There wasn’t a huge choice of far at the cinema – I don’t think there are too many new releases this time of year. We basically had a toss-up between Chatroom and The Way Back. Forget the third Fockers film (the first two were painful enough) and Jack Black stopped being funny after… erm… actually, he’s never been that funny. So that ruled out Gulliver’s Travels, even if the incessant irritation of those sodding Orange commercials hadn’t blacklisted it anyway.
We opted for the one that started an hour earlier.
Chatroom
Plot-in-a-nutshell: a group of teens meet in a chatroom online, one isn’t exactly what he seems, then online and offline lives collide. With hilarious consequences if you’re one of the f*ckwits sat near us who thought this was a new addition to the Final Destination franchise.
Chatroom is directed by Hideo Nakata who directed the original Ringu and its sequel (as well as the western version of The Ring 2). As such, he has a bit of a pedigree as a psychological horror director so something good should be expected of Chatroom. Sadly, it’s lacking.
The visualisation is excellent, though I gather not unique, in that the cyber world is portrayed as a real one. Chat rooms are doors in a dodgy looking flat, labelled with the group’s name. Password security is a door buzzer, and so forth. Even the token paedo who makes his way into one of the rooms is well “presented” in this format.
However, the story just isn’t up to much. It’s very apparent what will happen from far too early on in the film. The moment where it could all change for the better, but doesn’t is over far too quickly. The ending is a bit weak and too sudden.
There are some disturbing moments (mildly) as well as one or two genuinely funny ones (such as the sex room visits), but overall it’s a 30-minute TV show dragged out to ninety minutes and it feels it.
Gill reckons it would be better suited to a stage play and I can see where she’s coming from. The imagery used and the techniques to present it would work very well. It’s also a nice small cast so would make a decent theatre event.
For the silver screen, though, it’s just not got enough depth.
Related articles
- Chatroom, review (telegraph.co.uk)
- Chatroom – review (guardian.co.uk)
- UK Trailer for Hideo Nakata’s Chatroom (dreadcentral.com)
