Laplace's Witch

I am a huge Takishi Miike fan and thus it pains me to write this review. This movie concerns a scientific mystery which ensues after a criminal investigation is started. The music is atmospheric and the filming is frankly top notch. However, the story unfolds slowly and deliberately. While the slow pace of the story is meant to emphasize the dramatic effect, the end result is the exact opposite. Add all these factors together and the result is that this movie is a sure cure for insomnia. Miike is one of the most inventive directors today, and his career is checkered matter with hits and misses. He has had more hits, but this movie is a definite miss.

Two interesting hours, an excellent idea, as for the other viewers, there are tones of american movies, with a lot of car-chasing, shooting and other similar ''woo'' things. Why bothering with this kind of movies?

This film inherits the old mistakes of Japanese movies: it is flat and straightforward, and there is no rhythm at all. There are only a few gimmicks. In the long and dull film, there is no continuous excitement, so that the audience only wants to sleep.

This oddly titled murder mystery is about a detective who calls upon the services of a scientist to solve a murder. Eventually it is solved using the theories of French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace hence the title.

I thought the film required too much attention to be engaging. There is far too much science fiction pretending to be realism in the film. Realism is police work, profiling and forensics not bizarre future predictions and science hypothesizes that would not spend a second in a courtroom.

Takashi Miike is one of my favourite film makers but this seemed to be trying to be a Hitchcock style of film and, it fails. It does so because, like many before Takashi, the only person capable of doing Hitchcock tension films was Alfred (Hitchcock) himself!

The film wasn't rubbish but the story plot was too far fetched (which is saying something considering you can do just about anything in a film) and, even though it was perfectly understandable it was too ridiculous. There were many boring pieces and there were some nicely acted scenes but no gripping tension whatsoever; something you would expect with what was a murder thriller who done it story.

I liked it but not a heck of a lot because it was dragged out, which made it lackluster when you had no gripping tension to rivet you to the tale. All the things such as lighting, scene shoots/shots and camera work were good and the actors did their jobs well; albeit they did not have a very dramatic script to follow.

I wouldn't watch this film again but I still look forward to his next film release, which I am certain will be a complete opposite of this!