Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Spikeopath D.O.A. is directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton and adapted to screenplay by Charles Edward Pogue from a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene. It stars Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Daniel Stern, Charlotte Rampling, Jane Kaczmarek and Christopher Neame. Music is by Chaz Jankel and cinematography by Yuri Neyman.A loose remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name, the story finds Professor Dexter Cornell (Quaid) staggering into a police station proclaiming that he is dying because someone has poisoned him. Told in flashback by Cornell, we see the events that led up to the point he was poisoned, but not who did it, and then track the frantic Professor as he tries to solve the who done it mystery before he keels over and dies.Not as bad as the poor box office returns suggest it is, D.O.A. is still very much a frustratingly shaky experience. Lifting only the basic idea of the 1950 movie, the makers stamp their own mark on the premise but add too many red herrings to the already fishy stew. Some plot developments are daft, as is the casting of Meg Ryan in the key femme role - seriously she is just too cookie cute and homely for this material – while the motive reveal is a bit much to swallow. Yet there's still a lot to enjoy and sample here for the neo-noir faithful.Visually the picture is stylish and appreciative to its noir roots. Opening in black and white to set the story in motion, Jankel and Morton then infuse the film with angled shots and frame distortions. Shadows often come into play, with Venetian blinds and roof rafters impacting, while the addition of a spiral staircase late in the day is most pleasing. Quaid is ever watchable in what is a tricky role that calls for him to garner sympathy whilst not being likable! While elsewhere Stern and Rampling provide good characterisations, even if as written the roles are too small given the importance the characters have to the plot shenanigans.A bit over cooked on the page, and basically a race against time thriller dressed up in neo-noir clothing, D.O.A. is still none the less worthy of a viewing. 6.5/10

Michael_Elliott D.O.A. (1988) * 1/2 (out of 4) The title pretty much sums up this remake of the 1949 noir classic. This time out Dennis Quaid plays a teacher going through the worse period of his life as he can't get a book published and his wife is leaving him but things get even darker after being poisoned and learning that he's got less than 24-hours to life. In that time he decides to try and track down the person or persons who poisoned him along with the help of one of his students (Meg Ryan). The original film is one of the all-time great classics but many movies were getting remade during the 80s and many of them were quite good (THE THING, THE FLY, THE BLOB) but others were less than memorable and that's where D.O.A. falls. Many people considered this one of the worst films of the years and it's hard to try and fight that because this is one pretty lousy movie from start to finish. This is really one of those mysteries that's quite annoying because everyone you meet is a red herring and not once did I ever feel as if the screenwriters had a good idea as to where they were going because the entire storyline just seemed like one big mess and in the end they could have had anyone be the killer and it wouldn't have made any less sense than someone else. I won't reveal the ending but it's quite laughable and you can't help but really be mad that you've wasted so much time with the picture just to get to this conclusion. Directors ***** try to add some style to the picture but this never works and quite often it's just as annoying as everything else going on. There are some fancy camera moves and some quick edits but they add nothing to the picture. The opening and closing sequences are in B&W and I'm guessing this was done to try and give the viewers a throwback to the old days but it does nothing to enhance the film. The film actually contains some fine actors but none of them are given much to work with. Quaid, one of my favorites, pretty much sleepwalks through the picture and it never really appears he knows what to do with the character. Ryan is pretty bland in one of her early roles and the shocking thing is that she has no chemistry with Quaid. Daniel Stern, Charlotte Rampling and Jane Kaczmarek round out the supporting cast. One of the most annoying things about the picture is its soundtrack, which features some great tracks but these songs really don't mix well with the story or anything going on. I'm not one that goes against remakes but this here is one that can be skipped. Check out the original instead.

Boba_Fett1138 This is a movie that tries hard but it doesn't quite takes the cake. The movie tries to put in many different successful thriller elements but the movie is nothing more than a mixture of styles that weakens the movie as a whole- and with a flawed and simple story in it.The movie is quite short and this is definitely notable in its script. The concept is quite great and it showed some good potential but the story is at all times kept rather simple and short and the movie its story mainly falls from one coincidence into the other, which really doesn't make this the most credible movie to watch. It's just too much of a series of unlikely events, even for thriller standards. Things just don't add up and the weak climax, that is more ridicules and lame than clever or credible, also doesn't help much. The movie its story gets poorly developed, which also makes the movie lack in some good tension or mystery.Yet the movie is a fairly well known movie in its genre, which seems odd, since it's definitely no text book example of a good thriller, even though all of the formulaic ingredients are present. It probably has to do with the fact that the movie has a good and well known cast. Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan are the main leads of the movie and like always they are great together. They also used to be a real-life couple for years, till Russell Crowe broke up their marriage in 2000. However problem in the movie is that they're just an unlikely couple to team up. It just seems odd to me that a college professor would team up with one of his students, in the final hours of his life, to solve his own murder. But this is probably also the direct result of its poor story development that falls flat in the end and in which nothing quite adds up. On a positive note, Daniel Stern was good in a serious role.The movie tries to be noir, or at least an homage to film-noir, by using black & white images and certain camera-positioning (strangly only at the beginning and ending of the movie and not the movie entirely.) but also with its 'mysterious' story and characters. After all, the movie is also a remake of a real classic film-noir from 1950, by the same title. The end result however doesn't deserve to touch the genre with a 10 feet pole. It becomes nowhere close of being in the same league. This is due to the poorly developed and just weak story but also because it tries to bring in several '80's movie-making elements, which just doesn't work out. Oh and mixing film-noir style with '80's musical is always a bad idea! It should be a rule; if you pay homage to film-noir, don't ever put 'modern' music under it. Further more also the typical '80's action editing works really lame and makes the action sequences look even cheaper and clumsier than they in fact really were. Also the black & white images don't look right because they don't seem to use proper lighting for it.One of this typical thrillers that is only watchable once.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Diego Sada Jr OK, so this film may not have won any Oscars, but it is not a bad film. The original "D.O.A." is undoubtedly a better film, but that does not mean this film is bad.The film stars Dennis Quaid in one of his early roles, when he was first becoming really famous, after "The Right Stuff" made him a star, and a very lovely looking Meg Ryan, when she was still now quite famous.This is more of an "update" of the 1950 film, rather than a remake, since the setting is different and the characters too, are different. The plot is pretty much the same. A man (this time an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin) is poisoned and he has only 24 hours to find out who poisoned him and why. Meg Ryan plays a young college student who tries to help him. Jane Kaczmarek plays Quaid's estranged wife, in a low key, but intense performance; she steals every scene she is in. Daniel Stern (also in an early role, before "Home Alone" made him famous) plays Quaid's colleague. Charlotte Rampling is fine too in a supporting role.The entire cast is top notch; The film is stylish, with a quick pace that keeps you guessing until the end. I think this is a film that is certainly worth watching as a thriller, and as a modern version of a classic film.