Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com "We Put the SIN in Cinema"
© Copyright 2003 Planet Sick-Boy. All Rights Reserved.
Even from just its unusual opening credits and accompanying Elfmanesque music, it's pretty clear Willard is the film Tim Burton should have made after Ed Wood. That might not sound too flattering, since I think we're all in agreeance (thank you, Fred Durst) that Mars Attacks! should have just gone away. But it is a compliment. My hard-on for Daredevil and Jennifer Garner aside, Willard is the best mainstream film to be released so far in 2003. Okay, that doesn't exactly sound like spectacular praise, either. It's good, okay? I liked it a lot.
Crispin Glover (Charlie's Angels) plays the titular Willard Stiles, a sad sack in his late 20s who has a miserable home and work life. Sure, he lives in a big mansion, but the place literally looks like it could fall apart if somebody farted too loudly. Willard's father (played in photo and portrait only by Bruce Davison, who was the original Willard in the 1971 version) has been deceased for a few years, and his mother (a fabulously disgusting Jackie Burroughs) looks like she may have been dead for nearly as long. Mom calls him "Clark" because Willard is such a stupid name. She is also a little clingy - at least that's what I'd call a mother who wants to examine her adult son's bowel movements. He's a Norman Bates in the making.
Work isn't much better for Willard, even though he's employed by a company his father created. Willard, perpetually decked out in one of his dead father's suits, arrives late every morning to Martin-Stiles Manufacturing, a company with the worst office lighting since Joe Versus the Volcano, only to be berated by his over-the-top boss Frank Martin (R. Lee Ermey). Willard isn't legally allowed to be fired, so Martin does his best to drive him away in the most emasculating ways possible.
Meanwhile, there's a burgeoning rodent problem in Willard's basement. He tries to set traps but manages only to befriend a cute little white rat he dubs Socrates. Before you know it, Willard has thousands and thousands of rat buddies, and he trains them to do his evil bidding. Which, you can imagine, means a whole lot of bad news for ol' Mr. Martin. But revenge via rodent isn't what makes Willard so compelling. There's a whole problem with rat hierarchy. Willard makes it clear that he likes Socrates the best, which creates a problem for the largest rat, Ben (star of the 1972 sequel), who acts like both a jilted lover and an evil yang to Socrates's innocent ying. The two critters, which represent the internal struggle of a very conflicted Willard, are like the angel and devil on his shoulder. Or, if you don't want to read that far into the symbolism of it all, they're like Gizmo and Spike from Gremlins.
You often hear people say, "I can't imagine anyone else in this role." I've probably used the term once or twice (most recently regarding Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York), but I'm not sure there is a better example of this than Willard. This is the part Glover was born to play. Heck, he even "wrote" a book called Rat-Catching. Not many people would be able to appear this creepy, sympathetic, horrifying and vulnerable at the same time, but Glover really nails it. It also helps that he gets to play off of spot-on performances from Burroughs and Ermey, who logs his finest moment since Full Metal Jacket.
That said, Willard is definitely not a film for animal lovers, as many are killed in very disturbing and cold ways. But if you can overlook that, you'll be treated to one fun, dark ride that features homages to Psycho, The Birds, The X-Files (Willard was made by show creators Glen Morgan and James Wong) and those expensive-but-dopey inspirational office posters. And how can you go wrong with Glover himself crooning a remake of Michael Jackson's "Ben" over the closing credits? Answer: You can't.
1:39 - PG-13 for terror/violence, some sexual content and language
========== X-RAMR-ID: 34359 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 851730 X-RT-TitleID: 1120955 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 8/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews