Brendon Jones
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
wildblueyonder
Hey look, if slow-mo machine gun fire an unexplained random "supernatural stuff" is yer thing... then go for it.I got sucked in by the cast - but O'Toole is laughable and Affleck shows why he has is a success - good looks and good one liners - otherwise no talent.Shreiber is great, but after that this is a total big hollywood bit of nonsense. If you don't need a real plot and like 'explosions and stuff'.. its fer you.
adonis98-743-186503
150 dead and 350 missing in the tiny mountain town of Snowfield, Colorado. And that's only the beginning. Phantoms blew my mind it was super exciting and action packed it was something nice for a while and i don't get the huge hate for this film or even people with that joke about Affleck which it was funny and still is i can't lie. Joanna Going and Ben Affleck i thing did a pretty good job especially Ben really nailed he was pretty serious and he didn't go with stupid one liners or humor and i liked that for once now Rose McGowan i think they should easily recast her at one point she wasn't awful but i would have liked a better actress to play her role cause i still can't get out of my head that horrible Conan remake and Planet Terror and i think Peter O'Toole was good as well at least they used him this time in doing something unlike the 1984 Supergirl. Now the problems with the movie was for me Liev Schreiber i didn't buy his performance and he was extremely annoying from start to finish during this whole movie and that scene when they started shooting all together what was the point to waste ammo like that? i mean common Predator do it but that's an 80's classic. The cgi and effects were also pretty nice in the end Phantoms was a pretty cool film i give it a 9.5 out of 10 and an A.
Christopher Smith
Phantoms is probably better known for being a great punchline in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back ("Affleck, you the bomb in Phantoms yo!") than it is as an actual movie. One of the many late 90s horror offering from Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Dimension Films, it was a box office flop when it hit theaters, and unlike several other Dimension releases from the same era, it hasn't become much of a cult favorite. Adapted by Dean Koontz from his novel of the same, Phantoms is Koontz's only screen writing credit. Reportedly, Koontz wasn't crazy about the final cut, blaming the editing in the postproduction process. While Koontz maybe right about the film's editing being messy, and while Phantoms is far from a great movie, I still kind of like it.Like most Dimension horror flicks, Phantoms has an amazing cast. Ben Affleck, Rose McGowan, and Liev Schreiber were regularly cast in Dimension Films, and it's not hard to see why. Their performances don't necessarily elevate the material, but they are a lot of fun to watch on screen, especially Affleck in a role he was especially too young for at the time of filming. Peter O'Toole is one of the most legendary actors who ever lived, and his presence definitely makes Phantoms seem classier than it would have been otherwise, although O'Toole plays his role straighter than I would have liked. Overall, the whole tone is a bit too serious considering how silly everything about the story is, but when Phantoms does show a sense of humor about its ridiculousness, the movie is at its best.Phantoms didn't have a huge budget, though visually it holds up better than a lot of the bigger budget offerings of the era. There seems to be very little CGI, and a lot of cool-looking practical special effects. Whether one likes or hates Phantoms, it's clear that there was hard work put into making the film look slick in a way very few horror flicks actually do. The cinematography looks great, the sets provide the film with the isolated atmosphere the story requires, and the directing is legitimately suspenseful in places. Phantoms is the type of film that almost never gets made anymore: an interesting R-rated horror flick not reliant on computers to make stuff look scary, and not reliant on twist ending after twist ending just for the sake of it. If made today, a movie like Phantoms would be either a limp PG-13 offering, or a much lower-budget, possibly found-footage VOD premiere not worthy of anyone's time.Unlike most horror movies made in the late 1990s and today, Phantoms wasn't made to launch a franchise. It was made to provide audiences with a 90 minutes' worth of scares and adrenaline, and more often than not, it succeeds at doing so. Phantoms may not even be close to the best the late 90s had to offer. With one more try to smooth things out in the editing room and a slightly firmer grasp on tone, Phantoms could have been a better movie, one that wouldn't be remembered just for being a joke (albeit an absolutely hilarious one) in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. As it is, the film is still fairly entertaining and worth checking out for genre fans. 6/10
TFSpectre
Sadly the basis of the book was not translated very well to the big screen, now that special effects are much improved, it may be time to rekindle the dying embers of what should have been a great film.The taunting of the people in Snowfield, the arrival and setup of a cordon, the reason why Santa Mira police were there in the first place were all dismissed. Sadly in many ways, the whole point of the movie wasn't really realised because they were so focused on getting to the end that they seem to have entirely forgotten about the story, no suspense moments whatsoever, no what's gonna happen next..It was a major disappointment sadly because it didn't get the treatment it deserved; it should have been so much better, one can only hope that the script is redone; with a better understanding of the book and the nature of the story.
