The Doors (1991)

My Rating: **1/2 out of ****.

One thing you can say about Oliver Stones The Doors is that Stone has no intention of forcing the audience to like the main character. Stone spends almost the entire 138 minutes making Jim Morrison into the biggest asshole that he possibly can. Really, when I first rented this film I had no idea what to expect since Oliver Stone is sort of hit-or-miss with me. I can honestly say the film held my attention completely but at the end I was unsatisfied with what I had seen.

The remaining members of The Doors have criticized this film saying that it only portrayed one side of Morrison and that some of the actions in the film were far worse than anything he ever did (throwing the TV in the studio for instance). To be honest, I felt exactly the same way. By the end I was like, "There has to be more to this man than this!!!!"." I know Morrison had drinking and drug problems, and thats on full display. Stone makes clear that we see the flaws of Morrison and pretty much nothing else. If Stone wanted to make a film that showed the dark side of a rock star than he accomplished his goal admirably.

But the film is just too disappointingly shallow. Morrison was supposedly a very shy front-man at first which we actually do see in the beginning when he sings with his back turned toward the audience. It's a shame Stone didn't explore this "shy, intelligent" man that the Doors always talk about instead of the sadistic asshole on display here. If Stone had made Morrison into a more well-rounded character than this could have been a great film.

What cannot be criticized about the film is Val Kilmer's electrifying performance. Forget the small little flaws like Kilmer is six inches taller than Morrison was and that Kilmers face is a little fatter than Morrisons and just watch this magnificent piece of acting. I have never been that impressed with Val Kilmer's acting ability before I saw this film so seeing him in this was a mindblowing experience. He completely inhabits Morrison and its hard to believe he was actually the second choice for the role. This will undoubtedly be a career best for Kilmer and it is a damn shame he didn't at least get an Oscar Nomination.

The supporting cast is also impressive, particularly Meg Ryan. Ryan excels much more in lighter roles but here she dos a very good job as Morrison's girlfriend, Pamela Courson. Kevin Dillon, Kyle MacLachlan, and Frank Whaley do the best they can with limited screen time as the remaining members of The Doors.

Stone's films have always been uneven when it comes to visual styles. In such films as Natural Born Killers, Any Given Sunday, and to some extent, Nixon, they have been exercises of cinematic masturbation with hyper editing and completely unnecessary film stock switches. Fortunately, thats not the case here as the film has a more straightforward look that complements the film well instead of distracting us.

Stone can make a compelling film and The Doors is never boring. It has a lot of good points: a tremendous lead performance, impressive supporting work, effective cinematography, and a great soundtrack. Its a shame that the film is hampered by a shallow script. If the script were better it is quite possible The Doors could have been a great film. As it stands, its a compelling, though definitely disappointing film.

Fmovies: Val Kilmer did a great job portraying Jim Morrison. He brings you into the spiraling life of Jim Morrison and back to the days of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Throughout the movie you see what made Jim Morrison tick, and get to hear some great music along the way. The cinematography during his drug induced hallucinations is well done and helps pull you into Morrison;s life. Definitely a movie you can sit and watch more than once and one you can enjoy whatever age you are.

Whether you were a dedicated Mossison fan or have never followed him, this movie is entertaining on it's face. The fact that the movie portrays the real life of a rock and roll legend, makes the movie that much more interesting.

This is just a sampling of the lyrics that singer/writer Jim Morrison contributed to his group The Doors, and just this, as part of his epic piece "The Celebration of the Lizard" shows his skill as a master of the written word. He is shown in Oliver Stone's The Doors as a shy, though often obnoxious and crude, persona who self describes himself in one scene: "I think of myself as a sensitive, intelligent human being, but with the soul of a clown that forces me to blow it at the most crucial of moments." He may have blown it in the end, but it makes for a fascinating story.

As being a Doors fan, the music and words are the best character of the movie- the songs represent feelings and emotions, desires and hatreds, and other facets of life in the late 60's, are indispensable gems of rock and blues. While the Doors recorded only six albums together (not counting American Prayer, Morrison's awesome feat of an album) each one is still transfixed into the minds of people all over the world. It's thirty-two years since the king died, but in another thirty-two he will still be remembered. And that is a fact that Stone plays with like Travis Bickle in front of the mirror with his guns in Taxi Driver. He reveals only Morrison's known persona, and not the quiet moments. The concert recreations are grand, but there isn't more of the sweet Jim (one glimpse of such a Jim is seen at a birthday party when he gives out gifts as "Chief Mojo Risin)

What is shown is splendid enough for his abilities- he paints a vivid picture of Los Angeles 1965 onward, with Val Kilmer in the second best acting job of 1991 (deserved of an Oscar nomination), and puts Jim in the middle. He is a man who is fascinated with death, with man's wills to power, and how life gets painful without the chemicals top open the mind. Kilmer gets so much into your head in this film that by the end you'll love him, hate him, or feel wonder about him. I felt wonder about him, wonder why he looked to heroes who gave him such ideas about the love of death, wonder why he felt the need to take it to the limits.

But his desires are Stone's as well, and while this isn't a perfect film, it's one that isn't easily forgotten. A+

The Doors fmovies. My eyes were closed until autumn 1995, when channel 5 in Sweden showed The Doors. I taped it and didn't think too much of it in the beginning. The only thing I knew about The Doors was their song "Light my fire".

A friend of mine, who borrowed the film from me, told me he liked the "cave" scene and the music in it. I myself liked the scene where Jim climbs up to Pam's balcony. That was pretty much it. But then I noticed the song "love street" which is played in the beginning, and then I realized that the guitar intro to "The end" wasn't that bad. After that I bought the soundtrack and now I was pretty much hooked. I put my eurodisco records on a shelf and became a "rock'n roller", and Jim was my role model. My relationship to Jim Morrison is actually the closest to being a gay that I will ever be.

The best part of the film are the opening thirty minutes, where Jim "quits" his film class on UCLA, follows Pam home from the beach and takes her out on a night walk, rehearses with the band and "Light my fire" is introduced. Too bad we never get to see the band being formed. I love that story, when Jim meets Ray on the beach and that conversation leads up to Jim singing "Moonlight drive". This scene is also one of few which shows the real Jim Morrison, but I will get back to that later. Around this time, Jim meets his girlfriend with whom he stayed until he died.

After half an hour, the movie takes on in a different direction. It is from now on, a very dark movie. This is for a reason, and the reason is that Oliver wants the audience to see everything through Jim's eyes. The result is that some scenes are very surreal and after a while you may think that Oliver Stone himself took some acid before shooting them.

The negative side of the film, which have made many people upset, is the way Jim Morrison is presented. Jim is high or/and drunk in nearly every scene he appears in, and since the movie is shown through his angle the result is the surrealism and spaced-out scenes. "Jimbo" has unfortunately a bigger part than Jim. (See the movie and you'll know what I mean.)

I have read practically every book there is to read about The Doors, including the one named "light my fire", written by the organist Ray Manzarek. This guy isn't too happy with the movie. I see his point but at the same time, he confirms in the book that most of the things in the movie has actually happened; the back against the audience, the Ed Sullivan sequence where Jim sings the word "higher" on national television, the TV-throwing in the studio. Other things could never happen or are just simply wrong; the Andy Warhole-party where Jim is abandoned by the rest of the band (something that true friends would never do to one another), Jim's student project (his movie didn't look like that at all), Jim's red mustang (Jim had a blue mustang which he actually called "the blue lady").

Oliver Stone focuses the movie on the wrong things. Sure, Jim Morrison was a pothead, but he was also a very intelligent, sensitive, friendly and funny person. This is far from the picture most people have of him after seeing the movie. But if you know this, and just want some Rock'n roll in your life you will like the movie anyway. Another strange thing is that Oliver Stone has said that he loved Jim and wanted the movie to be a sort of homage to him!? Some homage. So the film is great,

I KNOW I'm giving way too many stars for this, but I don't care; The Doors were one of my very first favourite groups. I fondly recall, when I was 11, and Elektra Records released 'The Doors' Greatest Hits', and the album-length version of 'Light My Fire' was played all the time on the radio, and I was mesmerized by the instrumental middle of the song, got the album from my parents for Christmas, and started a lifelong love affair with the band. Yes, Jim Morrison is highly overrated. Yes, the movie is an extremely self-indulgent mess and it can be quite incoherent and incohesive. But the Sixties, the L.A. rock scene back then, and especially Morrison's life, were just like that, so it is oh so fitting!

I adore the fact that it was Oliver Stone's labour of love (one of thankfully many) and that the surviving members of the band basically had full input. I would take this and 'Talk Radio' (my personal favourite Stone's throw) over a hundred of Stone's politically over-the-top movies any day!

When I was 17, I took my life savings and visited, on my own, nine European countries, including France and its capital, Paris. Did I go for the Eiffel Tower, wild romance on Richard Linklater-esque trains, or its outstanding magic and sidewalk cafes? No--train-wise I had to put up with a stupid labour strike, such that an overnight sleeper car from Berne, Switzerland to Paris had to be switched, in the middle of the night, FOUR times, just so they could prove a point. And it was just to see Morrison's grave. I met 20 fantastic people who had made the pilgrimage from all over the world, and it was my first time having red wine and smoking pot. The graffiti and the sculpture of him, in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, were fascinating, as was his life. Would I go through that again? Of course I would.

It's Val Kilmer's best work by a mile. The film just oozes charisma and breathes life--just as the band's work must have done back in the day. Worth a purchase and re-watches (I watch it each year on Jim's birthday and accidentally bought it twice), for any fan of 60's music or its culture. A bonafide classic when Stone was actually really something.

Although less popular now, Jim Morrison was an American pop culture icon during the late 1960s. He liked to refer to himself as "Mr. Mojo Risin", an anagram of his name. Oliver Stone's film "The Doors" is mostly about Morrison ... his rise to stardom in the 1960s, his personality, and his mysterious death in 1971.

Influenced in childhood by American Indians, Morrison grew up fascinated with Indian Shamanism, elements of which he would later infuse into his poetry and music while hanging out in the mid 60s in the hip areas of Los Angeles. Here he would meet musician Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan). Along with two other band members, the group would form "The Doors", a name Morrison borrowed from the title of Aldous Huxley's book on drug use and enlightenment, called "The Doors Of Perception". During this time Morrison comes across as sensitive, shy, poetic, and an idealistic dreamer. The film's first hour is quite good. We get some insights into Jim's early years, and we get to hear some of that great music, like "Riders On The Storm", and "Light My Fire".

The film's second half is less interesting. Morrison himself has changed, as a result of his celebrity status. His narcissism, his boozing and drug use, have turned his world into chaos, which is evident in a couple of staged concert events, one in New Haven, the other in Miami. The amount of time that Oliver Stone spends on these noisy, chaotic events is excessive. Some of that could have been edited out.

As with most Stone films, the cinematography in "The Doors" is excellent, and includes some early CGI. Val Kilmer is a great choice to play the part of Morrison. And Kathleen Quinlan is good as Patricia, the seductive witch. The film's images at the cemetery in Paris, together with Gothic background music, make for a haunting finale.

Stone's movie is not to be taken in a literal sense. Rather, it is suggestive of the complex mix of personal and cultural forces that interacted to create a pop culture legend. As a byproduct of this cinematic tribute, the viewer gets to see how the late 1960s really were, with the art deco, the hippie lingo, and all that hostility that existed in society. The film thus counters the political revisionism that later decades have assigned to that period. As such, "The Doors" complements and reinforces other films of that era which also "tell it like it really was": "Medium Cool", "Easy Rider", "Alice's Restaurant", and "Zabriskie Point", to name a few.

Despite a noisy, irksome second half, "The Doors" is an intriguing film about an intriguing historical figure. Mr. Mojo Risin's "style" may have died with the times. But Jim Morrison, himself, lives on ... as legend.