Darkman movie review

Here's what you need to know; Peyton Westlake is on the cusp of finally cracking the formula to his lab grown artificial skin, until a run in with the mob leaves his lab in ruins, his assistant dead and his face hideously disfigured. Now Peyton is on a quest for vengeance, while also struggling to rebuild his life after his death.

Darkman, in all honesty, is not your typical superhero movie. For starters, Liam Neeson is pretty cool here, while he starts off serviceable, he goes on to become a very interesting and actually very tragic character, and that's one of the things I love about this film, but I'll go more into that later. His girlfriend is actually also pretty cool, nowhere near as interesting, but she still offers something to the story and is very good for adding emotion to Liam Neeson's character. Meanwhile the film's villains are pretty by the numbers, menacing mob bosses and corporate scumbags, but they serve their purpose, and do crazy things like cut off peoples' fingers and use nail guns as weapons, nail guns and Sam Raimi, why does that sound familiar? Now onto Darkman, who is by far the film's strongest element, he is a man with super strength and an inability to feel pain, but he is also a man losing control of his emotions and this is reflected in his actions as his path of vengeance gets his hands more and more bloody, though there is something I take issue with here, and I'll get to it later. More on the monster, Darkman's decent into hate fuelled villainy is very cool to watch, though it is a bit jarring how he goes from lab scientist to brooding superhero in such a short time span. Other than that though the film's story is pretty fun to follow, as some dark deals come to light, and I like how the main baddy of the film isn't some supervillain out to destroy/rule the city/world, but just a scummy businessman, who I guess you could argue wants to rule the city. from the standpoint of technicals, this film came out in 1990, and in a lot of ways, it shows, while the makeup on Darkman still looks pretty cool, albeit nowhere near the same level as the computer enhanced Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, other effects like the green screen don't look terribly good, and this film uses a lot of it, one time in particular when it was used in a really clever way, but the effectiveness is kind of hindered by the aging effects. Where the effects really show their age worst though is in the numerous trippy imagery heavy sequences, but in that is one of the film's oddest charms as well as one of it's hindrances. This film can at times be goofy, stupidly goofy, and there are times when it works, and it's really funny, and those I'd rather not spoil, but I will say those artificial skin masks are very convincing. But on the other hand, when Neeson loses control of his emotions, and the screen explodes with weird imagery and dated green screen effects, it doesn't work so well, and when he runs for is hidden lair while crying like a little girl while also holding a giant pink toy elephant, it just looks down right stupid, I found it funny, and maybe for the reason Raimi intended, but it was really dumb. The few action sequences scattered throughout the film are also pretty fun, one in particular which involves a helicopter, which is awesome.

Darkman is a film I very much enjoy parts of, mainly the fascinating hero, and his decent into madness, but at the same time it's dragged down by some aging special effects and some at times really stupid goofiness, but it has fun characters, a fun story of revenge, and a sweet helicopter action sequence. It's a film I enjoyed, and I'd recommend Darkman, worth a watch.