Kaufman's PC adaptation falls awkwardly between the conventions of the Hollywood conspiracy thriller and something intended as more artily significant.
Comment
06/24/06
Rising Sun (1993)
35
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:12
Rotten:22
Average Rating:5.1/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: A Los Angeles special agent (Snipes) must team up with an expert on Japanese culture (Connery) to investigate the murder of a call-girl in the boardroom of a Japanese corporation. The case turns... [More]
Starring: Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, Mako
Director: Philip Kaufman
Reviews for Rising Sun
Top CriticWhat should have been a tense political thrilling blockbuster, ends up a wasted effort with a limp storyline that once again fails to give the book justice.
04/09/08
Top Criticaufman's heavy-handedness and a half-baked script with unfocused performances to match render this unentertaining, vacuous nonsense.
04/09/08
Top CriticAs the plot grows more intricate, strangely the tension dissipates, until finally the movie just seems to run out of breath.
10/18/08
There are a few too many plot holes and logical errors. Rising Sun may be solidly-paced, but not all aspects of the production are as successful.
01/01/00
The film works because of the world it creates, aided by the cinematography of Michael Chapman and the set design of frequent Coppola collaborator Dean Tavoularis.
01/01/00
An intelligent and sophisticated screen adaptation of Michael Crichton's bestselling novel
07/12/03
A slick yet pedestrian thriller.
01/01/00
It directs attention not to the internal reasons for America's economic problems, but to inscrutable, generalized, unknown others from abroad, whose yellow skins and strange manners announce their evil purposes as much as their unfair trade practices.
05/20/03
Top CriticThe film disappoints, but Snipes and Connery don't.
12/28/04
The screenplay by Kaufman, Crichton and Michael Backes is not about much of anything important.
01/01/00
Top CriticThis adaptation is a sleek, smartly plotted entertainment, thoroughly engrossing.
01/09/02
A 1980s style film adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel.
12/23/04
Where the movie really stumbles is with co-writer/director Philip Kaufman's attempts to make it a conventional mystery-thriller. Kaufman simply doesn't have the slightest notion of how to make a conventional film of any kind.
01/01/00
Connery is heaven, and so is the movie.
01/01/00
For all the gloss and high-tech hardware, the mystery just fails to be intriguing.
01/01/00
Kaufman's film is flawd but not as bad as some critics claim, though charges of racism made this adaptation controversial even before it was actually seen.
01/02/09
When working in genre territory before, the idiosyncratic Kaufman has shown a marked tendency to debunk or subvert conventions. Playing it straight here, he brings little to the table.
04/09/08
Top CriticWildly improbable (read: typical Crichton) tale about a murder in a Japanese office building.
01/01/00
I found it pretty entertaining, as well as provocative in some of its comments about contemporary life.
04/09/08
Latest News for Rising Sun
November 05, 2008:
Michael Crichton Passes Away (1942-2008)
Best-selling author, screenwriter, and director Michael Crichton has passed away at the age of 66. The medical doctor-turned-filmmaker was best known for writing... More...
April 09, 2008:
Total Recall: The 10 Most Corrupt Cops in Movies
In honor of David Ayer's Street Kings we did a little bad-to-worse survey of the boys who soil their blue. Some of them are hot, some of them caustic, but all of them are... More...
November 11, 2005:
Sean Connery Earns AFI's Highest Honor
Thanks to ComingSoon.net for sharing a press release from the American Film Institute: Sir Sean Connery has been selected by the American Film Institute's (AFI) Board of... More...
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