From Hell (2001)

Directed by Albert Hughes & Allen Hughes. Starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Robbie Coltrane, Ian Richardson, Susan Lynch, Paul Rhys, Annabelle Apsion, Samantha Spiro, Jason Flemyng, Katrin Cartlidge, Ian McNiece, Lesley Sharp, Estelle Skornik, Joanna Page. [R]

Dull, dreary variation on Jack the Ripper’s Victorian-era murder spree, with Depp playing an inspector on the case who gets clairvoyant visions in opium dreams (and that’s not even the silliest thing going on here). He comes to the aid of Graham (hysterically miscast as a supposedly bedraggled Whitechapel street prostitute) amid a series of gruesome murders while uncovering a bizarre conspiracy involving shadowy, privileged circles of power—anything else the filmmakers wanted to nick from Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow? Depp seems listless enough for the audience to assume he was ingesting real opium while performing, and his sentimental romance with Graham is all the more creaky and unconvincing surrounded by the grim, Gothic trappings. Said scenery and atmosphere are among the film’s few virtues, though the directors can’t even get that quite right, as their showy, stylized touches don’t embellish mood so much as befuddle motivation. Hardly a thrill in sight, all the way to the anti-climactic, unsatisfying conclusion; call it a penny dreadful lacking the lurid entertainment value. Based on a graphic novel of the same name.

33/100