues about why everyone is drawing the same thing, but I digress…) Second, this movie has loose ends: Pellington leaves it that way. There isn't any clear-cut explanation handed to you at the end.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie was the sound design. Many of the interactions with the creature involves telephone calls, and you have to really listen to make out what is being said. The theatre I was in REALLY cranked up the audio, and it sounded incredible. Be warned, however: if it’s not really loud, you’re not going to have a clue what is said.

In the end, there were a lot of elements I wished had been played up more. Keel’s attempts to re-connect to his wife; what was going on with his career while he was off gallivanting around the countryside; Keel’s descent into madness, etc.. All of this could have been explored in the time taken up by the ending, which was very drawn out.

In the end, THE MOTHMAN PROHPECIES is a decent popcorn flick. It’s was great idea for a movie, shot with too much flash and performed with too little heart. Catch it at a Matinee.

-Rob