Ah, good ol' M. Night Shamalamadingdong, as I like to call him. I feel so bad for this guy, when he created The Sixth Sense, he made one of the best thrillers of all time with a twist ending that set the bar so high that others would always try to succeed it. Ever since then, Shamalamadingdong has been trying to outdo himself with a ton of twist endings and scripts that my Pomeranian could write. When I saw the trailer for Devil, I got excited because it looked really creepy, then I saw the director's name and just sighed, it's pretty much likely that the movie will flop and will be horrible. I just caught it on a movie channel, actually I have to give Shamalamadingdong some credit, this is an improvement over his last films. However, it's still one of the most ridicules movies I have ever seen.
Five strangers board an elevator, which becomes stuck between floors just shortly after starting up to the upper floors. The five don't introduce themselves right away, but when security finds them, they notice that other than the CCTV and a radio which they can communicate into the elevator. Lustig, the head of security, sends repair technician Dwight to investigate the elevators while Bowden tries to ascertain the identities of the individuals. Things turn from strange to frightening when there is a freak power outage in the elevator, and the girl in the elevator is wounded with what appears to be a bite. Dwight attempts to rappel down the elevator shaft via a pulley to try and fix the elevator, but security guard Ramirez says that the Devil would stop any attempts to help his victims as more supernatural things occur; this proves there is a demonic entity in the elevator haunting the passengers.
There's this line that nearly killed me with laughter, the religious nut Ramirez says that everything goes wrong when the devil is near, he throws a piece of pizza and it lands on the cheese side and says that the jelly side always lands up, oh, my God, seriously?! So all those times I was cooking in the kitchen when my chicken burned, it was the devil! All those times I fell down, it was the work of the devil! How could you ever take that line seriously? I also was watching the movie with my friends and once again we took the classic bet 10 dollars for who would guess the devil, I won, again! My opinion is, a lot of old people are the devil, they cling onto the god skirt later in life claiming that it's because they are about to die and they need to get into heaven, no! They are covering something else! I digress, anyways, when the devil reveals herself, the guy that she's after confesses to his sin and she's like "damn, I really wanted you" .really? You went through all this trouble and all he has to do is say his sin out loud and all is forgiven? Also the whole religious factor was silly in my opinion, why not just make it a demon entity in the elevator? It's hard to believe that the devil doesn't have better things to do than haunt a couple of dead beats.
However, my review isn't all complaints. Shamalamadingdong actually does a decent job with atmosphere and the story. Even though the script needs some major work without the clichés, there was some incredible potential for a great story, even an excellent franchise that we need since the Saw series came to an end last year. I like the whole idea of a demon haunting those who have done wrong in life waiting to confess and get the punishment they truly deserve. The characters were interesting, except for Ramirez who can easily get on a lot of people's nerves, and the effects were actually pretty good. I would say this is definitely an improvement over Shamalamadingdong's previous works. He's come a long way and hopefully he just chooses better scripts or learns how to edit, we need the tension still, he knows he can do it, we believe in you Shamalmadingdong!
4/10
Five strangers board an elevator, which becomes stuck between floors just shortly after starting up to the upper floors. The five don't introduce themselves right away, but when security finds them, they notice that other than the CCTV and a radio which they can communicate into the elevator. Lustig, the head of security, sends repair technician Dwight to investigate the elevators while Bowden tries to ascertain the identities of the individuals. Things turn from strange to frightening when there is a freak power outage in the elevator, and the girl in the elevator is wounded with what appears to be a bite. Dwight attempts to rappel down the elevator shaft via a pulley to try and fix the elevator, but security guard Ramirez says that the Devil would stop any attempts to help his victims as more supernatural things occur; this proves there is a demonic entity in the elevator haunting the passengers.
There's this line that nearly killed me with laughter, the religious nut Ramirez says that everything goes wrong when the devil is near, he throws a piece of pizza and it lands on the cheese side and says that the jelly side always lands up, oh, my God, seriously?! So all those times I was cooking in the kitchen when my chicken burned, it was the devil! All those times I fell down, it was the work of the devil! How could you ever take that line seriously? I also was watching the movie with my friends and once again we took the classic bet 10 dollars for who would guess the devil, I won, again! My opinion is, a lot of old people are the devil, they cling onto the god skirt later in life claiming that it's because they are about to die and they need to get into heaven, no! They are covering something else! I digress, anyways, when the devil reveals herself, the guy that she's after confesses to his sin and she's like "damn, I really wanted you" .really? You went through all this trouble and all he has to do is say his sin out loud and all is forgiven? Also the whole religious factor was silly in my opinion, why not just make it a demon entity in the elevator? It's hard to believe that the devil doesn't have better things to do than haunt a couple of dead beats.
However, my review isn't all complaints. Shamalamadingdong actually does a decent job with atmosphere and the story. Even though the script needs some major work without the clichés, there was some incredible potential for a great story, even an excellent franchise that we need since the Saw series came to an end last year. I like the whole idea of a demon haunting those who have done wrong in life waiting to confess and get the punishment they truly deserve. The characters were interesting, except for Ramirez who can easily get on a lot of people's nerves, and the effects were actually pretty good. I would say this is definitely an improvement over Shamalamadingdong's previous works. He's come a long way and hopefully he just chooses better scripts or learns how to edit, we need the tension still, he knows he can do it, we believe in you Shamalmadingdong!
4/10