Maléfique
(aka Malefique/2002/BCI Eclipse)
Picture:
C Sound: B- Extras: C- Film: C-
Sometimes
a director from a foreign country makes a good film, then comes to Hollywood
and makes a very bad one that does not begin to show his talent. After suffering through the shockingly bad One Missed Call (2008), I was curious
to see if Eric Valette had done better before.
Maléfique (2002) is the tale
of four prisoners who discover a hidden book with dark powers and the potential
to set them free. It backfires and so
does this film.
The
problem is that the almost the whole thing is in the one room, gets stagy
quickly and even forgets where it is and what it is doing. If anything, it is what Gary Marshall would
refer to as a “stuck in a” story, the kind of comedy script he would cook up
when one of his comedy series was running out of budget for the season. There are even bad attempts at comedy and the
insane laugh enough, but 90 minutes feels like a prison sentence and you are
soon rooting for the book to implode the prison and take everyone with it. It is that lame.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is softer than a recent film production
should be, even with all the fancy attempts at style, while the sound is also a
bit off for a newly recorded film. The
DTS 5.1 mix is the best, but sounds compressed and the Dolby Digital 5.1 and
2.0 mixes are worse. The combination
disappoints. The only extras are
trailers for similar BCI product.
- Nicholas Sheffo
