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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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41 - 60 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Everything remotely interesting in this movie is overwhelmed by plot silliness and Basinger's terrible central performance.

Full Review Source: Flint Journal | comment Comment
01/01/00
David Forsmark
David Forsmark
Flint Journal

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

Isn't genuinely scary enough to suppress the inevitable urge to laugh at its cheesy inconsistencies, but isn't howlingly funny enough to raise it to the level of genius.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Washington Post

The film is actually pretty creepy despite its strident predictability, and I found myself jumping in places I didn't expect.

Full Review Source: Fresno Bee | comment Comment
01/01/00
Donald Munro
Donald Munro
Fresno Bee

Just when you thought the summer couldn't get any dumber, along comes Bless the Child, acting like someone dropped it on its pointy little head.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
01/01/00
Duane Dudek
Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A very bad movie.

Full Review Source: DustinPutman.com | comment Comment
01/01/00
Dustin Putman
Dustin Putman
DustinPutman.com

A schlocky thriller that might appeal to less discriminating members of the mall crowd.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Edward Guthmann
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle

There’s an old saying: Bless the Child, spare the Audience. And you’d wished the producers thought about this before spending millions on this lame turkey.

Full Review Source: Nitrate Online | comment Comment
01/01/00
Elias Savada
Elias Savada
Nitrate Online

Seems derivative of so many other movies that you're surprised that it doesn't have to credit its sources the way hip-hop artists do when they sample songs.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

For a film about the ultimate triumph of Good over Evil, Bless the Child sure is bleak and moody.

Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com | comment Comment
01/01/00
Eric D. Snider
Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

Avoid this piece of hokem like the plague.

Full Review Source: Greenwich Village Gazette | comment Comment
01/01/00
Eric Lurio
Eric Lurio
Greenwich Village Gazette

The film short-changes its own dramatic build by employing cheap cutaways and less than seamless editing.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Ernest Hardy
Ernest Hardy
Film.com

This hodgepodge couldn't have been salvaged by the most expert handling, but the execution here is pallid at best.

Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | comment Comment
01/01/00
Frank Swietek
Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

End of Days, cheesy as it was, comes nowhere near the glorious pandering and manipulation of Bless the Child.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Gary Thompson
Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News

It's all just cheap metaphor and stupid spectacle, with technology standing (rather inadequately) in for any sort of genuine inquiry into the fascinating mysteries and difficulties of actual faith.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Gemma Files
Gemma Files
Film.com

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

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

Bless the Child is pop junk, an airport paperback, literally, turned into a mid-budget devil thriller.

comment Comment
01/01/00
J. Rentilly
J. Rentilly
TNT's Rough Cut

From an acting standpoint, you won't find more wood this side of a lumber yard.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
01/01/00
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews

This hopelessly cliched horror flick touches all the usual bases without much style or imagination.

Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jay Boyar
Jay Boyar
Orlando Sentinel

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
 
 
41 - 60 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
all

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