If you're a Wenders admirer and can give yourself over to his gorgeous verging-on-surreal vision, you can come away deeply moved.
The Million Dollar Hotel (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:41
Fresh:10
Rotten:31
Average Rating:4.2/10
Consensus: Critics say the weirdness of The Million Dollar Hotel is more grating and pretentious than interesting. Also, it takes too long to get to the conclusion.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Wim Wenders's THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL is a well-filmed movie set in a majestic, dilapidated hotel on the outskirts of Hollywood. The opener shows Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies), the eccentric, slightly... Wim Wenders's THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL is a well-filmed movie set in a majestic, dilapidated hotel on the outskirts of Hollywood. The opener shows Tom Tom (Jeremy Davies), the eccentric, slightly retarded, skateboard-riding narrator, wandering in slow motion at daybreak on the roof of the hotel, as a hypnotic U2 song completes the moment. The film consists of many of these near-perfect fantasy capsules, strung together by a vague plot--that Agent Skinner (Mel Gibson), a clownish detective, is investigating the supposed murder of an artist named Izzy who was living at the hotel, and who is the son of a millionaire. What Skinner learns immediately is that most of the hotel's residents are, like Tom Tom, mentally disabled and basically harmless. Geronimo (Jimmy Smits) is one of the few hotel occupants who seems capable of committing such a crime, but even he is more entertaining than threatening. Through Skinner's observation of his subjects, viewers witness some delectably sweet events, such as the magical scene in which Tom Tom meets his true love, Eloise (Milla Jovovich), in the stairwell of the hotel. Both the actors and the sets of THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL facilitate stunning photography that looks as if it were ripped from the pages of Vogue. The script, based on an idea by Bono, and the score by U2, complete this fashionable picture. [More]
Starring: Mel Gibson, Milla Jovovich, Jeremy Davies, Jimmy Smits
Starring: Mel Gibson, Milla Jovovich, Jeremy Davies, Jimmy Smits, Bud Cort, Peter Stormare, Amanda Plummer, Gloria Stuart
Director: Wim Wenders
Director: Wim Wenders
Screenwriter: Nicholas Klein
Producer: Wim Wenders, Deepak Nayar, Bruce Davey, Bono, Nicholas Klein
Composer: Bono, Daniel Lanois
Studio: Icon Entertainment
Reviews for The Million Dollar Hotel
Take the last exit off the highway to art movie hell, and you'll probably have to stay at The Million Dollar Hotel.
Longtime Wenders fans will undoubtedly welcome the affront to conventional storytelling while others, attracted by the marquee value of Mel Gibson, are more likely to leave the theatre scratching their heads.
Too long, the willful eccentricity is grating and the hackneyed moral -- real life is better than TV -- is so silly it's best taken ironically.
Even alternative cinema god, Wenders, and rock's last great savior, Bono, are doing little more than recycling the material and cardboard people that Hollywood machinery has assigned as the harmless, loveable freaks.
Despite its ramshackle structure, The Million Dollar Hotel is festooned with enough odd trappings to keep it enjoyable.
Something of a monstrosity -- liquored self-indulgence taken to its own astral plane.
Vacuous, tedious, pretentious and featuring some uniformly atrocious acting.
Listening to these people prattle on and watching the St. Vitus-Dance antics of Jeremy Davies in the role of Tom-Tom is an exericise in tedium.
Ultimately falls flat in most categories except that of arty pretension.
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