I was very disappointed by "New Rose Hotel" - how can something featuring Christopher Walken and Willen Defoe be this bad? - but I should have seen it coming, given the nature of the source material.

William Gibson is a great writer who I hardly ever read anymore. He's incredibly inventive and is a master at fabricating convincing, compelling future societies...but his world-view and opinion of human nature is just too glum and depressing. And, unfortunately for a film adaptation, Gibson dialog that sounds convincing and right in the context of the printed page often rattles in the ear like a tin washer when declaimed by a human actor. Simiarly, 90% of the plot development in Gibson's fiction is mysterious, ambiguous, muffled, and cryptic - much like a John LeCarre "Smiley" Cold War novel, there is so much dealing, double dealing, betrayal and backstabbing going on behind the scenes, much of which the reader is not privy too, that it required intense concentration on every aspect of the plot to keep from being completely buffaloed by the events.

On top of this, this is a science fiction story that requires a convincing visual setting to pull the viewer in, the way Gibson's telling details and rolling "techno-speak" pull his readers in. "New Rose Hotel" didn't seem to have much of a budget, so it had to skimp on the settings and the props and just concentrate on the characters and the plot.

All these issues can make for very problematic material for a cinematic adaptation, and alas, the director and screenwriter don't come close to solving those problems. They seemed to have opted for mood and character study over plot momentum and story arc, and as a result, we spend vast amounts of movie time watching Defoe sit glumly in a tiny hotel "capsule", brooding over his mistakes while the movies interrupts with recaps and flashbacks of various scenes of people sitting around drinking and talking at each other. As much as I like Defoe and Walken, even they can't carry this for entire film. The overall impression I get is of a movie just sits around and mopes whenever it isn't being cryptic and dull.

Much has been made of the supposed "hotness" of actress Asia Argento, but since this is a movie where sex is just another tool for corporate espionage, the screenplay itself seems to strip her character of any real humanity, and she comes across as a simple "hooker Barbie" character. That may actually be a tribute to deliberate efforts of both Argento and the director, but it doesn't make for on screen erotic charge. I will say that I've seen her in other roles, and I have to admit she can be a tasty dish. But not so much here.

I liked the original story - it's pure Gibson through and though - but this version of it just doesn't work unless you're an obsessive fan of moody lighting and muffled, expressionistic nihilism. It's too well made to give less than a 5, but that score is a grudging concession to how hard the actors and the cinematographer worked to pull off impossibly stilted and scrambled material.

With a solid plot basis (William Gibson short story), two excellent actors (Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe) and an interesting director (Abel Ferrara) this movie could have well turned out to be a real hidden gem. Dario Argento's daughter posing as the female lead doesn't have any other qualification for her role than an Italian accent and a nice body -- no screen presence, no femme fatale charisma, no "edge" -- and the budget has obviously been someone's lunch money for a week, but those things alone would not have done too much damage. However, there are some bigger issues with this film.

In the beginning of the movie there's way too much singing in the bars, and it's all bad. I've been to karaoke bars where the performers have been significantly more talented. All of them. No kidding. And near the end the movie falls apart, mainly thanks to way too many flashbacks -- they are not of just one or two key scenes, but of umpteen, in a peculiar "here's the movie again in case you missed it" fashion. They are annoying as such, and as a result you probably lose your focus and, consequently, your grasp of the plot. What you end up having instead of a real movie is a 90 minutes long artsy collection of insubstantial sleazy moving pictures with nudity.

In short, the first half of the movie does not get your hopes up too high, yet the latter half is disappointing. Kind of an achievement, I suppose. For better or worse, Walken's cool charisma and Argento's numerous nude scenes may still keep you awake through the whole thing. 4/10

I think this movie got a bum rap. I actually enjoyed it much more than that travesty Johnny Mnemonic (my apologies to Gibson, I know he liked it). Note to Hollywood, Ice-T does not go good with everything, and the deranged preacher bit has been overdone. But here I think Abel Ferrara really made a world in line with what I envisioned when reading the short story, any of Gibson's short stories. It's not a future where everything is blinking lights and super speed CGI, it's a future where most people live in the slums, and the rest have a clean, aerodynamic, one-button-for-everything lifestyle.

The premise, a couple of corporate "headhunters" trying to seduce a brilliant researcher away from a billion dollar multinational with a geisha type mole, is the kind of premise that Gibson is famous for. It's a single incident revolving around human emotions but having worldwide implications because the man is so brilliant he could change the course of science.

The acting is great of course: Willem Dafoe, Christopher Walken, and an early glimpse of Asia Argento. The story doesn't hit you over the head explaining events like most films, but Ferrara never does, and half the fun is suddenly realizing what's happened, the check mate, on your own.

If you want action, go see Johnny Mnemonic, if you want deep, see this film.