Review of Darkman (1990) by Shane V — 17 Jan 2010

Peyton Westlake is a scientist working on the perfect synthetic skin. But all of his samples destabalize after only 99 minutes. Frustrated, he finally makes a breakthrough. At the same time his girlfriend Julie discovers documented evidence of her boss Louis Strack's illegal collection of real-estate. To fix this problem, Strack sends a group of ruthless thugs to take back the documents, and Peyton's lab is destroyed with he presumed dead. Now, unable to use his sense of touch, the horribly burned Peyton tries to return to Julie and take revenge on the ones who destroyed his life. But can he do it all before he goes completely insane?

Sam Raimi is an interesting director. He mixes the dark and Gothic with wacky-ness and gets away with it. And I don't know how. Liam Neeson gives a fine performance as Peyton, despite there actually being very little face-time with his (pardon the pun). It's a balance between a regular movie and a spoof. A Mel Brooks spoof. You know, one that insults with dignity. The special effects are horrible, and have definitely not aged well. The action was very basic, and perhaps a bit boring at times, but they satisfy. The script is okay for what it is. And what it is is a muddled mess. "The Evil Dead" series was all completely wacky, and that's why it worked. This on the other hand has character development and a struggle that we can relate to with big pieces of wacky thrown in, creating an incomprehensibly uneven tone. The character is intriguing, and the story is alright, but the villain was so terrible he didn't even seem to fill up a single dimension, let alone three. As best I can put it, you can like this movie the same way I like "Batman Forever." It's stupid and you know it, but it's stupid fun. I'll just give "Darkman" 5.5 "new faces for justice" out of 10.

"I'm everyone - and no one (and Bruce Campbell). Everywhere - and nowhere. Call me... Darkman." -Peyton/Darkman.