When this movie came out in 1999, critics ate it up. It was a cinematic masterpiece, blah blah blah. Watching this movie almost 9 years after its release, I can call this movie utter trash.
In a nutshell, the movie revolves around Craig Schwartz, an unsuccessful puppeteer maried to a worker at a local pet-store, named Lottie. It is obvious early on that the marriage is a joke. Lottie encourages Craig to find a job, so he finds a job at the Lester Corp, on the 7 1/2 floor of a building in downtown New York (talk about low overhead). While working here, he meets Maxine, a fellow co-worker, and falls madly in love with her. Maxine does not give Craig the time of day. Anyways, while working one day, Craig just happens to find a borded up door behind a filing cabinet that is a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich (who plays himself). Basically, you expereince everything that John does for 15 minutes (which is usually mundane things such as taking a shower or ordering towels out of a catalog), then get dumped into a field off of the Jersey Turnpike.
John runs back to tell Maxine, who still hates his guts. Yet, without even going through the portal herself, she has a sudden revelation, and decides to accept what Craig says as true, and they start a business together, charging $200 a pop for 15 minutes inside of John's head.
However, before the first person goes through, Craig tells Lottie, who has to go through the portal herself (just so happens to be when John is showering, and she quite enjoys the experience). Craig introduces her to Maxine, and Maxine decides to meet up with John just at the same time that Lottie is inside of her. Lesbian sexual encounters follows, with Lottie in John. Craig gets wind of this, ties up his wife, and then goes back into John, where he soon learns that he can control John just like he can his puppets.
The basic concept of the movie is good - its implementation is bad. First, you get the impression that the entire world are either buttholes or manic-depressed people (actually, that may not be far from the truth). I sure hope that noone from off of this planet finds this movie and decides to judge all of mankind by this. Second, the movie turns from being about "escaping from your life" to being "everyone screw Maxine". The movie boarders on pornography, and I was utterly disgusted by the lesbian scenes. Then there is the end of the movie. While I am not going to spoil it, I will just say this, "Dude! That is your seven-year-old biological daughter! That is sick!"
Video quality
Yeah, I kind of surprised myself that I gave the video such a high rating. Throughout the majority of the movie, colors are pretty muted and dull. However, I eventually realized that this was a choice on the director's part - the movie is SUPPOSED to look like this. You almost do not notice it, but the movie's colors slowly start becoming more vibrant and satuated. The ending of the movie is beautiful (if not disturbing). Blacks and greys are nicely seperated, and there is nice depth to the picture. Film grain looks great - there is enough there to make you feel like you are still watching a film, but not so much that it distracts fromt he movie. The scene where Malkovich stumbles into his own conscious, and later when Maxine and Lottie stumble into his subconcsious, are breathtaking.
So, sadly, this movie is not getting a higher score because of solely a subjective taste - I just cannot see to be able to bring myself into giving this movie a higher score, as this would put it on par with some demo discs, and I just cannot bring myself to do that. The movie will probably never look better, and its not ment to. This is probably the most perfect transfer you could find. It's just that the source material sucks.
Sound quality
The sound quality is up there with the quality fo the video - it does not sound great, but it is not supposed to. I will give them that the mix is quite good - dialog is crisp and well-prioritized over music and soudn effects. My issue is that the track sounds flat with almost no bass and the trebile sounds trimmed, and there is absolutely zero depth to the sound field. The rears seem reserved for some muffled ambience while they are in Malkovich's head. Once again, even though this sounds like crap, it seems as if this is going to be the best sound you will ever get out of this movie - it just is not ment to sound better.
Bonus features
I must say, with as disappointed as I was with the movie, and considering its age, I found the bonus features to be quite fascinating. They are just so out there and unsusual, you just cannot help but to love them. My favorite is a 10 minute long (roughly) interview with a background driver. Yeah, that is right, she is an extra, and her role in the movie was to drive her car back and forth. This was quite entertaining, as the girl was psycho or something, and she will be telling this really random movie, then suddenly they get the green light, and they turn the camera out the window, and you can see them pass by the the film crew and cast for about 2 seconds. Then she will put the car in reverse, drive back, continue her conversation, and so forth.
There are two films shown inside of the movie, Craig's work orientation video, and a documentary on TV about John Malkovich. Both of these are presented in their entirty here on the disc. The work orientation video is so well done to look like a cheap, low budget, early 80s orientation video, that I was silently laughing through the entire thing.
You also have a brief interview with a very camera-shy director, taken the day after filming is complete. I must say it was different.
Final Word
While this movie is interesting, and had an original concept, it just was not that good. The movie fails to define itself as a drama or comedy or sci-fi movie or romance comedy. Many of the reviews I have read classify this as a comedy, which would be sad - the comedy is very intelectual and dry. Conservatives should be absolutely disgusted by this movie, and no matter how open-minded you are, you will probably find the end disturbing at best. Despite all of this, I am going to recommend, with caution, this movie as a rental.