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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:95

Fresh:3

Rotten:92

Average Rating:3/10

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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61 - 80 (sorted by date)
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Except for a few computerized demons here and there, some scattered Biblical references, and two or three parallels to Jesus, the film was not all that supernatural. And it wasn’t all that thrilling either.

Full Review Source: Norman Transcript | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jim Chastain
Jim Chastain
Norman Transcript

The film starts off with a mediocre premise, and then quickly and progressively becomes more ludicrous as it proceeds.

Full Review Source: Screen It! | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jim Judy
Jim Judy
Screen It!

Barely squeezes any sense out of its cliché-ridden plot, with wasted talent, cheezy effects, bad dialogue and unintentional laughs to boot.

Full Review Source: JoBlo's Movie Emporium | comment Comment
01/01/00
JoBlo
JoBlo
JoBlo's Movie Emporium

Everyone in the film looks as if they're doing penance.

comment Comment
01/01/00
John Monaghan
John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press

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
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

I should be blessed for sitting through that movie.

Full Review Source: 3BlackChicks Review | comment Comment
01/01/00
Kamal  'The Diva' Larsuel
Kamal 'The Diva' Larsuel
3BlackChicks Review

Lapses into an exercise in foolishness.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Kevin Thomas
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Bless the Child is mostly derivative junk, but its few novel touches are worth noting.

Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
01/01/00
Laura Clifford
Laura Clifford
rec.arts.movies.reviews

Many special effects are obvious frauds: rubbery rats with unconvincingly red eyes, flying monkeys that make you nostalgic for The Wizard of Oz.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Lawrence Toppman
Lawrence Toppman
Charlotte Observer

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
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Those bat-winged CGI demons and red-eyed rats of hell ... should have been banished to a video game before they could transform this solemn shocker into a silly spook show.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
01/01/00
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

A pox on the house of all involved.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Marc Savlov
Marc Savlov
Austin Chronicle

If you're interested in movies about extremely talented children with special powers, it's better to just rent The Sixth Sense.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Mary F. Pols
Mary F. Pols
Contra Costa Times

As usually happens with films as self-important and derivative as Bless the Child, by the third act this is simply laugh-out-loud funny.

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
01/01/00
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

An adequate but unspectacular fright fest.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
01/01/00
Pam Grady
Pam Grady
Reel.com

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

Basinger appears to be gaily waltzing through a soap opera while the other cast members are screeching their way through a horror film.

Full Review Source: Ottawa Citizen | comment Comment
01/01/00
Paul Gessell
Paul Gessell
Ottawa Citizen

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

Bless the Child may be on the side of the angels but lacks the impact of its cinematic predecessors.

Full Review Source: Winnipeg Sun | comment Comment
01/01/00
Randall King
Randall King
Winnipeg Sun

The scariest thing about this hokey bombast is that it got made in the first place.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Rita Kempley
Rita Kempley
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
61 - 80 (sorted by date)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
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