THE CRAFT
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1996 Christopher Null
A coven of outcast, teenage witches wreaks havoc at a high school.
Rarely have I been able to totally boil down the plot of a film so succinctly, but with THE CRAFT, it's a piece of cake. What, no intricate subplots, you ask? No involved character development? No story progression from one act to the next?
Not really. In fact, the witch stuff is just about it, and let me tell you, that isn't nearly enough to carry a film for 105 minutes. Rather, this film is much more concerned with jamming in 20 or 30 of your favorite pop songs.
The young witches are: Sarah (Robin Tunney), the newcomer to school. Nancy (Fairuza Balk), the white trash slut. Bonnie (Neve Campbell), the burn-scarred introvert. And Rochelle (Rachel True), the token minority. (They all represent one of the elements too, but I could never keep that straight.) The four girls form a coven of witches, find themselves outcast from the rest of the school, and use their growing powers to get revenge on everyone in their way. One of these victims is played by Christine Taylor, who played Marcia in THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, and who causes lots of laughter-for-the-wrong-reasons when she's on screen. Another one is Chris (Skeet Ulrich), on whom Sarah inexplicably casts a love spell.
So what's the verdict on THE CRAFT? Well, Balk looks even scarier than normal, and it looks like she's forever doomed to play these wacko roles. A lot of the movie is just plain gross. The jokes are largely not funny. The characters don't garner a lot of sympathy, as they're pretty much just as evil as their victims. While the leads can all act, the script doesn't let them do too much of that. The movie feels twice as long as it really is. And...the big daddy of all mistakes...THE CRAFT makes the fatal error of trying to be *serious* instead of campy like it should have been. (Reread the first line of this review if you don't believe me.)
On the plus side is very little of consequence. Some of the effects are pretty cool, but it's tough to make a big deal out of "magic" on a movie screen when it's clearly just digital manipulation or parlor tricks. Star-getter numero uno? The leads are all very cute, especially Tunney.
I still don't know what the intention of THE CRAFT was. Was it supposed to be a comedy? A thriller? A horror flick? More like a music video, if you ask me.
RATING: **
\-------------------------------\ |* Unquestionably awful | |** Sub-par on many levels | |*** Average, hits and misses | |**** Good, memorable film | |***** Perfection | \-------------------------------\
-Christopher Null / null@filmcritic.com -Screenwriter-Producer / Novelist-Publisher -Visit the Movie Emporium at http://www.filmcritic.com/ -and e-mail requests to join the movie review mailing list
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