The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
6.5/10
Never a dull moment, nice cinematography, with some very effectively shot scenes. Zakes Mokae crawls under your skin as a convincing statist voodoo villain. Although Bill Pulman shows more range than in any other roll I've seen him depict, his lead characterization is still much too smugly skating on the surface. I think a deep crevice of emotion was required, and Pulman a poor casting choice. While all the characters were rather shallow and failing to inspire much empathy, the story narrative was fairly fascinating and aggressively nimble.
The crucial failure of the film was the cartoonish scattershot ending, out of step with the film's prior serious, realistic tone and cinematic visual effects. Was like Elm St' Dream Warriors breakdanced into The Exorcist. A more visceral and emotionally accessible lead, plus a more realistic stark ending would have solidified an otherwise solid effort.
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