Just perfect...

Excellent but underrated film

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This also known as shaft 2001 this is a remake of the the de lift movieFor this movie to half's, I liked the fact did lost stuff very different then the original And I liked how they kept some of original scenesI liked the first half of the movie was really fun to watch, I liked opening scenes a lot better then de lift from 1983 And really when the lift kill people, I thought that scenes were lift floor open and people fall,I thought that was great scenes But they had to go ruin it by the whole terrorist thing, I think That was really bad idea to add that into this story But I did enjoy the scenes, m when the lift came to endI think this movie was a bit more fun so I going to give it 6 out 10

This gets 2 stars instead of 1 because the production values were surprisingly good for such an otherwise poorly made movie. Terrible dialogue and plotting, and a story that...well, you just wonder why anyone put the amount of money into this movie it obviously took to produce it.Several named actors (Dan Hedeya, Ron Pearlman, Edward Herman) try manfully in their scenes to make the wordy dialogue work, as does a then little known Naomi Watts. I'd say I feel sorry for Ms. Watts, having to take roles like this while her best friend (Nicole Kidman) is doing Moulin Rouge! and other top films, but fortunately Naomi more than landed on her feet a year later with Mulholland Dr., which made her a star. We all have to pay our dues, I guess - this was part of Watts', and even Kidman had BMX Bandits in her past...

The idea that a landmark building in NYC is having elevator problems of the most monumental sort is good for starters. But when it comes to the reason behind the elevator murders and mishaps, the writers had to be out to lunch.Some of the horrific happenings are well staged for maximum horror effect, but the characters are strictly one dimensional figures like puppets on a string. JAMES MARSHALL at least tries to give some depth to his leading role as an elevator technician who, midway through the story, accepts the help of an inquisitive newspaper reporter, NAOMI WATTS, to get to the bottom of the mysterious deaths on uncontrollable elevators.NAOMI WATTS must have been waiting for good roles to come along, but this was not one of them and she gives it no real conviction at all. The film was released shortly before the terrorist attacks on 9/11, lucky for the producers. After the attack, it's not likely a film of this sort would have been allowed to rattle the nerves of the already nervous New York City dwellers who witnessed an attack on their landmark buildings.RON PERLMAN, EDWARD HERRMANN and MICHAEL IRONSIDE are unable to give much gravitas to the absurd story, but there are several chilling scenes involving the elevator shaft that makes the whole thing at least worth a watch and some gruesome deaths by elevator.Strictly a below average horror film, enlivened by some good staging of key scenes but crying out for better plotting and dialog. The Ingmar Bergman joke between two of the elevator workers is an insult to any movie buff. At least Naomi Watts had KING KONG in her future.

For the most part Dick Maas's "Down" (alternately called "The Shaft") is your typical horror movie, with some people trying to stop a supremely evil force. But several aspects made this unlike any horror flick that I've ever seen.For starters, the building has that cool art deco look from the '30s. In fact, it looks very much like the edifice in "Ghost Busters" (especially that scene of the statue on the roof). But the truly eye-opening facet is two of the songs that get used in the movie. Not only do we hear "She's Not There" by The Zombies, but there's also the original version of "Come On", of which a later version was the VERY FIRST SONG released by The Rolling Stones! Oh, and later, we hear that someone blew his mind out in a car, just as The Beatles sang in "A Day in the Life".OK, so none of that really relates to the haunted elevator. But I found all that to be the neatest part of the movie. Otherwise it's a regular horror flick. We can forgive Naomi Watts for this one, as this was before she got really famous. In fact, just a few months before "Mulholland Drive". Also starring James Marshall, Michael Ironside, Edward Herrmann and Ron Perlman.PS: I notice that this got released in the Netherlands on September 6, 2001. Had they waited five days, a movie about unpleasant occurrences in a New York skyscraper would have no longer been acceptable.