I saw this film in the theaters and found it good but not great. I have returned to it a few times over the years and recently purchased it. Now I feel it is a great film. Critics and audiences were unkind but I feel time has been kind to it. It is Cage at his wild man best(in a good way) and the suspense set pieces are DePalma at his best as well.
I urge everyone to revisit this great thriller.
It has stuck in my mind too. Only seen it once, about 10 years ago.
shareMost definitely. The visual aspect of the movie alone warrants at least a decent reputation -- the inventiveness, the sheer beauty and complexity of some of the shots is just dazzling. Like the opening nine minute single take, the POV, the overhead shots... I just don't see how anyone who really loves cinema can stay unmoved during those moments.
sharealot of depalmas movies are massively underrated.....sure theres a few flops but snake eyes is in no way a bad movie. the opening shot is crazy. movies like snake eyes blow out body double etc. are all great movies
shareJep. De Palma's movies are mostly good. This is his last good one.
shareLike a few of his movies, they take time to mature.
This is one of them, it's totally driven by Nicholas Cages' character.
Hey, go easy.. I do actually suffer with Dyslexia.
Yes it is definetely underrated, same as the assembly cut for Alien 3 and many other films during the 90s. Shame.
"I am the ultimate badass, you do not wanna `*beep*` wit' me!" Hudson in Aliens.
Agree, saw this film again this year and it's excellent, couldn't believe the 5.9 rating here, what's bad about it exactly? Great acting throughout and story. Cage's role is similar to and as good as his Cop one in Bad Lieutenant. I think this is actually his best performance.
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I don't understand the hatred either, but let's not oversell it. It's not exactly 'great' by any standard, though I certainly enjoyed it quite a bit. That opening steady cam sequence was magnificent, as were several other visual flourishes. The story is incredibly silly, but relatively fun and consistently suspensful, and Cage hams it up to good effect.
7/10, and every bit the equal of Femme Fatale. Entertaining, beautifully shot, charmingly trashy.
I liked this movie when it came out. I was a projectionist in a movie theater at the time. I've owned it on DVD for years and watch it several times a year. Every time I wonder why it wasn't thought of more highly. I can't really find any big problems with it. It's definitely way better than most movies that have come out since in the suspense genre.
I remember some bad reviews when this came out, but I saw it anyway. My friend and I agreed it was actually pretty good and well worth seeing. Great visuals, suspense and music score
the first quarter was very well made then fall to hell, i couldn't stand watching the crappy last quarter but i made it, i don't want to see this piece of crap ever again in my life, the great first quarter doesn't worth it.
shareDefinitely underrated, but I can understand why the vitriol for it. You have to admit, the last 20-30 minutes (at least) are nowhere near as inspired as the first hour, it's not unwatchable but it just turns into a very formulaic movie at that point. And suddenly very badly paced -- full of characters threatening each other, managing to get away, threatening again, somehow not shooting them, etc. It's very weak.
But the first hour is possibly De Palma's most visually sophisticated work -- and not just for the famous opening shot. If the whole film lived up to the first hour, it'd be a total masterpiece.
Agreed; it starts off great and goes along well for a while, but by the end it's somehow used up all of its clever tricks. I was hoping for Cage to save the girl by being smart and outwitting Sinise, or even by just doing something brave, but instead it's just a random stroke of good luck that saves the day. I thought it might turn out that he knew he was being trailed and actually led the bad guy to an ambush he'd arranged, which we'd see in another of those "alternate angle" flashbacks or some such thing, and then, no. No more magic tricks up the film's sleeve, just a fizzle of an end. Right up till then I was sitting there wondering why the film had such a poor reputation.
-There is no such word as "alot."
Totally agree with you, OP. I wonder how many critics and filmgoers who have slagged this film over the years did so because everyone else was doing so instead of because they actually watched the film intently and honestly disliked it, because what I see when I watch Snake Eyes is an extremely well made, intelligent examination of a very flawed protagonist's quest for redemption dressed up as a conspiracy thriller. Of course, it can also be enjoyed thoroughly as a thriller as well.
Too many people have gotten hung up on the "the bad guy is revealed too early" angle, as if the mystery of the bad guy is the central point of the film, which it isn't. Quite clearly the journey of the Nicolas Cage character, Rick Santoro, from corrupt cop to corrupt cop hero is what De Palma is most interested in.
As with almost all of De Palma's work there are a number of great scenes and set pieces here, the best of which is the opening "shot" (actually a few different long takes cleverly spliced together, but still an absolutely incredible bit of technical wizardry), but the crane shot later in the film that passes over several rooms before getting to the bathroom where Julia is scrubbing blood from her clothes is also wonderful.
I'd also like to single out the performances of Nicolas Cage and Gary Sinise for praise. Cage takes a lot of flak for his bizarre performances and even though I mostly enjoy his work he does admittedly go overboard sometimes, but here he's clearly having a blast playing a guy who himself is thrilled with his absurd life... right up until he makes a revelation regarding the conspiracy central to the film, at which point it's like all the air has been knocked out of him. Sinise is very good in a far less flashy role, about which I won't say too much unless someone reading this hasn't seen the movie.
Just another in a long list of examples of critics getting it wrong, not uncommon over the course of De Palma's career.
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I certainly agree. Just saw it for the first time myself and it's 8/10 for me. He kind of has trouble deciding how exactly to finish it, but that's a minor quibble.
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