Slydon (From Hell)
From Hell
Directed by Albert & Allen Hughes (as The Hughes Brothers)
Screenplay by Terry Hayes & Rafael Yglesias
Based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
From Hell, directed by the Hughes twins, is an adaptation of a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. It’s about Jack the Ripper’s murders in late 19th Century, London. The adaptation has two things in common with the graphic novel: it is about Jack the Ripper and happens in London. The Lawnmower Man was a better adaptation of the Stephen King novel, and King sued successfully. Disney versions of anything are closer. You get the point.
From Hell is set in Whitechapel, a part of London with a terminal hangover—as if the streets themselves have caught one of the many pre-penicillin sexually transmitted diseases of the time from the neighborhood whores. Wait I’m sorry, they’re not “whores”, they’re “unfortunates”, and despite the English habit of naming things real nice, in From Hell they get bumped off one by one in a gruesome fashion. Remember Manhunter? Like that film, the audience gets treated to views of crime scenes from odd angles, but it’s not so much what you see, only what you hear. The sound department must have had a field day, as this film has the noisiest stabbings I’ve ever come across. With every victim is you get a whole series of loud “Shplorts!”, as Jack relieves the “unfortunates” of their internal organs.
Johnny Depp plays Inspector Frederick Abberline, who investigates the crimes in an opium-induced haze. He has the ability to psychically “see” the crimes happening—sort of like the Lili Taylor character from X-Files who could see through her father’s eyes as he committed murders. And apparently, by “Chasing the Dragon”, by which I mean getting Inna Godda Davida-high, Abberline becomes even more clairvoyant.
Um, okay.
Former Rollergirl Heather Graham is Mary Kelly, an unfortunate with “Hey Kool-Aid!” hair. Her role is the sympathetic hooker (think Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, except someone wants her internal organs). I think she’s supposed to be Irish but nobody told her that. She sounds like a kid in a Midwestern school reading the Queen’s English. I think if she had tried, she would’ve done a good Bert from Mary Poppins, so maybe it’s better that she didn’t really try, lest we get another “Chim-Chim-Charoo”.
One by one, the local hookers are being lured by grapes (a delicacy at that time) to their grisly demise (ooh, it’s so bad the coroner vomits), and Abberline is only one step behind. There seems to be a weird anti-anti-Semitism theme in this because the murders occur in a largely Jewish neighborhood, and there’s always lots of anti-Semitism in Jewish neighborhoods.
Wait… what? Also, why would anyone outside Whitechapel even care that someone is knocking off prostitutes? You’re making my brain hurt, movie.
It’s at this point that the story gets weird. Turns out that it’s part of a painfully elaborate conspiracy involving the Freemasons, and goes all the way to Queen Victoria herself. Abberline is temporarily taken off the case by his higher-ups, and told Smoking Man-style to back off, that he’s too deep, etc. etc.
It’s all really a virtual reality simulation that goes back to ancient Egyptian Pyramids, where the Pharaohs made the first Metal Gear in an attempt to take over the Middle East via giant mecha, and only a concerned-looking Nicolas Cage can stop it! Okay, no it isn’t, but it’s still very silly in what otherwise is a very serious film, which makes it very distracting. Why couldn’t it have just been a loony serial killer that targeted prostitutes? That would’ve been somewhat Silence of the Lambs, but at least this trope would’ve made some sense.
In all, this could have been a pretty good movie, but isn’t. It was entertaining for a while. I don’t know why the tried-and-true plot device of tracking a serial killer simply wasn’t enough for the Hughes. It could’ve been a slasher movie or a mystery, and was both for a while. Then they pulled an M. Night Shylaman-esque twist that ruined everything that was good about this movie.
Review by Slydon