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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

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]

Reviews for Bless the Child

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1 - 20 (sorted by source; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

The set-up ... doesn't exactly have you performing cartwheels of excitement as it lays out its rather transparent tussle between good and evil.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/17/01
Michael Thomson
Michael Thomson
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Shamelessly silly, Bless The Child notches up the clichés as the daft story meanders towards a suitably hammy conclusion.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/30/06
Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Efficiently made hokum.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
12/10/01
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

The use of child jeopardy as a cheap suspense mechanism is somewhat dubious, but one's unease is slightly mollified by the fact that much of this is far too silly to take seriously.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Trevor Johnston
Trevor Johnston
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's annoying stupid, not fun stupid.

Full Review Source: UK Critic | comment Comment
02/14/01
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Ian Waldron-Mantgani
UK 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

There are too many tricks and there's too little compelling plot here.

Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
01/01/00
Brian Webster
Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

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

Bless the Child is a demonstration of the evil of banality.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
01/01/00
Steve Murray
Steve Murray
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A pox on the house of all involved.

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

Hackneyed script, shoddy direction, flat acting and laughable, cheesy special effects.

comment Comment
01/01/00
George Thomas
George Thomas
Beacon Journal

Egad. How this awful thriller got made is beyond me.

Full Review Source: BeatBoxBetty.com | comment Comment
01/01/00
BeatBoxBetty.com

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

A frighteningly fundamentalist vision of contemporary society that's shamelessly and ineptly manipulative.

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
03/24/02
Peter Keough
Peter Keough
Boston Phoenix

A better script or stronger direction might have helped, but without either, this one goes to the Devil.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
06/05/02
Luisa F. Ribeiro
Luisa F. Ribeiro
Boxoffice Magazine

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

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

As satanic flicks go, Bless the Child is entertaining, but it doesn't add enough to the genre to make it truly blessed.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Vicky Edwards
Vicky Edwards
Chicago Tribune

In times when special effects can show us anything, is it so much to ask to make several thousand crawling rats look at least realistic?

Full Review Source: Cinemaphile.org | comment Comment
01/01/00
David Keyes
David Keyes
Cinemaphile.org

Formulaic occult thriller.

Full Review Source: Citysearch | comment Comment
01/01/00
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Citysearch
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by source; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
all

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