Movie Review - What Lies Beneath
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2000 / 130 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
Bob, I got nothing but love for ya. You know that. You should. I have “Forrest Gump” and “Romancing the Stone” on laserdisc. I own every movie you have ever done on one format or another, actually: all the “Back to the Future”s on VHS (and, whenever they bring them out, on DVD), “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” (a decent little comedy about Beatlemania which is sweet and funny and every bit as lively as his other stuff) “Used Cars” (tell me it doesn’t rule, you can’t!) “Contact” and “Death Becomes Her” on DVD.
But Bob, your latest could have been better.
Good things:
Michelle Pfeiffer gives a great performance in this. Aspects of the movie might not work precisely, but she isn’t one of them. She is great.
The little looks she gives Harrison? Anyone who has ever seen a married couple will smile with acknowledgement at them. And there is a scene in a bathtub that is nothing less than chilling. If you aren’t on the edge of your seat during this scene, then you’re dead.
Some of the camerawork toward the end. It’s cool as hell. You will scratch your head wondering how much of it was accomplished. But it serves the plot too. You may think a lot of what is happening might be bullshit at this point, but you will love the way it’s shot.
The setting up of mood toward the beginning of this picture. Things are nicely set up. The tone of the film in these opening scenes grabs you and makes you interested almost at once. The film does a marvelous job of making it all seem genuine, giving it plenty of little touches that establish the reality of everything before plunging you into the supernatural aspects of it.
The subtle nods to everyone from Hitchcock to Stephen King to “Fatal Attraction”. They were gentle homages rather than outright theft, and I could spot where most of them came from, but I liked it. It respected my intelligence.
There is more humor here than there was in “Contact” and, if anything, Zemeckis is a master when using humor. He knows where to put it, knows when to use and when to reign it in. Example: “Where did you finally get a Ouiji Board?” “K-Mart.”
I liked the last little curveball the film threw at me: very unexpected.
What I was not so hot on:
The way the movie focuses too much on what the neighbor is doing. I didn’t mind this subplot, but it didn’t need to be dwelt upon this long.
Shorten it up.
The way the film throws a few too many “dum!” moments at you. You know what I mean. There is an air of suspense, then suddenly the music goes “Dum!” and something harmless comes into the shot to give you a relieving scare. Bob, this is beneath you. This gets tiresome in a “Nightmare on Elm Street” flick.
The ghost. Does she want to help Michelle? Does she want to kill her? Does she want to warn her? Does the ghost even know what the hell it wants? At the end of the movie, I was still trying to figure this out. The ghost was a rather thinly-developed character. It seemed to change to suit whatever mood the movie was in during that scene. It wasn’t really a consistent character. Actually, neither were a couple of others: including Harrison.
Harrison sleepwalks through this movie, just as he has been doing ever since “The Fugitive”. Maybe even before that. Sure, he does an okay job, but he never seems that into it. I don’t know. Maybe it was just me.
The ending. Or the lack thereof. The last shot seems to set up something, then nothing comes after it. It left me feeling disoriented.
The movie drags once too often. It should have made another pass through the editor.
But, after all this, I must say that the positives of the movie outweigh the negatives. It’s still a pretty decent thriller. Well done for the most part, but, with Zemeckis on board, we could have had something better than this.
It won’t keep me out of the line for “Cast Away” though, I can tell you that much for certain.
