From Hell

Saw From Hell, a Johnny Depp vehicle (of all things) based on the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore.  It follows the Jack the Ripper murders in London.  Whereas the comic was much more about making obscure connections and following the why of what was done, this film focuses much more on the mystery of it - the who and how.  This makes for more compelling watching, since we get to see a mystery unfold, but it sort of removes the point of the story for me.

The film is very nice to look at however.  It's one of those films set in Victorian times that goes overboard in bucking the trend.  Instead of everything being seemly and lovely, everyone's a prostitute addicted to opium and most unseemly.  There's a nice ugliness to everything however it is a bit excessive at times.

In keeping with the darkness of the material, the setting is similarly smokey and dark, obscure and shadowy.  The filmmakers are clearly making a mystery film.  Because we're more interested in following the thread of clues that leads to the killer, we spend less time on metaphysical freak-outs.  We get some, but nothing compared to ravings about the fourth dimension and occult architecture.  We get some nice opium visions, but these are fast, flickering montages.

The film, while not bad, doesn't hold up to the dry creativity of the comic book and I didn't really enjoy it.  I feel like I wasn't trying very hard to be objective here, and you may have a different feeling about the film, but it left me sort of cold.