Snake Eyes (1998) ***
In 1998 both actor Nicolas Cage and director Brian De Palma were at high points in their career, success-wise—De Palma with his prior film, the hugely popular and financially lucrative Mission: Impossible (1996) (review), and Cage having recently starred in three action blockbusters: The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997) (review), and Face/Off (1997).
Snake Eyes (1998) is undoubtedly entertaining, contains all the usual De Palma visual trademarks (split diopter shots, split screen, a very impressively long tracking shot just after the opening credits), and despite the fact that it contains the talent behind and in front of the camera that it does, it rings a bit hollow. The filmmaking is incredibly slick and there's a lot of dazzling editing. De Palma taps into his typical bag of Hitchcock worship, but Snake Eyes largely plays as his version of Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), as characters retell events and we the audience view those events in flashback, from the various perspectives.
But the story just isn't as engaging as the director's expansive body of work up until that point. It feels like Hollywoodized De Palma. Even Cage, known for being intense and over the top in his method, only goes unhinged occasionally, making for a performance that never truly thrills. Nor does he or any of the characters have any truly memorable dialogue. The ending feels very anticlimactic as well. All in all, Snake Eyes is a fun film, but it's lower tier De Palma and Cage.
Snake Eyes (1998) is undoubtedly entertaining, contains all the usual De Palma visual trademarks (split diopter shots, split screen, a very impressively long tracking shot just after the opening credits), and despite the fact that it contains the talent behind and in front of the camera that it does, it rings a bit hollow. The filmmaking is incredibly slick and there's a lot of dazzling editing. De Palma taps into his typical bag of Hitchcock worship, but Snake Eyes largely plays as his version of Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), as characters retell events and we the audience view those events in flashback, from the various perspectives.
But the story just isn't as engaging as the director's expansive body of work up until that point. It feels like Hollywoodized De Palma. Even Cage, known for being intense and over the top in his method, only goes unhinged occasionally, making for a performance that never truly thrills. Nor does he or any of the characters have any truly memorable dialogue. The ending feels very anticlimactic as well. All in all, Snake Eyes is a fun film, but it's lower tier De Palma and Cage.
Comments
Post a Comment