Reviews

Jason Isaacs plays the lead doctor of a wellness centre, where a young executive is sent to retrieve his boss. No one seems to want to leave this wellness centre, and the young man (Dane DeHaan) discovers that nothing is like it seems at first sight.

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thunder
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Reviews

Post by thunder » Tue Feb 07, 2017 12:36 pm

The reviews are out, and very mixed. It's got everything from 1 to 5 stars.
The plot did not know if it wanted to be a gross out horror movie, a compelling character study about greed, or a mysterious detective thriller and ended up being a little bit of all of them, but a whole lot of none of them.
http://bcheights.com/2017/02/07/cure-we ... narrative/
with just a little refinement and polish, A Cure for Wellness could have been a horror classic. Instead, it suffers from trying to do too much and teasing out mysteries that become distractions.
http://collider.com/a-cure-for-wellness-review/#poster
Have you ever fallen asleep watching one movie, then woken up during another in the heat of a violent and ludicrous climax? Imagine wedging those two movies together, however crudely, and that’s how A Cure For Wellness resolves.
http://nerdist.com/a-cure-for-wellness-review/
If you like a screenplay that’s focused and makes sense throughout and not just in the finale when spa’s director tells all, this may be a questionable investment. Remember that villains have the best lines and ooze the kind of toxic poison that makes audiences want to tear them apart. Jason Isaacs evokes the very emotion.
http://www.shockya.com/news/2017/02/06/ ... ie-review/
I urge you, the audience, to engage in this beautifully dark trip into the sinister corners of cinema, and take A Cure For Wellness as it's directed: in a comfortable theater, with eyes open and popcorn in hand, ready to be impressed by the first true horror film in years.
http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/1621 ... r-wellness
There are flashes of greatness here and credit is due for its desire to be distinguishable from the pack but tonally, it’s too messy, maniacally veering from elegant restraint to unhinged hokum and the absurd running time doesn’t befit what’s ultimately a rather hollow campside tale.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/f ... orror-film
The movie deprives us of either a tragic villain or a sympathetic lead, hoping that its grab bag of squirm-inducing details — dental drills, stillborn livestock, flesh-eating eels — will suffice, when in fact, they reveal how a shorter, tighter treatment ought to have done the trick.
http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/a- ... 201976099/
The film's reach may exceed its grasp, but it's a fervent fever dream, a great adventure in style and pretension that seeks to thrill and unsettle, and I loved it.
http://screenanarchy.com/2017/02/review ... nture.html
His decadent framing is gorgeous, and his actors are all uniformly solid, with Isaacs especially shining as he slowly kills Lockhart with kindness, one pulled tooth at a time.
http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/a-cu ... ess-review
DeHaan will need to pick his hoped-for big-budget crossover projects with more care, while Isaacs has played sinister much more effectively in some earlier efforts (as in the Harry Potter films).
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-971733
Spending his remaining Hollywood capital like it’s about to be replaced by a new form of currency, Verbinski turns the film into a visceral and gruesome playground of the macabre, combining Tim Burton’s exaggeratedly dank aesthetic with young Tim Burton’s ability to cut a competent scene together. If the secrets lurking beneath the Volmer Institute are far too predictable, the sights you’ll see down there are still wickedly surprising.
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/02/a-cure ... 201778388/
Jason Isaacs, who has been playing villains for decades, slips into the role of the spa's shadowy director and wisely never goes for camp.
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.s ... tical.html
Mr. Isaacs is the kind of silken, charismatic villain that you can’t wait to see again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/movi ... .html?_r=0

To sum it up. A lot of them complained that it was too long, and that the lead character wasn't really sympathetic, so it was hard to care for him. They also said that the movie is a bit over loaded, and that it can't really tie it all together in a good way at the end. Some of them thought the ending got a bit ridiculous. Most of them was happy about Jason's portrayal and that he plays sinister very well (although some mentioned that he has had better sinister roles before). A lot of them mentioned the setting and that he cinematography and scenery was very good (and creepy). That's all I can remember, right now. the reviews sort of melt together after having read them all.

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Marie
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Re: Reviews

Post by Marie » Wed Feb 08, 2017 9:22 am

Wow Thunder - thanks for pulling that all together for us.

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Re: Reviews

Post by Helen8 » Wed Feb 08, 2017 12:11 pm

Wow, thunder! Thanks for pulling them all together. Not surprising that Jason's the best thing in it. He plays sinister very well. Isn't that why we're all here? :adore


Now. If I could just grow a pair and go see it. :tchuh:

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Re: Reviews

Post by fruitbat » Wed Feb 08, 2017 11:04 pm

Thanks, Thunder.
The friend I had planned to see this with is doing the jet-setting retirement thing. She will be out of town when it opens here.

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Re: Reviews

Post by Chari910 » Thu Feb 09, 2017 10:01 am

Thunder, admirable job of summarizing all of those reviews! Thank you so much! :cherub

All I care about is Jason's screen time :mrgreen: which shouldn't disappoint.

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Re: Reviews

Post by Helen8 » Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:22 pm

Jason's screen time

. . . or hearing his not Lucius w/a German accent.

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Re: Reviews

Post by Hilary the Touched » Fri Feb 17, 2017 3:10 pm

Added link to the New York Times' review from yesterday. :D

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Re: Reviews

Post by servalan » Fri Mar 03, 2017 6:27 pm

I just watched a review on Film 2017, the BBC TV film review programme. They said it had some good bits, but it was very long and as if Gore Verbinski had decided to put a lot of set horror pieces together. They praised the cinematography and the scenery. One described it as "The League of Gentlemen making a Toblerone advert" which is a very British reference, and very funny if you have ever seen The League of Gentlemen, a surreal comedy sketch show set in a weird village.

Jason was described as having a lot of fun playing his part.

Here is the link, but I think you can only watch it if you are in the UK. It's the second item they discuss:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... r-wellness

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Helen8
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Re: Reviews

Post by Helen8 » Sun Mar 05, 2017 1:43 pm

Yup! Brits only. Argh!

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thunder
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Re: Reviews

Post by thunder » Tue Mar 07, 2017 8:23 am

Not suprised about blocking...

Thanks for posting the resume, Servalan, I thought about the same after I had seen it...

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Re: Reviews

Post by servalan » Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:20 am

Another BBC review, but this is radio, so you can listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ffgsb
Review of this film is from about 1hr 43 to 1hr 51

This should be Kermode and Mayo's review show, but they must have been in the US for the Oscars, so it was presented by Sanjeev Bhaskar and Robbie Collin. The review was from Robbie. In reaction to Jason's accent, they announced "Guten Tag, Jason Isaacs." :D

Robbie said Jason's performance was very good, he came across as a sadist very well. He said the film is too long, and "It makes Tim Burton look like Ken Loach." He felt they had chosen the list of horrors from a coffee table book. A member of the public also sent in a review, and didn't like it either, although they think Jason is generally an excellent actor.

It sounds like yet another film in which Jason is the only good thing!

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Re: Reviews

Post by Anniemouse » Tue Sep 22, 2020 5:05 am

Well the DVD arrived so this is my next viewing pleasure.

By the way I got a cheap copy of Hotel :bag:

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thunder
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Re: Reviews

Post by thunder » Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:08 am

Enjoy! I thought this was better than expected. But the ending was crazy... and felt like a different movie.

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Re: Reviews

Post by Anniemouse » Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:29 am

Ok just finished watching this and am in two minds about this.

The Positives.

It looks amazing; cool blue, grey and white tones give the movie an icy chill and genuine threat. Jason as per usual gives such a great performance (loved the German accent) some fairly good acting from other cast members. Genuine menace.

The Negatives.

It definately suffers from being compared to Shutter Island; I also guessed certain narrative tropes and references to other movies The Shining, Misery, Shutter Island et al. I also guessed so many of the plot twists (I worked out who Jason's character was immediately) and although I thought the narrative was interesting this took me out of the movie at times. Oh and it is long.

Then the major isssue.

I felt really uneasy about all the scenes from "The Wedding" onward. If the movie had ended with the conversation on the bench after the treatment (yuck) it would have made sense but the scenes in the lair did feel a misstep.



Almost a unusual and fascianting horror movie.

Wonder how I will cope with Event Horizon now I have seen this.

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thunder
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Re: Reviews

Post by thunder » Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:41 am

I thought the movie should have ended with the scene on the bench too. What came afterwards, didn't feel like it belonged in the same movie.

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