Dark Glasses movie review & film summary (2022)

This is probably not the silliest situation that Argento (who co-wrote the script with Franco Ferrini) has ever labored with, but it surely may be the laziest. Plot components, such because the aforementioned eclipse, are launched in ways in which counsel some significance however are by no means referred to once more. The id of the killer is revealed about midway by means of, which is a couple of half-hour after even the least attentive viewers can have figured it out. And the sentimental stuff between Diana and Chin is weirder than touching and it retains the suspenseful materials off-screen for lengthy stretches of time. As for the conclusion, it is particularly weak, even by Argento’s not-exactly-strong monitor file relating to satisfying wrap-ups.

At the same time as an excuse to permit Argento to bask in his regular penchant for extremely stylized and infrequently deranged mayhem, “Darkish Glasses” comes up quick. Though a few the kills are gory sufficient, they’re staged in a way so perfunctory it boggles the thoughts that they might be from the identical man behind the gorgeously choreographed mayhem of the likes of “Suspiria” and “Opera.” (One sequence, by which a few secondary characters are launched and nearly instantly got rid of, is so awkwardly executed that any cringes that it evokes are prompted solely by the clumsy staging.) The closest factor to a genuinely perverse component within the movie is Argento’s resolution to forged daughter Asia in what proves to be the blandest and most colorless function that she has ever performed in one among his movies. As for Pastorelli, whereas some might object to the notion of a sighted actress taking part in a blind individual, I think way more will object to the truth that Diana is likely one of the least attention-grabbing heroines within the Argento canon. Pastorelli is unable to do something to assist make her into somebody price caring about, not even through the goofy scene by which she and Chin are working by means of the woods and stumble right into a nest of snakes.

As an unlimited fan of Argento, I’d love to have the ability to report that “Darkish Glasses” is a worthy entry in his filmography, even when I needed to exit on a limb to make my case. Nonetheless, there is not any department lengthy sufficient that may enable anybody to defend this explicit effort, maybe the one manner by which the phrase “effort” might be used at the side of this movie. If there is a vibrant aspect to all of this, it’s the truth that since most individuals in America might be viewing it through streaming, they’ll simply tune in for that great opening sequence after which flip it off, assured that they are not lacking the rest. 

In theaters right this moment and on Shudder on October thirteenth.