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Movies / On DVD / Bless the Child
Bless the Child

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Bless the Child (2000)

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Reviews Counted:26

Fresh:0

Rotten:26

Average Rating:2.5/10

Consensus: Bless the Child doesn't scare, but may provoke unintended laughter from audiences. It's basically a B-movie.

Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Box Office: $0

Synopsis: Omens and concepts of good vs. evil have no place in Maggie O’Connor’s (Kim Basinger) well-ordered, practical universe. Her life revolves around her job as a nurse at a busy New York hospital --... Omens and concepts of good vs. evil have no place in Maggie O’Connor’s (Kim Basinger) well-ordered, practical universe. Her life revolves around her job as a nurse at a busy New York hospital -- that is, until her wayward kid sister, Jenna (Angela Bettis), shows up on her doorstep one rainy Christmas Eve and saddles Maggie with an autistic newborn child named Cody (Holliston Coleman).

Cody quickly touches Maggie’s heart and becomes the daughter she has always longed for. But six years later Jenna suddenly re-enters her life and, with her mysterious new husband, Eric Stark (Rufus Sewell), abducts Cody. Despite the fact that Maggie has no legal rights to Cody, FBI agent John Travis (Jimmy Smits), an expert in ritual homicide and occult-related crime, takes up her cause when he realizes that Cody shares the same birth date as several other recently missing children.

The little girl, it soon becomes clear, is more than simply "special." She manifests extraordinary powers that the forces of evil have waited centuries to control, and her abduction sparks a clash between the soldiers of good and evil that can only be resolved, in the end, by the strength of one small child and the love she inspires in those she touches. [More]

Starring: Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Rufus Sewell, Ian Holm

Starring: Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Rufus Sewell, Ian Holm, Lumi Cavazos, Holliston Coleman, Christina Ricci, Angela Bettis, Dimitra Arliss

Director: Chuck Russell

Director: Chuck Russell
Screenwriter: Tom Rickman
Producer: Mace Neufeld
Composer: Christopher Young

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jun 26, 2001

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Reviews for Bless the Child

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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It reps another disappointing outing from Kim Basinger, who's clearly uninspired by the hack material.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
06/06/08
Robert Koehler
Robert Koehler
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Horrendous dialogue and horrific directing dominate this thriller, in which Coleman's performance shines by default.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
01/08/07
Lisa Alspector
Lisa Alspector
Chicago Reader
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It makes the battle between good and evil look trite, familiar, and boring.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
03/19/02
Kevin Courrier
Kevin Courrier
Globe and Mail
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The unintentional effect of movies like Bless the Child is that they are enough to make agnostics out of true believers.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Carrie Rickey
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
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Must the makers of Bless the Child bang us over the head with symbolism?

Full Review Source: Associated Press | comment Comment
01/01/00
Christy Lemire
Christy Lemire
Associated Press
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Planning to lighten your wallet to gawk at this train wreck for a couple of hours? Here's a better idea: Shred up a few handfuls of fives and ones and use them to line the cage of your child's pet gerbil.

Full Review Source: Mr. Showbiz | comment Comment
01/01/00
Cody Clark
Cody Clark
Mr. Showbiz
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For my money, Bless the Child is a much funnier parody of a thriller than Scary Movie -- it just doesn't realize it.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
01/01/00
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Isn't genuinely scary enough to suppress the inevitable urge to laugh at its cheesy inconsistencies, but isn't howlingly funny enough to raise it to the level of genius.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
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A schlocky thriller that might appeal to less discriminating members of the mall crowd.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Edward Guthmann
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle
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Seems derivative of so many other movies that you're surprised that it doesn't have to credit its sources the way hip-hop artists do when they sample songs.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
New York Times
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The film short-changes its own dramatic build by employing cheap cutaways and less than seamless editing.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Ernest Hardy
Ernest Hardy
Film.com
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It's all just cheap metaphor and stupid spectacle, with technology standing (rather inadequately) in for any sort of genuine inquiry into the fascinating mysteries and difficulties of actual faith.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Gemma Files
Gemma Files
Film.com
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From an acting standpoint, you won't find more wood this side of a lumber yard.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
01/01/00
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
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The deflatingly ordinary Bless the Child causes one to wish ... that movies about the supernatural could make contact with supernatural script doctors.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
Boston Globe
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Everyone in the film looks as if they're doing penance.

comment Comment
01/01/00
John Monaghan
John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press
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After a slow start, it becomes enjoyably creepy, only to decline sharply into a morass of ever more inane ridiculousness.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jonathan Foreman
Jonathan Foreman
New York Post
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Lapses into an exercise in foolishness.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Kevin Thomas
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
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Director Chuck Russell ... plays this like high drama, preventing all the potential camp humor and cheap thrills from bursting forth. And the film drags.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Louis B. Parks
Louis B. Parks
Houston Chronicle
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Chocked with every bad satanic cliche imaginable, Bless the Child is like Rosemary's Baby (1968) on steroids.

Full Review Source: CNN.com | comment Comment
01/01/00
Paul Clinton (CNN.com)
Paul Clinton (CNN.com)
CNN.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Bless the child. But damn the movie.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
01/01/00
Peter Howell
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
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