The Predictability Of The Last Dream: Jacob’s Ladder

The Good: Some genuinely horrifying images, Decent acting, Interesting story
The Bad: Very predictable plot, Characters are hard to get into
The Basics: As a man wanders through the world that has suddenly become filled by nightmares, the viewer watched and enjoys watching Jacob's twisted journey.


Jacob’s Ladder is a movie I recall seeing previews for on television when I was still too young to go to see rated R movies in the theater and I somehow managed to never get around to seeing it until I bought my new television. I decided for the inaugural movie on my high definition television, I would pick up and watch Jacob’s Ladder finally and overall, I am quite glad I did.

Reading the back of the DVD case, however, is enough to almost ruin the supposed surprise twist of the end of the movie. In truth, fans of psychological horror or most fans of science fiction (the good stuff) will see the end to Jacob’s Ladder coming a mile away. Even so, I found myself enjoying the movie even though it went in exactly the direction I knew it was headed.

Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran, lives in New York City where he begins to suddenly experience waking nightmares. He has anxiety attacks, then sees faceless beings, demons, and even his son, who died years before. Unfortunately for Jacob, his reality continues to fracture and he finds himself waking up with his ex-wife Sarah and alternately waking up with his new mistress Jezebel. As his week goes on, Jacob finds himself plagued by greater and more horrifying demons and finding other veterans in a similar predicament.

Jacob’s Ladder is essentially a character study without any real significant character development. More than being about Jacob, the film is an exploration of the situation Jacob finds himself in. Ultimately, his decisions do not matter and who he allies himself with becomes inconsequential. The movie is actually more of an experience about circumstances.

It's hard to discuss Jacob’s Ladder without giving away the end or the fundamental premise. It's a movie that you need to trust the reviewer you're reading to simply take their word for it. If I'm that reviewer for you, thank you. Jacob’s Ladder is not a rational movie and it's not supposed to be. It is supposed to be a movie that freaks you out. It does so not by creating a horrifying set of circumstances or some sort of twisted villain, but rather by placing a fairly normal guy in a recognizable world and then twisting reality around him.

So, Jacob Singer is never a terribly compelling character. But, in truth, the movie works because he is not interesting. Because he is pretty much the everyman, Jacob becomes far less important than the things that surround him. And because of what the movie is truly about, this makes the film work. If Jacob were more interesting, if he were a superhero who could do extraordinary things, it would gut this movie.

Jacob is ably played by Tim Robbins who does an excellent job playing befuddled. Half the time, Jacob does not understand what is going on or why. Tim Robbins adequately portrays that. Robbins falls back from giving a performance that rules the movie and instead lets the environment take over by keeping his acting on the side of understated. Again that works quite well for the movie. And when Robbins needs to strongly emote, as he does in the final moments of the movie, he's there to give the performance what it needs to work.

The movie's special effects are actually impressive, even now. They create a truly creepy mood and the photography and intensity of the visual images is memorable, even more than the story being told.

I give a lot of credit to director Adrian Lyne for Jacob’s Ladder. This movie hinges a lot on the director's vision and it asks a lot of its audience in terms of suspension of disbelief. Lyne pulls it off by taking a script that is not filled with impressive dialogue or interesting characters and creates a movie that effectively manipulates the mood of the viewers through frightening imagery and ideas. Lyne does what is required in order to make the movie work and that's extraordinary in this case.

Ultimately, without giving anything away, Jacob’s Ladder is best described as a dream or a nightmare that the viewer willingly subjects themselves to. We follow Jacob Singer through the nightmare his life has become and as we are simply along for the ride, we are able to immerse ourselves in the terrifying place he finds himself and enjoy being frightened by the imagery as Jacob falls apart.

For other films that bend reality in a similar way, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Brazil
Sucker Punch
Inception

7/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Lolita: Nothing So Mysterious Or Sensual

The Good: Early tone, Moments of acting
The Bad: Inconsistent characterization, Execution of plot, Resolution
The Basics: Lolita is a clearly sub-par film fails to be interesting in that it is too inconsistent.


If you're expecting Lolita to be an enjoyable sexual thriller, you're in for a big disappointment. In fact, if you're some righteous pervert, hoping to see some young flesh like all of those e-mails your Hotmail account keeps getting then this, too, is the wrong film for you. After all, there are international laws and this is not Holland. Thus, the fifteen year old girl playing Dolores (Lolita) is never seen in any real state of undress. In fact, up until the last ten minutes, there's so little actually on screen that outside the theme and the tension, a PG rating is more appropriate. No kidding. And in the last ten minutes, all the nudity is male.

So, Lolita is about a writer/professor who has basically aged while searching for the deceased love of his life. That process has led Humbert Humbert to view girls (not women) as sexually accessible and more desirable than their older counterparts because they more closely resemble his lost love. To that end, he is summering with Charlotte Haze and Humbert encounters her daughter, Dolores. Dolores is a rambunctious child, spontaneous, annoying. She's thirteen and she's being sent to summer camp, though she clearly has an attraction to Humbert. As a necessity to keep Dolores in his life, Humbert marries Charlotte and things are going well until Charlotte dies in a freak accident leaving Humbert and Dolores thrown together.

What follows is an hour and a half of Dolores and Humbert driving around. Dolores is tedious and annoying, Humbert goes from being compassionate and lusty to obsessive and brooding. The characters don't so much as follow sensible arcs either as they change abruptly. Dolores is clearly disturbed going one moment from being fun to screaming to bratty. She seems to accept and enjoy things, then wigs out on a hairtrigger. Humbert goes from having a reasonable story (man in love) to simple flat-charactered pedophile quicker than you can say "not only 'statutory' rape."

The plot could have been good, but the characters make it impossible to execute well. Humbert turns out to be rather an idiot, reaching the obvious conclusion for one of the main plot points only when it is told to him. This leads directly to the ending and it's pretty sad because of the time lapses that occur between the plot event and its resolution. I refuse to ruin the surprise of what that is.

The resolution, though is unsatisfying. Going from Humbert having to be told the obvious to his action and then an ending that stops about two minutes too early, leaving the final resolution to be told rather than shown.

In the end, Lolita isn't titillating, it's not entertaining. It's not even terribly disturbing. Well, it is, but not for the reasons the filmmakers want it to be. It's disturbing because it's inconsistent, poorly executed and often confused. This is a film not worth your time. Were it not for the directing and occasional moments in Jeremy Irons (Humbert) and Swain's (Dolores) acting, I'd say avoid it entirely.

For other movies that explore sexuality, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Love And Other Drugs
American Beauty
Friends With Benefits

3/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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