Cronos is set in the Mexican town of Vera Cruz where an elderly antiques dealer named Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) has his own shop, one day while inspecting an antique statuette of an Angel he finds a small golden mechanical object that he winds up only to find it digs metal claws into his hand & wrist. Later that night Jesus places the small device on his chest & it digs into that, the next day & Jesus looks & feels much younger with much more vitality & energy. Jesus realises that the small golden device has regenerative powers but a dying industrialist Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook) also wants it & explains to Jesus that the device is called a Cronos & was made in 1535 by an alchemist intent on prolonging his life, Dieter also warns Jesus that if strict instructions are not followed the consequences will be dire. Addicted to the regenerative capabilities of the Cronos things change for Jesus as he finds himself drawn to drinking human blood, has a strong aversion to sunlight & his skin starts to peel off...
This Mexican production was the feature film writing & directing debut of Guillermo del Toro who subsequently went to Hollywood to make notable fantasy films such as Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) & Pan's Labyrinth (2006) & while often hailed as some sort of masterpiece I must admit that ultimately I was pretty disappointed with Cronos & I can't say I particularly liked it. The script lays the emotion on thick, while Cronos has fantasy & horror aspects there is perhaps a greater story trying to be told here. A heartwarming, tear jerking story of age, death, disease, society & the horrors of life itself but I found the whole affair rather plodding, rather dull, rather boring & lacking in anything to really capture my imagination & compliment the drama. I just found myself bored & unable to get involved in the story & the character's at all. Cronos is a sort of dark fairy tale about Vampirism but as you would expect from del Toro his sympathies lie with the Vampire antiques dealer & makes him the hero, the character we should pity & feel sorry for while making the real villains ordinary people with their desires, brutality & cold bloodidness. At just under an hour & a half Cronos moves along at a reasonable pace, certainly has a few moments worth watching & is generally well written & produced even if none of it particularly resonated with or captivated me.
Although not strictly a Vampire film as such the side-effects that Jesus suffers from using the Cronos are definitely Vampire-ish with the blood drinking, body rejuvenating, sunlight burning properties he develops. As one would expect Cronos looks very stylish, the screen is packed full of detail & I am sure a lot of time & effort went into the look of Cronos. There are a few neat shots like the internal clockwork mechanism of the Cronos clicking away in close-up. Unusually Cronos is a multi lingual film that switches between Mexican & English spoken dialogue for no apparent reason & sometimes even within the same scene & same conversation.
Apparently Cronos had an original budget of about $1,500,000 but it went over & ended up costing more like $2,000,000. Filmed in Mexico. The acting was alright, I can't say I thought anyone was great but then maybe that's because I couldn't get into the story. Apparently the character of Jesus Gris was written specifically for Max von Sydow.
Cronos is a film that most people seem to love for being a dark fairytale fantasy horror with great style & substance, personally I totally disagree with that statement as Cronos did nothing for me other than just about pass an hour & a half with one or two nice visuals. Disappointing.
This Mexican production was the feature film writing & directing debut of Guillermo del Toro who subsequently went to Hollywood to make notable fantasy films such as Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) & Pan's Labyrinth (2006) & while often hailed as some sort of masterpiece I must admit that ultimately I was pretty disappointed with Cronos & I can't say I particularly liked it. The script lays the emotion on thick, while Cronos has fantasy & horror aspects there is perhaps a greater story trying to be told here. A heartwarming, tear jerking story of age, death, disease, society & the horrors of life itself but I found the whole affair rather plodding, rather dull, rather boring & lacking in anything to really capture my imagination & compliment the drama. I just found myself bored & unable to get involved in the story & the character's at all. Cronos is a sort of dark fairy tale about Vampirism but as you would expect from del Toro his sympathies lie with the Vampire antiques dealer & makes him the hero, the character we should pity & feel sorry for while making the real villains ordinary people with their desires, brutality & cold bloodidness. At just under an hour & a half Cronos moves along at a reasonable pace, certainly has a few moments worth watching & is generally well written & produced even if none of it particularly resonated with or captivated me.
Although not strictly a Vampire film as such the side-effects that Jesus suffers from using the Cronos are definitely Vampire-ish with the blood drinking, body rejuvenating, sunlight burning properties he develops. As one would expect Cronos looks very stylish, the screen is packed full of detail & I am sure a lot of time & effort went into the look of Cronos. There are a few neat shots like the internal clockwork mechanism of the Cronos clicking away in close-up. Unusually Cronos is a multi lingual film that switches between Mexican & English spoken dialogue for no apparent reason & sometimes even within the same scene & same conversation.
Apparently Cronos had an original budget of about $1,500,000 but it went over & ended up costing more like $2,000,000. Filmed in Mexico. The acting was alright, I can't say I thought anyone was great but then maybe that's because I couldn't get into the story. Apparently the character of Jesus Gris was written specifically for Max von Sydow.
Cronos is a film that most people seem to love for being a dark fairytale fantasy horror with great style & substance, personally I totally disagree with that statement as Cronos did nothing for me other than just about pass an hour & a half with one or two nice visuals. Disappointing.