(out of ****)
_Stir_of_Echoes_ (R) ** 1/2
_Stigmata_ (R) ***
"If you liked _The_Sixth_Sense_, then you'll love _Stir_of_Echoes_." I'm actually a bit surprised that Artisan Entertainment isn't going that cornball route with their film's publicity, for David Koepp's adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel shares a remarkable amount in common with the surprise box office phenomenon of the summer. Unfortunately, one of those common traits is falling short of complete success.
For all their similarities, _Stir_of_Echoes_ is a completely different animal from M. Night Shyamalan's film, especially in terms of style. Koepp approaches his material in a much more conventional fashion than Shyamalan, a fact that can best be summed up by a simple comparison. In _The_Sixth_Sense_, the now-famous "I see dead people" is spoken roughly an hour into the film. In _Stir_of_Echoes_, the psychically gifted child, Jake Witzky (Zachary David Cope), asks "Does it hurt to be dead?" to an invisible (but not to him) apparition at about the five-minute mark.
This sixth sense also comes to be possessed by Jake's father Tom (Kevin Bacon) after he is put under hypnosis by his sister-in-law Lisa (Illeana Douglas). What is meant as a harmless lark during a party turns natural skeptic Tom into a true believer, for he soon has haunting visions of a mysterious stranger lurking about his house--apparently the same heretofore invisible one with whom his son has been regularly conversing.
The reasons for the ghostly stranger's visits recall similar points in _The_Sixth_Sense_, and that's about where the similarities end. There is a more menacing edge here that was fairly absent in that film. A point that comes into play in _Stir_of_Echoes is how ghosts get angry when not paid attention to, resulting in some effective scare scenes where Tom and his family are actually threatened. The darker shades are reinforced by Koepp, who employs an effectively flashy visual style that lends an eeriness to even the more sedate sequences, such as the clever staging of Tom's hypnosis experience.
The absorbing style and urgent pace of _Stir_of_Echoes_ kept me interested as it progressed, as opposed to the glacial crawl of _The_Sixth_Sense_. In the end, though, my reaction to _Echoes_ was the inverse of mine to _Sense_: where the latter's much-talked-about ending nearly redeemed the entire slow-going film for me, the dismayingly conventional conclusion to _Echoes_ left me soured on the picture. It's a contrived standoff/hostage setup that belongs in much lesser film, and needless to say it completely kills the otherworldly atmosphere that Koepp had meticulously created. Never have I seen reality come crashing down in a film in a more literal--and disappointing--way.
For all its fantastic elements, Rupert Wainwright's supernatural thriller _Stigmata_ will hold a grounding in reality for a lot of viewers due to its religious themes. Any film that deals with religious issues inevitably comes under fire (witness the storm surrounding Kevin Smith's forthcoming _Dogma_), and _Stigmata_, which touches upon a fictional conspiracy within the Vatican, has already been denounced by the Catholic League. However, I think the film provides something valuable--surprisingly serious and intelligent food for thought about faith and supernatural phenomena.
While the film deals with serious themes, _Stigmata_ is foremost a thriller, and Wainwright delivers the requisite shocks in telling the story of Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette), an unreligious young Pittsburgh woman who becomes violently afflicted with the wounds of Christ on the cross, or stigmata. Wainwright--perhaps not an obvious choice for a thriller, given that his last credit was for directing _Blank_Check_, a Disney vehicle for former _Family_Ties_ moppet Brian Bonsall--stages these bloody scenes in quick-cut MTV style (not surprising, since he's also a veteran of music videos), and the usually annoying effect of such a style works quite well in this context, succeeding in jolting the audience.
Naturally, a priest enters the scene--Father Andrew Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne), a onetime scientist who now serves as an investigator for the Vatican. In dealing with Frankie, Father Andrew must come to terms with his own doubts about his faith. Sounds very much like _The_Exorcist_, and much of _Stigmata_, including some of the special effects scenes, recall that classic. Also like that film, _Stigmata_'s effects are lavish without feeling particularly exploitative. However derivative some individual aspects are, the fresh ideas of Wainwright and writers Tom Lazarus and Rick Ramage, along with the believable performances of the cast, give _Stigmata_ its own identity.
Not all of the ideas work, however. Wainwright's visual style careens into overkill during the quieter scenes; there are one too many shots of drops of blood falling into water, not to mention some unnecessarily emblematic closeups of menial things, such as coffee being poured into a cup. He also overuses a device that repeats dialogue spoken in a scene as a voiceover on the following scene. The virtual absence of any police hasn't stopped Lazarus and Ramage from indulging in the reliable cop cliché where an officer is taken off the case by a superior (in this instance, Father Andrew by Cardinal Daniel Houseman, played by Jonathan Pryce).
Even so, _Stigmata_ leaves the audience with more to chew on afterward that any of the other thrillers currently crowding theatres--including _The_Sixth_Sense_. While that film makes one think about things you've seen during the course of its progression, _Stigmata_ makes one reflect upon one's personal beliefs and values--and therein lies all the difference.
Michael Dequina twotrey@juno.com | michael_jordan@geocities.com | jordan_host@sportsmail.com | mrbrown@iname.com Mr. Brown's Movie Site: http://welcome.to/mrbrown CompuServe Hollywood Hotline: http://www.HollywoodHotline.com on ICQ: #25289934 | on AOL Instant Messenger: MrBrown23
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