Director: Oliver Stone
Entertainment grade: D–
History grade: B
Formed in 1965 in California, rock band The Doors have sold more than 90m albums worldwide.
Childhood
The film begins with the aftermath of a road accident in the desert. Driving past in his family car, four-year-old Jim Morrison sees scores of grievously injured native Americans. The real Morrison's parents and sister disputed his memory of the incident, which is referenced in several Doors songs ("Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding… All over the highway, bleeding to death"), as exaggeration. But this movie is concerned with creating a historical picture of Jim Morrison's psyche, not necessarily with creating a historical picture of reality. Jim Morrison's psyche and reality were not closely acquainted. So the film may be on factually dubious territory here, but it is being true to its subject.
Politics
It's 1965 in Venice Beach, and Morrison is at UCLA film school. In a perfect casting decision, he is now played by Val Kilmer. Not only did Kilmer, back in 1991 when he was thin and pretty, look exactly like Jim Morrison – but he's got the swaggering, dimwitted, pretentious arrogance spot on. Morrison's film school project has him reading his own terrible poetry over footage of Nazi rallies and disembodied female legs in black stockings. This is the sort of feeble attempt to be edgy that an oafish wannabe provocateur like Morrison would surely produce. Except, er, he didn't. According to Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who was at UCLA with Morrison and who reportedly fell out with Oliver Stone during production of the movie, Morrison's student film included one German actress, but no Nazi imagery. Ah. OK. Sorry, Jim.
Dialogue
Though he may be acquitted over the Nazi stuff, Morrison is guilty of crimes against poetry. The screenplay does a marvellous job of capturing his all-too-imitable style. "Let's plan a murder, start a religion!" he bellows, leaping atop a car so as better to show everyone how profound he is. "You're all plastic soldiers in a miniature dirt war." And then: "Devouring consciousness! Digesting power! Monster of energy! It's a monster! Nothing will destroy our circle! Ride the snake! Ride the snake … to the lake!" Imagine how much acid everyone must have been doing to think any of this was good.
People
Historically, the film is right that the appeal of The Doors was less about the music than about Morrison's looks and legend. But this creates a problem for it cinematically, because there's no one to like. Morrison is shown to be a talentless, spoiled egomaniac, unable to stagger through a single scene without whisky, pills or powder. The real Doors have argued that his addictions have been camped up for the movie. Kyle MacLachlan's Agent Cooper-ish take on Ray Manzarek is vaguely appealing, but he's not given enough screentime to take over as the hero. Meanwhile, Morrison's long-suffering girlfriend Pam Courson (Meg Ryan) is such a drip that it's impossible to summon up sympathy for her. The flimsy portrayal of Courson, who died of a heroin overdose in 1974, offended the surviving Doors. Apparently, in real life, she had a personality and everything.
Crime
The film's big setpiece is a notorious gig in Miami in 1969. As in the movie, Morrison slumped onstage late and drunk, insulted his own fans at length, and then, allegedly, flashed them. The film shows Morrison sticking his own finger out of his fly to simulate exposure. "Oh shit, you can see his thing!" gasps the organiser, and the police descend. Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure. This was disputed by witnesses, including bandmate John Densmore. "I was there," Densmore said. "If Jim had revealed the golden shaft, I would have known." These people really talk like that. Morrison received a posthumous pardon in 2010 from Florida governor Charlie Crist, who evidently could think of no better use of legislative time.
Verdict
It's a bloated, pompous, unbalanced film, which looks great but has nothing going on beneath the surface. This is the biopic Jim Morrison deserved.