HIDE AND SEEK - C

This movie was predictable. Sometimes boring, sometimes a little scary. Dakota Fanning had the best performance in the movie.

The only good thing about this movie was Dakota. She was creepy at times. The ending was absolutely horrible. Hated it. Why was De Niro making this piece of crap? I thought maybe this is a special horror movie, I mean it has De NIro in it but no it was even worse.

D

Approriately creepy and filled with strong performances, but that's all that Hide and Seek really has going for it. It's never really scary or suspenseful, and the movie feels repetitive during the first hour. Disappointing overall. And the twist, well, sorta sucked. But still, Dakota Fanning is awesome.

C

It wasn't as bad as some people were saying, but it is rather mediocre. The first 45 minutes is horribly boring, and nothing really happens. In the middle of the movie things quickly speed up, and starts to become more interesting. Robert De Niro is good, but Dakota Fanning really steals the show here. She is so terrific in her role. The twist I knew before it even happened. I really liked the ending showing that Dakota Fanning really had a split personality as well. That caught me off guard. The pacing is terrible in this movie. There's definitely more bad things here than good.

C

I pretty much have nothing new to add, but I knew the twist before I saw the film. If I hadn't known the ending, it wouldn't have effected my overall grade. I just saw the movie for the first time on DVD and I have to say that I wasn't really impressed with the overall film. I thought the performances were strong, especially from Dakota Fanning, but overall I got the feeling I have seen this film before. It didn't really seem original. However, the worst thing of all though, was that for a horror film, it wasn't really that violent or scary. It was just kind of boring. It wasn't awful, but I wouldn't watch it again anytime soon.

C


Note: These may contain some slight spoilers

For anyone who owns the DVD, or is going to rent the DVD, you have to check out the four endings. Most of the time when I watch these, none of them add to the finale of the film, and are really put on the DVD as a marketing gimmick. I have not doubt that was done here as well, except that these endings are actually kind of good, with one in particular. Let me go over all four of them.

Happy Drawing -- Kind of self-explanitory isn't it? Instead of us seeing her drawing a picture of herself with the two heads, and Katherine, we just see a drawing of herself and Katherine. It wouldn't have worked in the movie, for the simple reason that the girl wouldn't have been okay after seeing her two parents being killed.

Life With Katherine -- This is my pick for what should've been the actual ending of the film. In the original cut of the film, the director seemed to try for a light-hearted, but somewhat sad ending, and that didn't seem to work. The way I see it is in this type of movie, if you are going to put Emily through misery, you either have her ending in misery, or it's a happy ending. You can't have a little of both. This ending effectively does what the films' original ending couldn't.

In this one, Katherine leaves the room tucking Emily in and everything seems to be fine. Once the door closes though, Emily covers her eyes with her hands and starts counting. Then she says "Ready or not, her I come" and then procedes to go to the closet door. She opens it up and sees a reflection of herself and says while smiling "There you are". Her smile immediately disappears, and she becomes as creepy as one of the girls in The Shining, suggesting that she is afterall crazy, and the future doesn't seem so bright. This ending works the best.

One Final Game -- It's basically the same scene above, except this time, instead of it supposed to be in Katherine's house, it's supposed to be in the mental institution she works in, and Emily supposedly becoming a patient of hers. My only problem with this ending is that the girl wasn't crazy. She just had a crazy father. Yes, the girl would probably need serious therapy, but to be institutionalized?

Emily's Fate -- Same as above, except it doesn't Emily going to mirror. It just has Katherine walking away, and making it seem like Emily was going to be in there for a long time. This one doesn't work, just because of Katherine's reaction towards the girl. When she walks out of the room, she doesn't really seem to care about her.

The second ending is the best of all five of them, and should've been in the final cut of the film.

jmart007...

I agree on the endings. "Life with Katherine" would have worked much better than the original ending in the film. I found it a lot more creepy and interesting. When I brought the DVD over to my friend's house, the only part they said sucked was the ending with the "two-heading" drawing.

I didn't mind the original ending, it was just 99% of the movie before that, I had a problem with.
(The exception being the performances)

I'm just not really sure what they thought the two headed drawing would accomplish. It's not really creepy like the rest of the film, and it's not really such a happy ending. :down:

Eh, personally I thought the ending was the best part, mainly because it meant I could get up and leave. :wink:

Truthfully though, I agree with your assessment that the second "alternate" ending would be the best, after reading your descriptions.

B. Pretty good except for the "twist" part. Several of the deleted scenes should've remained in the film for greater buildup/payoffs. Dakota Fanning continues to prove herself to be a future Oscar-winning actress, pulling off yet another exceptional performance in the same movie where Robert De Niro and Elizabeth Shue neglected to do the same.

B


Contrary to my expecttaions this was pretty good. However I must say that I guessed the ending twist about 25 minutes into the film. I knew this wouldn't be some film about ghpsts and whatnot, so it must be a character we have seen before and de Niro simply made the most sense. The fact that he killed his wife, though was surprising to me. That brings me to a question...has De Niro been Charlie when he killed his wife or did the killing of his wife actually triggered the split personality? I assume the latter because Charlie was seemingly punishing David for what he has done to his wife. That may be just my interpretation, though.

Anyway, it was predictable as I said, but that didn't make the rest of the film less suspenseful. I think in this movie the "more is less"-concept works really well- Up until the very end we are not actually shown anything. Any shadows, any killings. Everything is just implied and sometimes the results are just seen, but nothing more. That actually made the film pretty suspenseful throughout. Dakota Fanning delivered an usually solid and at times outright creepy performance (where has she gone anyway?). De Niro is decent too, but overacts at times. Elizabeth Shue's character story is actually very ungrateful as she appears here only to be killed. Famke Jansen is good, I just wish she had a bigger role in this. De Niro's neighbors were introduced as the red herring, I realize that, but why the need of gving them a backstory with a dead daughter? No really necessary if you ask me.

As far as the ending twist goes, it's not surprising and I must say that while it offers some food for thought, it certainly isn't original a all. I've seen at least three other films that pretty much offered the same twist: Fight Club, The Machinist and Secret Window, making it hard for me to fall for a surprise like this one. In two of these four movies I actuallyguessed the twist beforehand.

As for the different endings, I think my favorite is One Final Game with Dakota institutionalized, but being close to a release. It shows however, that she's gone insane as well and likely has a split personality disorder too. I didn't mind the original ending either, though. It seemed happy, but the disorder thing was still heavily implied by the drawing.

On the whole, this is a solid thriller with a predictable ending, some lacking character development, but good actin by the leading girl and a good share of suspenseful moments.