I'm not sure if my comments will constitute spoilers or not, but just to be on the safe side, I'm going to assume they will. The usual warnings apply.
Johnny Depp has matured into a good actor, and it was interesting to watch a movie in which he is undergoing this maturity process. In The Ninth Gate, he plays a rare book expert who has undertaken a commission to support the provenance of a book that will supposedly call up the devil by comparing it to other extant copies of the book. As he does so, people start mysteriously dying and the other copies are destroyed.
This movie is actually a reasonably good whodunnit quest sort of story....up until the last 10 minutes, where it falls miserably on its butt and leaves the entire story completely unresolved. Directed by Roman Polanski? C'mon, Roman, you can do better than that. We never find out who "The Girl" is; we never find out if he actually unlocks the secret of the book. Depp's acting performance is the only reason I gave this movie a 5. Otherwise, from that sucky ending, I'd have scored it a 2 and that would have been generous of me.
Johnny Depp has matured into a good actor, and it was interesting to watch a movie in which he is undergoing this maturity process. In The Ninth Gate, he plays a rare book expert who has undertaken a commission to support the provenance of a book that will supposedly call up the devil by comparing it to other extant copies of the book. As he does so, people start mysteriously dying and the other copies are destroyed.
This movie is actually a reasonably good whodunnit quest sort of story....up until the last 10 minutes, where it falls miserably on its butt and leaves the entire story completely unresolved. Directed by Roman Polanski? C'mon, Roman, you can do better than that. We never find out who "The Girl" is; we never find out if he actually unlocks the secret of the book. Depp's acting performance is the only reason I gave this movie a 5. Otherwise, from that sucky ending, I'd have scored it a 2 and that would have been generous of me.