cmoyton

(2012-04-23 01:01:13)

Tie Rack

And here we have a competitor against Dream House for this years worst.Some folks seem blinded in their adulation for Milla Jovovich to reallyreview this movie objectively. Here, let me help you, its a turkey witha capital T. Jovovich does actually make an effort but in this she isalone as the supporting cast are as bland as rice paper. The directormust take some responsibility as something more substantial could havebeen made from the face blindness premise but the direction ispedestrian and as a result the movie lacks any tension or excitement.As in many serial killer/detective/witness combos the witness anddetective end up in each others arms but in reference to theaforementioned "witness", Harrison Ford and Kelly Mcgillis they ain't.Special mention goes out to Julian McMahon who plays the detective inquestion as he brings balsa wood acting to a new low level. Forgetabout Body of Evidence or The Specialist as Faces in the Crowd winshands down for the unsexiest movie romance ever. There's more chemistryin a test tube. Marianne Faithful is wheeled out from cold storage inthe role of some expert on something or other to offer her (stating theobvious) pearls of wisdom to help Milla overcome her affliction.Jovovich's character also has a couple of would you ever date cougargirlfriends, one of whom gets slain by the killer(unfortunately not the"Chica" one). Thankfully we are spared the rain drenched graveyardscene with the cops standing by the trees and the killer watching inthe background. Next time out can someone please provide Milla with a pepper spray thatactually works, but at least she had a cell phone that worked underground.

j-pc-birchall

(2012-04-22 02:05:23)

Progressively Irritating...

The only thing this film has going for it is the aesthetic beauty ofits lead actress and the initial shock that the NIP/TUCK guy is nolonger as pimping as one initially thought.Progressively intolerable, irritating and violates one's common senseto a point that one wishes the DVD exploded after 30 minutes.Specifically, the director bypassed the fact that the woman actuallyhas EARS. Furthermore, she is devoid of any oxytocin molecules grantingher the ability to fall in and out of love quicker than a back streethooker.However - The continuous switching of actors to convey the progenitorscondition was interesting. It gave a sense of what it may be like tohave such a disorder. This became the bones of the film and was indeeda suitable platform for the intended story line.

Boloxxxi

(2012-04-19 12:57:37)

Seriously dull-ass movie.

Movie about a woman who happens on a serial killer, has a fall tryingto escape and damages her brain so that she can't hold on to the facesshe sees. The serial killer knows about her condition and is stalkingand taunting her. I'm a Milla fan, and when you're a fan of someone youhate seeing them in a dull movie. I was actually surprised that therewere people who gave this thing more than 3 stars. I mean, NOTHING MUCHHAPPENED; no suspense, no drama, no nothing. It's one of the laziest,not-a-damned-thing-happening, movie I've ever seen. If you're a Millafan like I am love doesn't have to be blind. It's quite possible tolove her and hate this sleeping pill of a movie she's in. Love,Boloxxxi.

Kate

(2012-04-19 01:50:43)

Interesting premise, poorly done

It was an interesting premise, losing facial recognition, and couldhave been a really good story line, but overall it was very poorlywritten and executed. Too many situations were forced, made to fit themovie rather than actually being a realistic part of the story-line.And the main characters made really poor decisions multiple timesthroughout the movie - the ones that make you think "really? comeon..." The characters that played Bryce all looked similar, so I hadtrouble telling them apart - maybe I've lost facial recognition too.Overall it was pretty hokey - a definite B-movie thriller. I wouldthough like to see a good movie with the same premise.

Tony Heck

(2012-04-16 14:47:09)

A pretty original and tense thriller that shows off more of Jovovich's improving acting. Worth watching. I say B+

"He's not stupid enough to go after the one person who can recognizehim, right?" After a night of drinking with her friends Anna(Jovovich)decides to walk home alone. While walking she sees a murdertake place and is attacked by the "Tear-Jerked Jack" serial killer.After falling off a bridge she wakes up as the lone survivor. She alsowakes up with a disease called face-blindness, a condition whichaffects you from recognizing any faces...even your own. Lately it seemslike the lower budget movies are much better then the big blockbusters.This one is no exception. While this movie started to repeat itself tothe point of being annoying it was still tense and keeps you interestedand watching through out. Jovovich is becoming a very good actress andshe continues to build upon what she did in "Stone". A pretty originalidea that if it weren't for the repetition of the problem would havebeen an excellent movie. That said even with the repeating this isstill a very good movie that is very much worth seeing. Overall, asurprisingly good and tense thriller that deserves more of an audiencethat it will get. I give it a B+.Would I watch again? - I might, just to see if I can catch the clues.

KiTech

(2012-04-15 21:04:50)

It's all been said: interesting premise, horrible execution

'Faces in the crowd' is the kind of movie that had a great shot atbecoming a great brain-twister in the vein of 'Memento', but it totallyblew it. Prosopagnosia, practically the main character in the movie, isa medical condition leading to so-called face-blindness. In other words- you can't recognise people's faces. All the clichГѓВ©s that come to mindfirst have been used in this movie - a serial killer masquerading asthe protagonist's loved one, a final fight in which the protagonistcan't tell the villain apart from her saviour, the one man whose facesticks to her memory becomes her new lover. The romance part is SOcheesy and SO predictive and on top of everything it has completely nodepth, so when in the final scene she suddenly pops out (SPOILER) 'Ilove you' even a 5-year-old doesn't believe her. The movie is full ofpoor attempts at foreshadowing (the tiny town with a kindergarten ofonly a couple of pupils - i mean, come ooon), tacky Hollywood-typescenes (the final scene in the rain comes to mind immediately),stereotypes (Milla's female friends) and stale acting. To sum up - ifyou value your time, keep away from this movie.

Bogdan Teculet

(2012-04-07 15:44:43)

A face you cannot forget

This movie it's like a Jamie Oliver well prepared dish. It has lots offlavors, it's very spicy, the action scenes, dough sometimes repeatedobsessively, are mind blowing and keeps you focused and in search forclues all the time. Another good thing is that, in contrary to otherserial-killer type movies, you don't realize exactly who is the badguy, in this case "Tear-Jerked Jack", until in the last part - 10,15minutes I believe. It also have an original idea using a real conditioncalled Prosopagnosia which actually exists in real life, and builds agreat movie using Milla's Jovovich charisma and talent to create athriller by definition. You can ask yourself how many of us don'tsuffer from this condition and go to different social gatherings werepossibly dangerous people might be. Definitely a good movie!

Adam Bushill

(2012-04-07 08:38:34)

kotatsu

I have labeled this review Kotatsu for a good reason, Kotatsu are thoseJapanese tables and just like them this movie is shallow and wooden. Ilove Mila's work and cannot fault her performance in this movie buteverybody else is pretty much terrible. The writing is over simplifiedand under thought out, pop psychology meets Jerry springer. Thetherapist tries to be powerful and dramatic but just comes across likea comic parody. It was really an effort to get through this movie withits awful dialog and annoying music not to mention the makeupdepartment appears to have obtained its facial hair appliances from theplug hole in a hotel shower. The movie used obvious devices to attemptto fool the audience into mistaking one of the main character was thekiller (and occasionally one of the secondary characters), sorry filmmakers, I'm not five years old, I like most of your potential audienceI have seen a great many of these films and I've seen this sleight ofhand/smoke and mirrors stuff before, many times. Not to say that I'mgreat at always spotting the bad guy, far from it, but in this film hemight as well have been wearing a hat with the word "murderer" on it.I'll leave you with one last, unaccountable observation (MILD SPOILER).I'm not geneticist but how likely is it that two people with very darkhair would have a blonde child?!

Flow

(2012-04-02 03:56:57)

Original subject? Well it was for me!

OK, the idea of the movie was quite lovely, didn't expect it, neverseen it before therefore I'll have to start with some praises but endit with less enthusiasm sadly. The movie flows nicely, we learn moreabout Anna's condition, some tension building up, we start to suspectone or the other and then, well it becomes quite clear who the killeris. And from that point on, of course, things aren't that interestinganymore considering the fact that the thrill kinda lost its touch.Nevertheless, overall, it is a nice breath of fresh air really, trustme you can do a whole lot worse than this one, just keep in mind it'snot really a horror, more of a thriller with some horror elementsincorporated but few at number. Also, if you liked it, and you probably will, you MUST try "Julia'sEyes"! You can call these 2 movies, step sisters to be honest, in myopinion, the Spanish one wins tho!So, don't waste more time, try it out, try both of them out, nice adderto the gender!

hipcheck

(2012-04-02 00:13:05)

Nice premise, horrible execution

The opening montage is artful and interesting, and as you're watchingthe movie, you probably are interested in the premise, that life wouldbe very complicated if you couldn't recognize faces any longer. So yousit back and prepare for something that might be along the lines of"Insomnia", an thriller with a real foundation in psychologicalmanipulation, with twists and surprises to keep you guessing.And after that opening montage, it's pretty much all just clichГѓВ©s andtired plot devices and stale acting. We've seen the leads do muchbetter than this. The 'filler' scenes are so trite they feel like theywere written and shot in one take. And the 'action' scenes are shot ina way that does engage us at all. And as for the plot itself... have weever seen a woman fleeing a villain and trip before? Have we seen theprotagonist stuck in a situation where the hero has to rush to save herbut he can't get to her quickly? And finally, the main crux of thefilm, the face blindness, is interesting for about three minutes, andthen it gets incredibly stale, and yet we have to sit through anotherhour+ of it. Give this story to Chris Nolan and you'd have somethingfantastic - but this incarnation of it is really not worth wasting thetime on.

Irishize

(2012-03-30 22:20:41)

A real turkey of a film!

Crikey, but this is bad.Where to start? An already slim plot, stretched so thin it'sridiculous. Quite a few unintentional laugh-out-loud scenes. Lazywriting, *very* predictable bad-guy. It's actually a pity this film wasn't a little bit worse - it's just afew scenes away from being the next "The Room", but the boredom is justtoo much.If you're a *huge* Jovovich fan, maybe, just maybe you can get throughit, but you will be checking your phone/watch/shoe-laces for any morselof entertainment for long periods of this mis-fire!You have been warned!PS What is the deal with films getting tagged as "Horror" these days?Might as well have classified it as "Cookery". Seriously, whocategorised this? Is it a ploy by the studio to recoup their$15,000,000 budget on this turkey?

smeagoly

(2012-03-30 06:42:34)

I mean...really

The idea is nice, but every minute the film goes on you just feelthey're wasting your time. I mean...it's just stupid. I understand that she cannot recognize faces, but what about voices???Even in huge stress one can recognize voices of lovers, friends orfamily. What about style of talking? What about things we share only with our closest people? Couldn't she recognize any of that? It's an offence really and a waste of time. Only plus is MillaJovovich, that's why I voted 3/10. If you really like her, watch it. If not, do not!

RicCarr

(2012-03-27 20:34:18)

A really original premise that falls short on the execution

It's quite unusual in this day and age to stumble upon a horror moviethat emphasizes more on the elements, atmosphere and disabilities ofthe characters than in gore or another one of the endless clichГѓВ©s thathave plagued the genre for years now, fortunately Julien Magnat's"Faces in the Crowd" gives it a shot at telling a story that iscompletely character driven, but not without it's faults and missteps.Anna Marchant (Milla Jovovich) is an elementary school teacher withquite the mysterious attitude, while on one hand she acts like thesweetest teacher and the most devoted girlfriend, she also seemsunsatisfied with the predictability of her life as she seems to havethe whole thing figured out and constantly jokes around with her partyfriends Francine (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Nina (Valentina Vargas), butshe seems unsure whether she really wants to commit herself to sharinga life with her sentimental partner Bryce, whom she lives with and isabout to propose to her. That is until one disastrous night in whichshe decides to walk home from a bar and has to witness a rape andmurder scene that took place at an abandoned bridge by the mostnotorious serial killer in town, as expected, the killer spots her andtries to slit her throat, but she puts up a fight and ends up beingthrown down the bridge and suffering head trauma.After waking up from her week long coma, she notices things aredifferent and obviously freaks out, only to later learn what kind ofbrain damage she has suffered, her physician explains that she isexperiencing a disorder called Prosopagnosia that afflicts her abilityto recognize people's faces, she can't even see her own face in themirror without looking at a completely different woman's face.Anna can't exactly testify against her attacker because her afflictionprevents her from recognizing even her own boyfriend, and to top itall, the murderer becomes obsessed with Anna and stalks her for days.While developing a completely unique environment for the characters tobegin telling a story, Magnat also falls short on the execution, heattempts to put us in the shoes of Anna and feel her desperation as sheis stalked by a serial killer and also tries to add a love interest tothe whole mix, which, in my opinion, is the one element that brings thestory a whole step down.For one side we have a desperate Anna Marchant who isn't in theposition to develop a love interest as she can't exactly tell peopleapart, but also, most of the film they have us thinking that the killermight actually be her own boyfriend, or even the detective which tookthe case , still she decides to fall in love with one that couldpossibly be a psychopath rapist that cries after reaching climax withhis slashed-up victims. They also add another survivor, a traumatizedkid that is so messed up that can't even tell who the killer is despitehaving him in front for months (and a really poor explanation is givenabout this since the kid doesn't have Prosopagnosia).In the end "Faces in the Dark" is a really brave attempt at a thriller,a phone stalking - slasher horror movie, and it barely manages to pullit off by certain elements that are really worth noting, no excessiveor unnecessary gore is depicted, the photography, atmosphere, lightningand sound effects are impeccable, the story has an excellent premise,the acting is surprisingly good, scares are given by justified scenesand not the classic "closing-the-cabinet-mirror-and-the-killer-is-behind", but despite all this efforts, it ultimately has that "could'vebeen way better" feeling to it, and it is because of that missteps thatwe aren't looking at this years sleeper's hit, and it is most likelythat Milla Jovovich (who also is an Executive Producer) won't bereceiving notorious acknowledgments.

Murli

(2012-03-27 07:48:27)

An interesting premise sadly poorly executed

The ratio of what's right to what's wrong in this movie is somethinglike 1:5, with the only thing that the director and the script gotright was the notion of a woman losing her ability to distinguishfaces, even those near and dear to her. What went wrong is just abouteverything you can think of: acting, plot, the "shocking" identity ofthe "serial" killer...Milla Jovovich's character suffers a traumatic head injury whilsttrying to flee a particularly heinous serial killer who's terrorizingwomen. She then loses her ability to recognize faces, including thoseof her boyfriend and best friends. What's interesting is the way thefaces of these people change. What backfired is that some of thesechanges are so subtle that you don't even realize that the faces havechanged till you think about it 5 minutes later and then have to rewindthe movie to confirm. Case in point: her Latin friend Nina who managesto look the same in every scene that she's in. What's even weirder isthat somehow the face of the detective she meets remains the same, anomen that leads to a tired clichГѓВ©.The acting is very sub par. Milla Jovovich hasn't convinced me thatshe's a good actress and the shining example is when she's in theneurologist's office and manages to recognize the flawed glass stone,which wasn't hard to do given that there's only one in the whole bunch.Milla's facial motions as she "recognizes" the stone are so bad Iwondered if this was her first ever movie role. Even worse is JulianMcMahon who starts of by being a complete insensitive idiot in thefirst meeting with Milla's victimized character. Normally a policedetective would employ tact and manners to make a person feel calm andrelaxed but this is the opposite...and he hasn't got any facts aboutwhat happened to Milla, which makes you wonder what sort of detectivehe is.The plot of the serial killer was just plain stupid. A guy who wants toplay games with the one person who could possibly identify him? There'sno surprise as to his identity and you can even make a simple correctguess before the half way point. You don't even have to see the movieto make the guess. Just close your eyes and let the answer come to you.All in all, not a movie to recommend. Bad acting, bad plot and just abad waste of time.

Girish Winchester

(2012-03-22 00:53:55)

If only this was better executed!

Anna Marchant (Milla Jovovich) is primary school teacher who haseverything one could need; a loving boyfriend and basically a goodlife. One day, on her way home she witnesses the murder of a woman. Theperpetrator turns out to be the notorious serial killer - "TearjerkJack/Killer" who cries over the dead women he has killed. He noticesAnna and attacks her. During the scuffle, Anna tips over the railingsand falls into the river while hitting her head and suffering aconcussion. When she wakes up in the hospital, she can no longerrecognize her friends faces. No face looks the same to her twice. Shesuffers from a real-life medical problem 'face blindness' and can'teven recognize her own self in the mirror. The real horrifying part isthat the killer is after her as she has seen his face. But Anna cannotdefend herself since she has no idea what anybody really look like.'Faces in the Crowd' had a highly intriguing premise which wasn'treally exploited. When one loses the ability to recognize faces, theirlife will be in turmoil naturally. Add a serial killer into the fray,you have a hot potboiler of a tale to tell. The film starts out with abang, but then whimpers and limps to the end. Well, the ending wasn'treally dreadful. But still the writing was far too uninspired, whilethe direction didn't add anything to help it. Of all the othercharacters, I found the woman doctor to be highly annoying. She givesphilosophical answers to difficult questions. I suspected who theserial killer would be halfway through the movie and it turned out Iwas right. Its bit of a clichГѓВ© actually. I know many disagree with meon this, but I have to say Milla Jovovich is a fantastic actress andthis movie actually proved it. She gives one of the best actingperformances of her life even though the writing was lackluster. Shewas the sole shining gem in this movie and made it worth watching. ButI wouldn't recommend this movie to anybody unless you really love MillaJovovich.5/10

M De Storm

(2012-03-21 21:06:55)

Blindness can be a gift as well as a curse

It is of no surprise that Milla is on top form with her acting in thismovie, as she was with "The Fourth Kind", no additional martial arts orbutt kicking's in this feature. The film opens with Anna (Jovovich)leaving a cocktail bar after having a drink with friends, only towitness a horrific murder to which she is chased and cornered by thekiller upon a bridge. Accidentally falling into the freezing cold riverwater below, Anna awakens in the hospital with no memory of theincident leading up to her plunge. This is not the worst of it,however, as she is diagnosed with "Face-Blindness"; a condition whichis rarely (If not impossible) to cure, and which distorts the facialfeatures of everyone that the patient sees day after day. One day itcould be a vague face for a man and woman, the next day a completelydifferent face altogether. This does not help when somewhere out thereis a serial killer taking advantage of your "Face Blindness" condition.For Anna, her condition is being dealt with daily, while for her, sheknows who the serial killer is, but with the "Face Blindness" shewouldn't know if that killer was stood next to her at any given moment.Not long after being released from the hospital Anna becomes distressedin the fact that she is waking up every morning to a different man –but the same Husband.Self-assigned Detective Kerrest (Julian McMahon of Charmed televisionseries) brings in the strange and weirdness of crossover channels as hetakes Anna to the safe haven island of…yeah, Cole Island (Charmed fanswill know that Julian played the character known as Cole in the hit TVseries). Here Anna and Kerrest spend a lot of time together and becomevery close, too, which may or may not help with the case or the findingof the killer.We found "Faces In The Crowd" very well written, thrilling enough tokeep us all guessing on who the real serial killer was, and most ofall, we found the acting more tolerable than first thought – as thereare two actors here, Shanks and McMahon, from television successes –acting alongside such a strong cinema actresses as Milla Jovovich andMarianne Faithful.The condition which Anna has after her accident is emotionally chargedand at the same time sympathised by the viewer (we believe) as shestruggles with the changing faces and the frustration in which shefeels when the voices of friends are there, just not the friendly warmfaces that she has lived to respect and love…not even that of her ownFather.DVD Archive Rating: 8/10

Robert W.

(2012-03-19 17:06:48)

An interesting idea is completely lost in muddled confusion

The concept of this movie, the premise of 'face-blindness' is reallyinteresting. When major characters in the film suddenly change actorsbecause she can't remember what they looked like...that is a reallycool idea and premise. It is the only thing saving this dreadful messfrom being a complete zero. With this unique idea the story is lost andslapped together. The performances are uninspiring and the charactersare boring. It doesn't know whether its a mystery, a thriller, or anaction movie, or even a drama.Milla Jovovich is a Hollywood calibre star in my opinion. She is agreat actress, and has terrific chemistry...usually. In this film,which I can only imagine she did as a favour, she is a complete mess.She looks silly and acts like a B-Movie horror scream queen. Hercharacter is vapid and empty. Julian McMahon plays the tough and angrypolice detective who becomes involved with Jovovich. He has a solidcharacter and does a decent job but the story eventually bogs down hispotential and leaves his character empty. Its sort of hard to pin pointany other performances in the film because the characters change actorsso much. Her boyfriend Bryce seems to change actors a dozen times inthe film so its hard to say who played who the best. It doesn't mattermuch because the film is just so hard to follow and never finds anyspecific path.Director and writer Julien Magnat probably thinks he made some sort ofbrilliant artistic feat. In fact its a mess and I don't know how or whyit got made. It doesn't seem to suffer from being low budget and yetthe ideas in the movie get so skewed and I think the film tries to telltoo much and too many ideas all at once. I think it should have been athriller about a woman tracking a serial killer she can't identify butthat whole premise is completely lost. Skip this so called thrillerbecause its a definite miss. 5/10

spikemaze

(2012-03-19 02:41:34)

Very interesting

This movie has a very interesting premise: A woman runs into a serialkiller roaming the streets of the city she lives in. She sees his face,but hits her head and suddenly she can't tell people apart anymore. Herboyfriend, her best friends or even an absolute stranger lookcompletely different every time she sees them. Because their faces areunrecognizable to her. Every man she sees could be the killer for allshe knows. And the killer knows what advantage he has.It could have been done a lot better, I must admit. The movie movesalong slowly and it might be difficult to keep your focus when watchingthis movie. But the interesting premise is worth it.The leading actors are also very good in their roles. Milla, JulianMcMahon and Michael Shanks are all strong actors. Sadly the lead menkeep changing in order to fit the premise and this does cause someproblems. Though it's very well done, the changing actors aren't asstrong in their acting as McMahon or Shanks. This ruins a lot.The positive aspect is that the viewer also get the faces mixed up. Ina normal film it would be a catastrophe, but it works so well in thismovie because we become as confused as the leading woman.All in all I liked the film. It wasn't perfect, but I doubt that anyonewill expect this movie to be just that. And the best part is that ifyou then watch another movie afterwards, you might just like me startquestioning every character's face.The movie sticks to you.

Bart Bart

(2012-03-12 16:20:29)

Watch it at 2Pm on a rainy Sunday

***This doesn't have spoilers just vague spoilers***where to start with this review, I knew what I was getting into whenyou start a Milla Jovovich movie, though popular (only by looks and adecent actor) she performs in terrible movies her last good ones wereprobably "Fifth element", "the messenger" and "Zoolander" other thenthat the rest of her movies are quite bad. This is another one. Its supposed to be a crime drama but honestly if you're payingattention you're going to find out who the killer is half way throughthe movie. The whole movie I'm screaming "Its that person! Its thatperson!" This movie doesn't try to be funny or comical or witty itsincredibly bland though some what dramatic at times. Milla Jovovichcharacter was a terrible love interest their was no chemistry at allbetween the two, they were together for maybe 3 days "movie time" andwere expected to care about what happens to them as a couple, its cornyhow over dramatized it is. This movie is boring, honestly I doubt ifeven me writing this review is even worth my time. I'm just trying tosave you time and say skip this one and watch it at 2pm on a rainySunday if you have nothing better to do.

beetlejuice532

(2012-03-12 05:40:58)

Faces in the Crows

I just couldn't follow this film at all. Milla is a FANTASTIC actress,but she didn't do this film any justice at all. No story, no real plot,too predictable way before its even happened. Twenty of us were at apre-viewing all of us except about 2 were saying what the hell was thatall about? Why on Earth did they choose such a great actress to play insuch trash of a movie. We were just glad we didn't pay to see it.Another movie I'd advise not to waste money on, wait till you can rentit from DVD store much cheaper. I give this 3 stars cause: 1 Milla was in it, great actress in ResidentEvil and Stone. 2 I didn't pay to see it. 3 I made a few new friendsafter it was over.And to answer someone who asked if Face Blindness is an actual disease,yes it is, look up Prosopagnosia.