| Overall Grade: |
F |
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| Story: |
D+ |
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| Acting: |
D+ |
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|
| Direction: |
D |
|
|
| Visuals: |
C- |
|
|
The Only Thing to Fear is FeardotCom Itself...
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Aug 31, 2005
7
of
8 people found this review helpful
It was late, I was bored, I wanted to watch something. My faithful HBO had a late-night showing of FeardotCom, and, having heard bad things about it, I decided to watch just to see what it was really like. And yes...it was bad.
But "bad" doesn't describe it well enough. "Awful," on the other hand, does. The story is like a tenth-rate knockoff of The Ring (or, considering that FeardotCom and The Ring came out around the same time, maybe Ringu). After some murders involving some terrifying-looking corpses (which were actually quite comical, though unintentionally), a pair of detectives decide to investigate. They discover that the murders are leading to a live death cam website (the "magic" of the internet, eh?) which will kill whoever visits it exactly 48 hours after they logged on.
Just from the premise, I could tell I wasn't going to be scared. It would've been great if I was, but I wasn't. I will admit, though, that the plot takes an intriguing turn when the two detectives (Stephen Dorff and Natascha McElhone) find an author who discusses "neuronet" possibilities...however, besides that one interesting scene, it's never explored further, and devolves back into its regular crap.
If that doesn't sound bad enough, check out the acting. Even Dorff (who played a great villain in 1998's Blade) gives an annoying performance. Not stale, mind you, but wholly annoying. Even worse is costar McElhone (who really is the star since she's given more screentime). She proves to be extremely irritating with her laughably inept performance. The acting from all of the minor actors is pretty poor as well.
All-in-all, it feels like the director of FeardotCom, William Malone, captured the essence of Hell on film, and that's not a good thing. The film's quick cuts and mind-numbing camera styles are annoying and migrane-inducing (unlike Natural Born Killers, a similarly-cut film). This film is so repulsive in its style and feel, I wanted to kill myself while watching.
I dare anyone not to yawn at least once while watching this two-hour snoozefest. One of the worst films I've ever been witness to. |
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