A Cure For Wellness Review
R: Disturbing Violent Content and Images, Sexual Content Including an Assault, Graphic Nudity, and Language
20th Century Fox, Regency Enterprises, Blind Wink Productions
2 Hrs and 26 Minutes
Cast: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Adrian Schiller
REVIEW: For the past 14 years Gore Verbinski has dabbled in types of films: family films and Disney films. Aside from directing an R-rated Nicholas Cage film in 2005 called The Weather Man, Verbinski has made the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Disney), the Academy Award Winning Rango (family film from Nickelodeon), and The Lone Ranger (back to Disney). After the financial failure of The Lone Ranger, it’s about time for Verbinski to get back into R-rated films. For some who didn’t know, he directed the first (and only good) The Ring film back in 2002. Now with A Cure For Wellness Verbinski is back with the hope to not only put his name back on the map, but also show his audience he’s done with Disney. Ohh yeah, this ain’t no Disney flick.
An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. He soon suspects that the spa's miraculous treatments are not what they seem. When he begins to unravel its terrifying secrets, his sanity is tested, as he finds himself diagnosed with the same curious illness that keeps all the guests there longing for the cure.
THE GOOD: When watching a Gore Verbinski film, one of the most notable things you can recognize for you to realize it is a Verbinski film is the usage of disgusting looking characters. He can have the most beautiful actors covered in dirt and you can tell it from him. With The Lone Ranger the dirty visual look was overused to a point where it got tiresome, but with A Cure For Wellness has Verbinski going back to his roots of filmmaking of having visually impressive shots that are pristine and sophisticated. It’s the least Gore Verbinski that Gore Verbinski has ever been similar to Burton being the least Burton ever with Big Eyes. Though it doesn’t have the people looking dirty, they look weird similar to his characters in Rango. He manages to capture the weird look with the people while the imagery attempts to match with it.
One of the best performances here is from Jason Issacs as Dr. Volmer who is the head of the sanatorium. Throughout the film, he is sophisticated and calm and talks in such a polite manner. From the moment he’s introduced onscreen you know he’s not the first guy who should be trusted at a shady setting like this rehabilitation center at the Swiss Alps, but it’s just the way he speaks that can easily sucker you in for either your cure or your own demise. With every torturous thing that happens to Lockhart, Volmer just shows up in the aftermath. The more times Lockhart gets pushed around, the more hostile he becomes especially when he sees Volmer, but he’s just chill and relaxing. The key reason how the film tests you is because of Issac’s calmness. It tests you as much as it tests Lockhart’s endurance and mentality as you attempt to contemplate if he’s descending his way into madness or not.
With this film, the shot composition plays like a Wes Anderson film in the vain of having the symmetrical shots where characters stand in the middle foreground of the foreground in a perfectly set up background. It doesn’t have the vibrant colors an Anderson film has for the lighting is dark, grim, and mostly blue. It features amazing cinematography that is thoroughly mesmerizing. Bojan Bazelli brings the blue color scheme that creepily created the atmosphere in The Ring into this film and it works for the most part.
Unfortunately, it’s not mesmerizing enough to keep your interest for this movie.
THE BAD: I respect Verbinski for getting out of the realm of the generic blockbuster and I respect this film for what it was trying to be, but boy was this dumb and boy was this dull.
The film’s story is a combination of Bioshock, Shutter Island, and the Stephen King novel Misery. Somehow that sounds conceptually interesting but it lacks enough story to maintain your interest. What made things like Misery and Shutter Island relatively interesting were it’s genuine build up and suspense for the mystery that is going on around the atmosphere in the situation those characters are in. With A Cure For Wellness, you can easily predict the plotting and the answer to the mystery by the 30-minute mark.
When Mr. Lockhart is in the sanatorium he encounters various of old people who are both incredibly old and incredibly wrinkly and at times incredibly disgusting. It’s not even how some of them look sometimes for its how they act. It has some sparks of maturity, but then it just gets downright silly at times. Whatever brain it had for the first hour just jumps out the window and land straight on its face.
It is good at times to see a similar story be retold with a new spin on it, but not when the film is for 2 hours and 30 minutes. The first 20 minutes of setup is great where it’s elaborate and logical. It’s smart and humorous and really intriguing for at least the first hour, it just drastically shifts into a series of Dane DeHaan torture. Not Dane DeHaan torture as in he’s giving a bad performance for he’s rather the main driving force for this film, but a series of DeHaan being tortured in many shocking and grossing ways. By the time the film reaches its third act, it completely loses its mind. It turns from something barely interesting to something incredibly stupid. It turns into some Rick & Morty and Scooby-Doo shit that is handled oh so poorly. If it had the silly tone of any one of those shows then it would be forgiven, but since it tries to play itself too seriously for the majority of the film, it’s mind numbingly dumb.
What makes it completely worse is it’s conclusion as in the last two minutes of the movie. It has an ending so tacked on and unnecessary that you unintentionally laugh at how stupid it is. It’s so appallingly forced that it’s sad. It’s sad because Verbinski and Bazelli does try to create something that is mesmerizing but the script by Justin Haythe is so tonally uneven and completely brainless that it’s unforgivable. The actual dialogue isn’t the main downfall of the film, but the sequences of action are the thing that makes the film go completely downhill. It’s not even what the characters do. It’s the things that happen around them and the things that happen to them that are stupid.
LAST STATEMENT: Despite it featuring amazing direction and mesmerizing cinematography from beginning to end, A Cure For Wellness’s predictable storytelling and stupidly written elements of action makes this a two and a half hour mess that needs to be cured.
Rating: 2/5 | 42%
Super Scene: “You’re trying to make me lose my mind”
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Bojan Bazelli Cinematography | Overlong Runtime |
| Gore Verbinski Direction | Stupid Action Elements |
| Jason Issacs | Way Too Predictable |
| Dane DeHaan | Dumbed Down Screenplay |
| Story Setup | Giant WTF Uncomfortable Moments |
