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Directed by: Ken Russell Starring: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Charles Haid Eddie (William Hurt), a research scientist, gets fed up with his life as a family man. He leaves his wife and kids to experiment with a strange hallucinogenic substance with a tribe of Indians in Mexico. He brings the sample back to America and begins testing in an isolation chamber, where his theories on states of consciousness and "ultimate truth" start manifesting in physical de-evolution. Altered States will turn a lot of people off right away because its stars are scientists and they speak that way. Eddie and Emily (Blair Brown) talk less like husband and wife and more like colleages. It's very erudite and psychobab-tacular, like a movie full of Pitchfork Media writers. What's important to realize, however, is that the dialogue is there to define the characters. It really doesn't matter if you understand what the hell their talking about because the actions explain themselves. Altered States is full of "what the gently caress?" moments. It's loaded with freak-outs and bad trips, visions of hell and cellular mitosis and people drinking tea by a garden all spliced together. They sort of reminded me of those kaliedoscope effects they used to use in old lovely music videos from the 60s. The movie also features naked dancing indians, a runaway monkey-man and a smoky vortex into ultimate consciousness in the middle of a lab floor. If director Ken Russell was trying to give LSD freaks a bad flashback, I think he succeeded. In spite of its weirdness, the movie is pretty entertaining. As Eddie gets closer and closer to his discovery, he draws more and more ire from his friends and his wife. You really don't know who to believe, or whether the experiment is ethical. Hurt plays the self-centered rear end in a top hat scientist to perfection, never considering anybody else's feeling but his own until the very end. Oh yeah, the ending sucks. If you can weather the psychobabble and the incongruent plot, Altered States is quite a fascinating and atmospheric sci-fi flick. Down a shitload of peyote beforehand for maximum effect. RATING: 4 PROS: Trippy, fascinating story CONS: lovely Hollywood ending ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080360/
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Jun 11, 2004 20:59
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 12:49 |
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Very ridiculous. Hard to believe it was written by the same guy who did Network. Well, there were some good lines, but Blair Brown is no Faye Dunaway (and William Hurt is no Peter Finch). Terrible attempts to copy the 2001 visuals. Rating: 1.5
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Jan 19, 2005 23:04
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This movie is loving fantastic, one of my favorite man-takes-crazy-drug-and-sleeps-in-sensory-deprivation-chamber-and-devolves-into-crazy-primate movies of all time! 4/5
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Jan 20, 2005 09:33
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I saw about 3/4 of this when I was a kid, and had to leave it. I finally got around to seeing it all the way through last night. I thought it was great. Definetly worth checking out.
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Mar 22, 2005 19:14
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