Synopsis
Dr. Peyton Westlake is on the verge of realizing a major breakthrough in synthetic skin when his laboratory is destroyed by gangsters. Having been burned beyond recognition and forever altered by an experimental medical procedure, Westlake becomes known as Darkman, assuming alternate identities in his quest for revenge and a new life with a former love.
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Cast
- Liam NeesonPeyton Westlake / Darkman
- Frances McDormandJulie Hastings
- Colin FrielsLouis Strack Jr.
- Larry DrakeRobert G. Durant
- Nelson MashitaYakitito
- Jessie Lawrence FergusonEddie Black
- Rafael H. RobledoRudy Guzman
- Dan HicksSkip
- Ted RaimiRick
- Dan BellSmiley
Recommendations
- 88
Boston Globe
The film works because Raimi's motor-rhythmed pop sensibility was ready to take off in this movie, and does, in a series of wonderfully hyperkinetic comic-strip lurches. [24 Aug. 1990, p.34] - 75
Entertainment Weekly
Darkman is a thrillingly demented pop spectacular: a grade-B movie made by a grade-A lunatic. - 75
Chicago Tribune
What no plot summary of Darkman can provide is how much director Raimi ("The Evil Dead") brings to the party. In addition to giving us a conflicted hero - more disturbed than Batman - Raimi fills every action sequence and even routine plot scenes with fresh images that reflect his Darkman's rage. [24 Aug. 1990] - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
Darkman is big, stupid and wonderful -- an absurd, grand-scale adventure and a vicious comedy rolled into one nasty, unpleasant, hard-to-resist mess. [24 Aug. 1990, p.E1] - 70
Washington Post
Darkman, as unnerving as a gargoyle, is a classic nightmare, elegant and sumptuous, everything "Batman" should have been. But we're numbed after a while, as we are by the grotesquerie of the nightly news. Then again, maybe that's Raimi's intention. His work is beautiful in its scary way, and never only skin deep. - 70
Los Angeles Times
What many American movies do well these days -- action, violence, hell-for-leather street spectacle -- Darkman does better. That may be praise enough. [24 Aug. 1990, p.F10] - 60
Orlando Sentinel
It's a fairly effective melodrama with an inventive visual design, swift pacing and convincing performances by Liam Neeson (as Westlake/Darkman), Frances McDormand (as Westlake's girlfriend) and Larry Drake (as the heavy). [24 Aug. 1990, p.4] - 50
The New York Times
Darkman sustains mild interest throughout, but it never takes off, partly because a real-estate scam, gangland shootouts, city corruption and a love story clutter up the sad story of Westlake's strange mutation.
