Million Dollar Hotel, The : Movie Review


In his review of Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel, featuring Mel Gibson, the Los Angeles Times' Kevin Thomas observes that the movie is "likely to elicit a love-it-or-hate-it response from most viewers."

Clearly Thomas's reaction is on the side of love. "If you're a Wenders admirer and can give yourself over to his gorgeous verging-on-surreal vision, you can come away deeply moved," Thomas writes.

On the side of hate are most of the other critics. "Pretentious and trite" is the way Jonathan Foreman describes it in the New York Post.

Andy Seiler in USA Today allows that "Wenders creates an imaginative, stylized cityscape," but he faults the story, said to have been suggested by U2 frontman Bono.

Gibson, whose company produced the film, receives excellent notices even though he himself once criticized it as "boring as a dog's ass."

"Gibson actually seems to be having a fine time playing up his noirish detective, and he brings some much-needed acerbity into this earnest environment," writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News.

Author : Studio Briefing