Review of Naked Lunch (1991) by Adam P — 27 Jan 2011

A disappointing, over-rated movie detailing the struggles of writing and the affects it has on an exterminator's (Peter Weller) life. While certainly ambitious and appropriately weird based on the director's (the quite average David Cronenberg) style, this film ultimately suffers from a glacial pace as well as a hard-to-follow storyline.

This movie challenges you to think and pay attention to every detail, however minuscule it might appear, perceiving its audience to be intelligent and to be able to know enough to "get by" at the end.

The non-linear fashion helps keep the the film watchable since you are constantly trying to figure out what is going on, but in other ways it slows the movie down when none of the dialogue or characters make much sense.

Peter Weller's simple, somewhat robotic performance fits this piece perfectly, unfortunately the way this thing plods along in addition to a weird subplot (dealing with the subject of homosexuality - which seems to go nowhere) drag this thing into mediocrity.

With that said, the creatures and visuals on display here, as well as some of the ideas, are undeniably impressive, but in the end that does not make the movie worth sticking through.