Panic Room

[Remo D]

Much as I love drive-ins, seeing PANIC ROOM at one was a huge mistake. Before the movie even started, an announcement came over the loudspeaker warning us about the "extremely dark" print they had and claiming that it was "the way the director made it." Nonsense. The print we saw was horrible, but I don't think for a second that David Fincher was making a blind-man-in-a-dark-room-looking-for-a-black-cat-that-isn't-there movie.

So perhaps there's a masterpiece of style lurking in the murk, and I'll have to see it again. The same thing happened with ALIEN 3, only that was an INDOOR theatre! It looked awful, but the laserdisc and DVD showed up to blow me away much later.

What I CAN tell you is that PANIC ROOM features the least interesting story Fincher has ever worked with. It's pretty much the "siege" film you saw the trailers for, with surprises that really aren't surprises and action that won't thrill you like you've never been thrilled. It's efficient, it's well-acted, and it's a convincingly-played siege thriller, but it's not THE GAME, FIGHT CLUB or even ALIEN 3 (let's not even invoke SE7EN in the same breath).

I will watch it again, and I'll probably pick up the DVD since I have Fincher's other films. But don't go in expecting to be dazzled.

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"Nya-nya, nya-nya, nyahh-nyahh... I made you eat your parents!!!" --Cartman

[Latte Thunder]

I've been hearing the same thing all around. From what I understand, the script just didn't translate well to the screen.

I remember reading production reports about it a while ago saying that Fincher was shooting to make a literally dark, dark feature where there wasn't a lot of light and while most of the drooling Fincher fanboys were really excited about it and hailed his genius, I thought the idea sucked. I like quite a few of Fincher's movies (hence the forum name) but according to some friends who are also Finch fans, this one really misses the mark.

I was actually sort of hoping he would win the bid for Director on Daredevil.

[Scott]

Sounds like I'm in the minority here, but I enjoyed Panic Room. It was a good film, but not great, and I sort of expected a little more from Fincher and Andrew Kevin Walker. The film has a dark atmosphere, but I felt that they held back. The film could've been much better had they left the soft Forrest Whitaker character out and replaced him with someone more sadistic. Still, it was good entertainment, just not great.