Jinn

This potentially intriguing movie ruined my whole day for a vast number of reasons. I had come across the trailer for this, and being a fan of atmospheric supernatural thrillers, it looked appealing. Thus, I planned a whole day around going out to see this film theatrically in its limited release. Sadly, it failed on so many levels that I literally stopped caring about it halfway through, which made for a horrendously difficult sit for the next 50 minutes.

"Jinn" apparently has its mythology based on Middle Eastern folklore, but provides the most bare minimum exposition to get any of its ideas across. Thus, concepts and characters are poorly defined. It has concepts that are mentioned in relation to man, jinn, and angels - yet introduces nothing regarding angels anywhere in its narrative. As it goes along, you get the idea that Ray Park's character could potentially be an angel from the abilities he demonstrates, but nope, that potentially interesting idea never comes to be. The Jinn themselves are not well explained in the supposed mythology this film is attempting to setup and utilize. This film ultimately fails to flesh out or develop anything on a compelling level. The characters are not explored, leaving them as very two dimensional people despite having some potentially good quality talents here like William Atherton. It was at the point, nestled in the second act, where characters typically are fleshed out and given more depth and focus that I realized this film had no intention of caring at all about its characters. Everyone is given a shallow setup with no further development beyond that, and instead, the film throws a lot of flashy imagery and effects to use its sleek appearance mask its shortcomings.

"Jinn" also heavily lacks in excitement until well passed the point where I stopped giving a damn about it. The talents of Ray Park are grossly wasted here with a very tame and very brief martial arts showing, and a super slow motion fight scene that amounts to one of the most boring sequences of the film. The filmmakers also surely had no intention of building up legitimate scares or suspense. Jump scares are all it has to offer in that regard, and as I said, the action fails to excite at all. It also features some suped up concept car that the director clearly put far more effort and energy into integrating into this film than he did anything else.

I honestly stopped giving a damn about halfway through the film because the makers of this film never bothered to give me anything worth giving a damn about. You have to establish, develop, and build up your characters primarily, and that's exactly what this film never takes the time to do. Thus, it's exactly why I lost all interest in this, and felt embarrassed walking out of the theatre at the end of it. Also, despite the Jinn being a threat to the entire whole of humanity, the scope of this film is extremely narrow, and feels a lot like a forgettable late 1990's direct-to-video movie. It just lacks ambition, originality, intelligence, and scope to make it succeed on any creative level at all.

"Jinn" does have a very moody look to it with good quality cinematography, and the CGI effects work is quite high grade. However, good visuals and some nice effects cannot make-up for a lackluster script and lazy storytelling. The acting isn't poor, but it fails to compel an audience's interest. Do not bother paying to see this movie. There is a vast catalog of far superior works in this genre to watch and enjoy thoroughly than this such as The Prophecy, Constantine, Solomon Kane, or any episode of Supernatural. Don't waste your time, and don't encourage a sequel to a well below average movie like this because its end credits literally are asking you to do so.

Interesting thing about Jinn, it feels like a low-key Fantasy film, like The Lord of the Rings with out money. Low-Key Sci-fi films are more common, such as recently released Under the Skin or last years' Her, but I can't recall a low key Fantasy film, in which The Fantasy elements are not so played up visually, but are integrated mostly in the story content.

The movie takes place in modern times like The Percy Jackson series, but unlike Percy Jackson, I don't think the film had any money for anything too flamboyant, but I will say that the visual effects they did have were done well.

The visual effects made for a very dark and eerie villain with the Jinn, a group of Sentiment beings briefly mention in the bible as creatures God made in the same essence as The Angels and Man, and now wish to take back the world they walked on first, due to their jealousy of man

Although the protagonist of the movie had the looks but seemed a little stiff, possibly not use to being the center of a movie, I'm glad they did not use a typically white actor as the dashing hero.

I went to go see this movie because I saw Ray Park had a role in it. We all remember Ray Park from his breakthrough role as Darth Maul in episode one. During his 15 minutes they mention he was a skilled marshal artist. Unless I'm missing a movie or two, I never really seen him do a Marshal arts film, and with Jinn, I still haven't. The movie lacks the adventure I was expecting from it.

The story itself was good but I feel it was not laid out well enough or maybe fantasy is not met to be done low-key. At the end of the movie they say their is more to come, but I don't think this movie is good enough to get a better sequel funded.

Having read a lot about the topic of Jinns, I was not completely disappointed by the movie although it could have been made even better.

Story took of well and was entertaining and subject was well researched. Good job showing the 'chillah'. Have read about it in my curious readings so could make a connection.

Not many could show this perspective of Jinns in mainstream cinema. It may be a new thing for all to understand the significance of the Holy Zamzam water or of the incantations.

The camera work and direction was flawless. Although at times the background score was a bit misplaced. Acting was passable too. Hopefully when the Jinn returns with a sequel (if any) it may improve to get a better viewership.

Good try on this movie.

The Jinn concept is a little misconstrued in this movie, leaving the Muslim audience a little confused about what we know about their exhistance. The film does offer good, wholesome entertainment, without having to use profanity, nudity , and the selling of sex. After watching the premiere on Youtube, I have had a change of heart as to my original feelings about this movie. I really liked what the director had to say about the making of this film. It seems he worked really hard and deserves a lot of credit. Muslims should support the work of other Muslims and we should encourage our children to be more creative and do what it is they love to do.

This movie proves that poor old Ray Parks should stick to Darth Maul and give up acting as well as the main actor Dominic Rains and his equally poor acting wife in this they have absolutely no persona or acting talent; a bit like cardboard cutouts really, virtually the whole cast were pretty dreadful but contrary to other reviewers I thought the car design was downright devilish and fitted in quite well but it did come across as a bit of a vanity project.

Having said that the Djinn effects were not bad for a tv style movie and reminded me a bit of Frank in Hellraiser so not bad and there were a couple of good jump scares but alas that does not a movie make unfortunately. This is one of those movies you watch on a wet Sunday afternoon when there is not much else on and you are stuck in the house.

PS. I always thought it was Djinn and not Jinn or perhaps it is Gin! You will certainly need a bottle to get through the fight scenes - why oh why did they have to have Ray doing his Darth Maul dancing routine made me laugh so hard I crapped myself!