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Movie Review - Cursed (2005)
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
Wes Craven |
| Starring: |
Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, and Joshua Jackson |
| Rated: |
PG-13 (for horror violence/terror, some sexual references, nudity, language and a brief
drug reference) |
| Length: |
96 minutes |
| Genre: |
Horror/Thriller |
| Tagline: |
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. |
| Studio: |
Miramax |
| Website: |
Cursed |
| Release: |
February 24, 2005 |
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PLOT
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Two kids are infected by a werewolf, thus becoming cursed. They have to kill the main werewolf in order to rid
themselves of said curse. Unfortunately, that's pretty much all there is to it. Christina Ricci's huge forehead
ensues.
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JOHNNY'S TAKE
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Cursed, huh? Well, that appropriately describes what a lot of moviegoers did when the final credits started
to roll. This has to be one of the most irrelevant, insignificant movies to come along in quite a while. There's
not a single thing I can recommend about this movie. Not a single thing. It offers absolutely nothing new or
original to the werewolf genre. Why even bother?
The acting is bad, the special effects are unimpressive, I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters
or their relationships... seriously, is there a less appealing screen couple than Pacey from Dawson's Creek and
Christina Ricci? Wooo, look at Pacey! He's got a neatly trimmed beard! He's all grown up now! Whatever. All
he did was spit out some cheesy lines about how Ricci, who he'd been dating for all of two months, was the one
for him and he really wanted to make it work and BLAH BLAH BLAH! WHO CARES?!?!?!?! I just wanted to punch the
guy in the face. Repeatedly. Until my knuckles bled. I couldn't care less if I never see this guy in another
movie ever again.
If you're gonna have characters that I couldn't be less interested in, then please try to have a somewhat
interesting story with a few good scares. Oh, you couldn't do that for this movie? Well, believe me, I could
tell. The scariest thing about Cursed is Christina Ricci's bulbous forehead. Were those CGI werewolves
actually supposed to be scary? Heck, if that's what werewolves were really like, then I'd have pretty good
chances if I had to go up against one.
And was it completely impossible to have a semblance of a story? You call those plot twists? Folks, no one over
the age of 5 will be surprised at who the main werewolf is. The story is so non-existent that it gives me a
headache trying to figure out why. Did Kevin Williamson even try when writing this script? It's as if he asked
himself, "How can I make this as clichéd as possible," and then ran with it. In case you forgot, Craven and
Williamson teamed up on Scream, which was a very original, clever, and entertaining movie. What in the
world has happened since then? How were these two movies written by the same guy? If nothing else, you've gotta
at least love the irony in the fact that Cursed is exactly the kind of teen horror movie that Scream
poked fun at.
It's pretty sad that Corey Feldman couldn't even keep his name
attached to this film (his scenes were cut), but it's even sadder that this movie would've actually been better
by having Feldman in it. Ouch. I think that's the true
hallmark of a movie's failure. If someone tells you, "Man, you should've kept
Feldman's scenes in there, it
would've helped," then you need to do some serious soul searching before attempting another movie.
Cursed tries to take a Scream approach and not take itself too seriously, but man, that doesn't
mean it had to be a complete joke. I admit that I laughed a few times, but most of the time I was laughing it
was because what I was witnessing was just so stupid. Let me ask you something - if you're in the bathroom,
and your friend is in the stall making weird noises, and you think he or she is sick, do you go OPEN THE
STALL DOOR???? NO! Nobody does that! You may ask if the person's all right, but you don't put your ear
to the stall and then open it unless you're just a freak. Sigh.
The most genuinely funny thing in the movie is Scott Baio's cameo as Scott Baio. The running joke is that
he's supposed to be the third guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn behind Ashton Kutcher and
Carrot Top. But even this is pretty sad since Kilborn's been gone from the show for a few months now. Way
to stay on top of things, guys! Looks like somebody has his finger directly on the pulse of today's pop
culture!
I can't think of a single person to recommend this to. Not even the biggest werewolf movie fan. But I
can recommend they change the tagline. Here's my suggestion: A Werewolf Movie That Really Bites. There,
I just wrote something more clever than anything found in the script of Cursed, and I wasn't given
a $40 million budget to do it.
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ODDS & ENDS
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- Originally rated R. Wes Craven wasn't too happy that it was edited down to PG-13. I seriously doubt the
movie would've been much better with an R rating.
- Johnny doesn't think Christina Ricci is very attractive, although she looked decent on a recent
appearance on Conan.
- Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor in Smallville) makes a small appearance and wears an obvious wig.
- Pacey (Joshua Jackson) isn't fooling anybody with his stupid beard.
- The film's release was delayed for over a year thanks to production and script problems. Half of the movie
had to be re-shot, and many cast members had to replaced due to scheduling conflicts.
- Mandy Moore was originally cast as Jenny and even filmed her scenes, but was replaced by Mya when the
production was halted so the script could be rewritten. Many Moore replaced by Mya? That just makes me sad.
But I know Mandy's happy not to have this staining her resume.
- Skeet Ulrich and Omar Epps are a couple of other actors who were cut from the film. Poor
Corey Feldman. He was so close to returning to the big screen.
I wonder why he was cut? We know it couldn't be because of a scheduling conflict.
- Portia de Rossi and Shannon Elizabeth have small roles.
- Christina Ricci was in Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp who was in Ed Wood with Patricia
Arquette who was in Nightwatch AND Flirting With Disaster with Josh Brolin who was in Hollow
Man with Kevin Bacon.
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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There's some brief profanity and a couple of butt shots. One is of Jesse Eisenberg. He wakes up outside, naked,
and we briefly see his pale, skinny self jumping into his window. We see a side shot of Judy Greer's body
double. Violence isn't really all that graphic. I still wouldn't recommend it to pre-teens though.
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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The trailer is lackluster and not very compelling, and the movie isn't any different. So hey, I guess the trailer is
dead on!
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THE GIST
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You've been warned, so if you pay money to see Cursed then you've got nobody to blame but yourself. I
tried to tell you. Cursed is nothing but a bad made-for-the-WB movie, and I can say without flinching
or smirking that Michael Paré's Bad Moon is a better werewolf movie than this toilet log. If that doesn't
tell you everything you need to know, then there's nothing else I can say.
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