Synopsis:Val Kilmer delivers what was considered one of 1991's best performances as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory bio-pic of the seminal 1960s rock group The Doors. Stone cuts a jagged swath through Morrison's life, starting with a childhood memory where Morrison sees an elderly Indian dying by the roadside. It picks up with Morrison's arrival in California and his assimilation into the Venice Beach culture, followed by his film school days at UCLA; his introduction to his girlfriend
Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan); his first encounters with Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan); and the origin of The Doors -- made up of Manzarek, Robby Kreiger (Frank Whaley), and John Densmore (Kevin Dillon). As the fame of The Doors grows, Morrison's obsession with death increases. The band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and no-shows at concerts. Morrison, meanwhile, sinks deeper into a drug-induced haze, having mystical sexual encounters with Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), an older rock journalist involved with sadomasochism and witchcraft. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
Critic Reviews
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
The film really proves only that Jim was a bad drunk and a worse friend, and that in no way was his life exemplary.
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Variety Staff, Variety
Kilmer is convincing in the lead role, although he never allows the viewer to share any emotions.
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Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
The movie does a pretty good job with period ambience. But it's a long haul waiting for the hero to keel over.
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Stephen Garrett, Time Out
Stone sometimes loads the narrative with too much sub-Freudian baggage about Morrison's childhood, but the music, the excess and the excitement come across well.
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Caryn James, New York Times
It is made by a Morrison groupie for other groupies, a film that leaves the rest of us locked outside wondering what the fuss is about.
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Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
I can't recall a film that evokes the myth of the Sixties more potently.
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Joe Brown, Washington Post
You get a buzz, all right, but you're left woozy and hung over, and probably won't remember much of what you've seen.
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Hal Hinson, Washington Post
The film is an absurdity -- muddled, self-serious, alienating, a stone drag.
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Watching the movie is like being stuck in a bar with an obnoxious drunk, when you're not drinking.
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Elliot Panek, Common Sense Media
Intense biopic full of drugs, sex and rock'n'roll.
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