The Doors (1991)

Must See Movie...

Don't Believe the Hype

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Oliver Stone's The Door's is a biographical take on Jim Morrison and you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of faults here- Kilmer is literally the photo copy of the real Jim and Meg Ryan is adorable as his girlfriend. The film itself wasn't such a hit because, well to be frank it is vague and goes off on many tangents but this is a valiant effort to show a true rock star. Even if you aren't a fan of the Doors I suggest you check this one out.

The Doors broke onto the scene in the late '60s with a "Carnival Music" sound. Jim Morrison takes you for a ride that could be your last. Follow the "Pied Piper" of Rock and Roll to your doom. The Merry go Round doesn't stop unless you can dislodge yourself and fly away. As Pamela Courson discovered the "Magic Ride" with Jim is short and addictively deadly.The Doors reflected the constant Jungle Warfare in Viet Nam - "The End", "The Musics Over" and several other tunes drag you down into the depths of despair - showing endless war and strife. Jim and his massive alcohol and drug addiction "Lit His Fire" alright, along with countless other lost souls.We survived the War and the Revolution and we're still here - we are the "Beautiful Friend" that Morrison sings about. Addiction took many of us and is still reaping it's deadly harvest. We were able to detach ourselves from Morrison and his Death Spiral - we survived to look back at his destruction along with those that followed him. Oliver Stone showed the uncontrolled Jim Morrison and the destructive power he wielded. No one could stop or prevent the eventual outcome. I however lived to learn from this legendary "Pied Piper".

Being a huge Doors fan for as long as I can remember I put off seeing this film for a very long time. After finally caving in I watched this film with low expectations of watching an inaccurate portrayal of The Doors performed poorly by highly paid actors and actresses. I still feel I was king of correct. However the performance from Val Kilmer saves this film being a complete write off for me.From spending years listening to The Doors, watching interviews and just generally studying everything about The Doors from many different sources. I conclude this film is in fact quite inaccurate in terms of the behaviour and some events portrayed. Although I can understand the truth may need to be stretched in some cases in order to entertain the film goer. Annoyingly this infuriates Doors fans it still seems to get across the general feel of The Doors and creates the overall impression of what I think they actually were like and I was very intrigued by this film for many reasons.Whilst I harshly disagree with the portrayal of The Doors I still think that the films many great aspects were not from the narrative itself. The cinematography in particular caught my eye, loads of sloppy hand held shots and shaky moments particularly during Jim's drunk and high scenes. I believe this was a great attempt in showing the lack of care and general out of the ordinary presence of Jim giving the viewer that intoxicated sense Jim was shown in. The cave scene where Jim dropped acid I believe correctly gave the audience the true sighting of Jim Morrison through the use of his freedom and just open mindedness to every little thing showing the true side of his unbelievably intelligent creative mind. The shots is this scene were almost perfect just showing madness and just a different world through Jim's eyes. On the other hand I believe if Jim was to make a film about himself the visual aspects would play a much bigger role for example really concentrating on the psychedelic high he would always like to be influenced by, I imagine an early Terence Mallick film just solely showing incredible shots of astonishing landscapes or beautifully colourful establishing shots, truly capturing the vision Jim tries to put through his poetry using the clear imagery.Another huge bonus for this film was the performance of Val Kilmer. Spending years picking up small personality traits Jim Morrison possess through interviews and videos of him, I believed no actor would be able to put these in place or even look like Jim does. Val Kilmer managed to play a staggeringly convincing role that clearly shows the hard work he may have put in to achieve this. Previously seeing Val Kilmer in other films I thought there's not a chance he could look like Jim, amazingly I was wrong the appearance in face, hair and clothing was spot on, now his personal traits. Val clearly spent time studying Jim the sense of being careless and having total freedom with no consequences was clearly shown through Vals attempt also the singing was a fantastic effort, although was noticeably different on a few occasions I believe Stones use of Jim's voice for long shots and Vals voice for close ups can make you genuinely question who is singing in some parts. The performance really does play a huge part in making this film as interesting as it is.Withal I feel this film was inaccurate in certain aspects of The Doors' career, which is of course aggravating being a huge Doors fan. This film still intrigued me in the fact it gave off a strong sense of The Doors and clearly shows the creativity they possess which is important to just open the eyes to everyone that hasn't heard of The Doors. Overall was quite pleased with this film I understand it is always going to be a difficult film to create. Learn to forget.

This movie is not perfect - there are a small handful of things added to the film to make a fun "rock music film". There are however quite a number of things that really did happen that are added to the film - most of the things in the movie really happened (as I mentioned just a small handful of things that didn't happen in reality).As far as the casting goes I think everyone was great. This is the film that got my attention towards Val Kilmer - I never really paid much attention to him as an actor before I watched this film for the first time a few years ago. Kilmer really did a great job at portraying Morrison. He did his best and pulled it off well in my book.I don't view this movie as "the gospel" of The Doors band but I enjoy the film as simply a fun rock movie film with some true to real life events. If you want to see a great documentary on The Doors then I recommend "When You're Strange".9/10