Original Sin Review
by Eugene Novikov (lordeugene_98 AT yahoo DOT com)August 28th, 2001
Original Sin (2001)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
"Say it! Say that you love me! You better make me believe it. Your life depends on it."
Starring Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas, Thomas Jane. Directed by Michael Cristofer. Rated R.
It's been a while since Hollywood has come out with a really good, sultry, steamy, shameless melodrama. I'm not a fan of the genre, but an occasional entry can be a terrific guilty pleasure. So I found myself looking forward to Original Sin, the year's most bad-mouthed studio release. But while it's sultry, steamy and shameless, it is not, unfortunately, really good.
The story concerns Luis Vargas (Antonio Banderas), a rich coffee merchant who has procured a mail-order bride from Delaware. When the woman, named Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie), arrives, Vargas is surprised to find that she looks nothing like the picture he received. Russell covers himself by saying that, since she is quite the looker, she sent a picture of her sister to make sure that her man wasn't interested in her solely because of her "pretty face." This is hint number one that Julia is Not What She Seems, and it is followed by a mysterious trunk that she just can't open, a sister she neglects to write to, and a mysterious private detective who appears out of nowhere. Of course, Luis is too dense to pick up on any of this.
The only suspense generated here isn't whether Julia will take the money and run, it's how soon she will do it. Turns out that it's about halfway through, and Luis's complete astonishment at that point is truly laughable. There have been idiotic protagonists before, but I think this transcends all boundaries.
This is about when the movie stops being at all interesting, even in a cheesy so-bad-it's-good way. To have effective melodrama, you need at least one character that the audience can identify with; in the heated, violent confrontations between the two pro/antagonists that occur in Original Sin's second half, I disliked them both. Jolie's character is a scoundrel and Banderas is a vengeful jerk, and a dense one at that. Their mental tug-of-war is rendered pointless, because I would just as soon see their hotel room on fire with them in it than see either one of them win.
It doesn't help that director Michael Cristofer (Body Shots) isn't really competent; his camerawork too often resembles an actual daytime soap opera (I don't know if he has any experience in the field, but this wouldn't be out of place at 1 pm on ABC). He does things like cutting between different shots of the same scene from the same angle, a bizarre eye-roller of a camera trick that pretentiously calls attention to itself. And when he does it during a sex scene, it's downright absurd.
But for all its shortcomings -- and there are countless -- Original Sin does have a redeeming factor, and it's a big one. Angelina Jolie can make us believe the most farfetched dialogue and rise above any material she is given. There's also, of course, the fact that she provides a reason for just about everyone on the XY side of the chromosomal map to shell out eight bucks.
Aside from that, nothing to see here. I can't sit here and write that I was bored -- I was either laughing derisively, awaiting Cristofer's next demonstration of ineptitude, or ogling at the aforementioned member of the cast -- but this isn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. I'm still hard-pressed to tell you to stay away.
Grade: C
Up Next: Ghost World
©2001 Eugene Novikov
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
