Review of Hide and Seek (2005) by Markb. — 06 Sep 2005

Little Dakota Fanning has got to be not only the most well-adjusted child actress in Hollywood history, but the most emotionally healthy and stable youngster in America PERIOD. Not only did she spend 90% of her screen time in War of the Worlds screaming at and running from Martians, but earlier this year was dealing with parental death, psychotic imaginary playmates and 87 other varieties of childhood trauma (to say nothing of having to look and dress like The Addams Family's Wednesday, only with brown sweaters instead of black dresses) in this derivative, mean-spirited horror movie frrom the director of Swimfan.

(I'm sure Orson Welles never had a #1 box office weekend as a director, but this hack gets two different ones. Is there no justice in this world or what?) The usual array of pseudo-ominous tracking shots and cheeseball false alarms is made even more predictable by the fact that two of Robert DeNiro's lovely, talented costars, Elisabeth Shue and Amy Irving, are former Oscar nominees who've clearly seen better days, which gives you an idea of the thanklessness of their roles AND the relative length of their screen time.

(Melissa Leo, of TV's acclaimed Homicide: Life on the Streets, also turns up, giving a performance that's both creepy and touching...and way too good for this.) Chances are you'll alternate yor viewing time between exclamations of "Man, those filmmakers are sick puppies!" and "Just how stupid do they think we are?" A couple of rather original jolts (such as Dakota's flip-movie book) make this vaguely better than DeNiro's last horror outing, the rock-bottom Godsend.

..but that's like saying that sawing your thumb and forefinger off in a workshop accident is preferable to losing your whole hand.