Somewhere in here, there is a good movie. The story is actually rather interesting, but it's ruined as the movie doesn't know whether it wants to be scary or silly, a supernatural noir or a movie about someone hunting down a book. The result is a dull mess where you don't care about the characters but is interested in where the story goes. Sadly, after a while you stop caring about that too, since it's all fairly obvious, aside from the preposterous ending.

Johnny Depp and Frank Langella are awesome though. Together they almost make the movie worth watching, if you're a fan of both and have seen every other movie with them forty times. If not, don't watch this.

The first half hour of The Ninth Gate is strong enough that it had me wondering if the movie was much better than its reviews at the time suggested. I dug the introduction of Johnny Depp's character, a rare book dealer who cheats a buyer out of an original edition of Don Quixote using exactly the kind of misdirection that Polanski is brilliant at as a filmmaker. I began to hope that Polanski would make something personal out of the hoary occult plot, and the movie does have a sly sense of deadpan humor. But the story drags more and more as it goes on, and it has one of the most ridiculous nonendings I've ever seen. Still worth seeing, though - Depp's eccentric screen presence is a perfect fit for Polanski, and the movie has enough quirky touches, like Frank Langella's glasses, to hold one's interest.

Neat little lovecraft horror story. It feels like an interesting companion piece to Polanski's 'The Tenant', which deals with a form of Kafkaesque horror, whereas this film is at the opposite end of the same spectrum, being a lovecraftian story.

Lurid and it gets almost silly towards the end, but I enjoy it anyway.

Roman Polanski should have just molested someone instead of doing this mediocre shit.

I liked Johnny Depp's glasses, that was pretty much it.

A satanic film noir. Fun, but awfully light.

Klarer Fall von: "Da hätte man mehr draus machen können"...

Ich hatte eigentlich etwas anderes erwartet, nämlich mehr Grusel oder Mystery. Hier wird relativ bodenständig ein paar alten Büchern hinterher gejagt, die angeblich vom Teufel persönlich verfasst wurden. Übersinnliches spart Polanski größtenteils aus, und so fühlt man sich eher in einem "Da Vinci Code" Light als in einem Film über schaurige Dämonen. Auch daraus hätte man etwas machen können, nur leider baut der Film nach einem spannenden Anfang merklich ab. Die in den Büchern versteckten geheimen Botschaften hätten ausgeklügelter sein können, Rätsel zu lösen gibt es im Grunde gar keine. Johnny Depp habe ich selten in einer so emotionslosen Rolle gesehen. Und selbst die mysteriösen Verfolger (natürlich gibt es die) sorgen kaum für Nervenkitzel. Zu guter Letzt hat mich dann auch noch das Ende enttäuscht.

Schade drum, denn den Anfang fand ich wirklich vielversprechend.

detta är alltså samma snubbe som gjort the pianist?
ok.
askass film
en stjärna för att den var så dålig att man kunde skratta åt den.

The first half hour of The Ninth Gate is strong enough that it had me wondering if the movie was much better than its reviews at the time suggested. I dug the introduction of Johnny Depp's character, a rare book dealer who cheats a buyer out of an original edition of Don Quixote using exactly the kind of misdirection that Polanski is brilliant at as a filmmaker. I began to hope that Polanski would make something personal out of the hoary occult plot, and the movie does have a sly sense of deadpan humor. But the story drags more and more as it goes on, and it has one of the most ridiculous nonendings I've ever seen. Still worth seeing, though - Depp's eccentric screen presence is a perfect fit for Polanski, and the movie has enough quirky touches, like Frank Langella's glasses, to hold one's interest.

The Ninth Gate is most certainly not what I expected. I was expecting an atmospheric and tense horror-thriller, but what I got was a slow and plodding neo-noir. Clearly, I'm not the only one who thinks this is one of Polanski's lesser films, but going in I liked the premise enough that I overlooked what the naysayers said. I shouldn't have. Listen, The Ninth Gate isn't a bad film. It's interesting at times, but it's poorly paced and the overall story isn't the most compelling. The Blu-ray does look nice and it wasn't a bad deal for $7.99, but there's a whole lot of other stuff I could've watched.

Roman Polanski + Johnny Depp and a story that had something to do with finding a book written by Lucifer? Sounds like a winning combination for a great satanic thriller, maybe even something in the same vein of ''Rosemary's Baby,'' right? Wrong. What actually ensues is tepid & mostly confused storytelling, worsened by flat acting (this has to be the most dreadful performance I've seen by Johnny Depp), and a unforgivable wastage of seemingly interesting material. Only the film's composer seemed to be doing anything right in creating the ominous score that was really effective in providing the movie with the appropriate tone that was demanded. So, unless you're a fan of the names involved, this is definitely not worth investing your precious time.

A good movie. I love Johnny Depp most of all, but the story is interesting. Basically good because of Johnny Depp though.