Review of Dick Tracy (1990) by Nikolai E — 09 Jul 2010

First, let me say that this film is in the top percentile of the most beautiful films ever made. The matte paintings, miniatures, costumes, makeup, sets, each of these elements is individually extraordinary and collectively astonishing.

The color palette is a masterstroke. I wish I could say I loved this film unequivocally, but I feel like for every top-notch element, there's another one that sabotages the whole enterprise. First, I don't much care for Stephen Sondheim at the best of times, but his music for this film is a flat-out miscalculation.

There's a thrilling montage of Dick busting up a series of mob operations that should have been the highlight of the film, but it's set to a slow, lilting lounge song that sucks the energy out of each cut.

It's the difference between two artistic elements contrasting beneficially and outright clashing destructively. The acting just lies on the screen, especially the character of Tess Trueheart, one of most passive screen characters I can easily recall.

She makes being strapped to a death machine look like sitting in the dentist's waiting room. Even Beatty doesn't do anything memorable with Tracy. There's no sense of period in the dialogue, no momentum to the action, no emotion or motivation for the characters, it's an empty shell in a gorgeous wrapper.

I found Elfman's score to be just a re-hash of Batman, which is probably what was expected of him. The point is, I tried desperately to like this film, and if they had combined this kind of art direction with the sensibility of The Hudsucker Proxy, we could have had an unstoppable juggernaut of nostalgia still celebrated decades hence, but all I see here is a tragically missed opportunity.