Reviews

This film is... uuh... let me think carefully..... crap.

A rather expensive movie with teenagers, Madrid's underground, things directly ripped off from another (American) movies, cheese blue screen effects and an ineffective aura of silly mystery which fails to absorb the viewer. The plot is unbearable twisted and laden with absurd, unreal situations, appropriate only for the stoned mind (situations in Jacob's Ladder are generally more believable), and seems to lead to nowhere, until the very end of the movie, when you really realise how silly this movie is! Not only that; in my opinion this movie's been an awful attempt to imitate the typical American teenager-murder movie, so we are landed with the very worst of Spanish films and the very worst of pop-corn Hollywood films.

Spain is not a good country for film-making, I should say. In Spain you can only make certain kinds of movies. Moving out of that is shown to lead to dreadful consequences. Not only the budgets are usually very tight; so seems to be Spanish filmmakers' imagination & taste(OK, pick out a few such as A. Amenábar, Álex de la Iglesia, Santiago Segura or Javier Fesser). Did you know that in DVD&Video Rental stores, 'Spanish films' is shown as a whole category? That reinforces the concept I presented earlier: Spain is not a country where a filmmaker can develop, generally. I'll tell you more: Spanish movies' box office is known to do ill most of the times (with a few exceptions like the blockbusting saga 'Torrente' by S. Segura). People here go to American movies most of the time. Should we try to compete and make movies which people will like better that those (quote) stupid American movies with a lot of FX&budget but horrible everythingelse? The answer is simple: NO; we'll do something easier: via advertisement we'll do out best to brainwash the audience into disliking American movies (and culture in general), which are utter crap, and liking OUR very dull film-making style, which is to be divine. That's brilliant thank you very much. "You need to watch more Spanish films"... like hell! Don't be fooled! Only YOU can decide what you need to watch!

Sorry for the lengthy, vehement dissertation. In conclusion, if they wanted to make a horror movie, they've thoroughly succeeded; the movie is "horrible"

1 out of 10

Directing lacks of strength, has a few flaws, might get a little boring sometimes, but this is one of the few Spanish movies I would save if the Earth were to be wiped out by an striking meteor. At first glance (you only need to have a look at the film poster) you get the impression (at least I got it) that this is going to be a very typical teenager-murder movie, as silly and void as any other. The first, say, 30 or 40 minutes (I can't remember) don't do anything to change this point of view. The murders begin, and sometimes it gets even visually silly. But then things change, and the story starts getting really weird... what the heck's going on? you might ask yourself. When the big twist, the ultimate truth, arrives, something in your head goes off and you realise the cleverness of the story.

All in all, a clever thriller, sufficiently well put together. Could've been better done, but it's not bad. An unusual movie for Spanish standards, and I applaud that.

6 out of 10

A pretty funny free adaptation from a spanish novel into a very cinematographic and independant film by this director I once knew (really!). This is a story about an obsessed, film-crazed man (played by the director himself) who builds around him his own world out of a video rental store. He locks himself up in his very own reality where everything's got to be 'like in the movies'. When real life, responsibility (and bills) knock at his door, he tries to fool them the way one of the heroes in those rancid old westerns would have done: he then becomes a runaway, fleeing away with the girl he loves, living every minute 24 times a second; until their road comes to a sudden, unavoidable end: The End of the movie. I found it quite interesting. I reckon there is another film based upon the same book (more faithfully, I presume), but it appears to be more dull, despite of its featuring well-known spanish actors and higher budget.

No doubt, this is one of the most memorable spanish films ever made. The oddball sense of humour is entwined with what actually is a touching story which will not be easily forgotten; (and if you're the type to appreciate this kind of wacko-hilariousness, the four-seconds time reversal scene is one the greatest momentos that could come to mind!)