Darkman (1990)

His Review:

Payton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough.  He is trying to create synthetic skin for burn victims, but has a few kinks to work through.  When his lawyer girlfriend, Julie (Frances McDormand), discovers some documents that can incriminate a client, the client comes to Payton’s lab looking for them and he is badly injured to the point Julie thinks he is dead.  Payton spends some time in a burn unit and is given a treatment that makes him immune to pain, but prevents him from controlling his rage.  Now Payton is back and, with help from his synthetic skin, wants revenge on the men who transformed him into Darkman.

Directed by Sam Raimi (Spiderman, Evil Dead, Drag Me to Hell), Darkman feels like a comic book version of The Crow – which feels like a graphic novel.  Having said that, even though Darkman is rated R, it feels like PG13 when watching it.  It often feels tongue in cheek and too “colorful” for a movie called Darkman.  I could never take the villain too seriously because of the way he looks.  For a movie that is now 22 years old, it has pretty good special effects and the idea is original.  The ending is the best part and I don’t know why they didn’t have the whole movie in the dark like that.  It’s a short watch and offers an interesting tale.  Not horrible but not the best.  Co-starring Larry Drake and Colin Friels.

7/10 Stars – Felt weak at the beginning and got stronger as it went along.

Click below for links to IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099365/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/darkman/