Willard (2003)
4/10
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A young man with an unusual connection to rats uses them at his own sociopathic will.
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Where to begin? Let's start with the good: Crispin Glover was born to play Willard. In fact, when anyone said, "remake of Willard staring Crispin Glover", thousands of palms struck foreheads with the gleeful chorus of, "Yes, of course!" And Crispin did a fine job (for which he was nominated for Best Actor at the 2004 Saturn Awards), in spite of a woeful script, that was a horrible disservice to the mysterious perfect meeting of actor and role.
Also very good was the near exclusive use of live rats, that were seamlessly integrated with CGI rat effects where necessary. The film was well funded (20 million), with effective cinematography and all-around production value.
Unfortunately, the script was aimless, heartless, confusing, horrorless and humorless, and lacking in suspense. The film was written and directed by Glen Morgan.
The film should have been written and directed by Rob Reiner (Misery) or David Cronenberg (The Fly). Brian De Palma (Carrie) would be an excellent choice for a suspense director, but would have written something much too perverted for an appropriate PG-13 Willard.
The beginning of Willard almost seemed to be in the graphic novel genre, a genre that can be lofty, where it paints with rich symbolism, and lets smart viewers fill in the inferences. But I quickly realized Willard was lofty in the sense that it didn't want to present anything in a definitive or strong manner. I don't think the script was set with any clear goals of what kind of film it was trying to be.
I couldn't tell if Willard understood the morals that he would break, or if he was ever insane or not. I couldn't tell if Willard's boss, Frank (R. Lee Ermey), loved or hated him. We see Frank meet with Willard's lawyer, concerning the plot-line of Willard selling his house to Frank, but I couldn't tell if there was evil collusion or not. I couldn't tell if co-worker Cathryn (Laura Elena Harring) had a bizarre pity obsession with Willard, or whether Cathryn or Willard had any love interest what-so-ever.
I don't know why Willard did many of the things he did. I'd have to go into spoilers to specify. For those who've already seen Willard, I'll ask you one spoiler question here below in white text. I'd love a reply if you know the answer:
Why did Willard kill most of his rats?