Not that Val Kilmer did a bad job, but I think Daniel Day Lewis would have done better. For one, he looks quite a bit like Morrison and, for another, he has proved he can do the eccentric bit through 'In The Name of the Father'.
shareno. DDL is a great actor and would never be in such a bad movie. VK is a b-list actor at best and belonged in it.
shareHmm. But I still think DDL could have lifted the movie if he was in it. In fact, I think a better Morrison would have done wonders to it!
shareI don't think so. The Doors was pretty bad, Oliver Stone isn't very talented. I would have felt bad if DDL was in it, given his talents.
shareYeah, a b-list actor who's better than most a-list actors...
shareI'm sorry but even though the film isn't the best, its like many Stone films in which the lead is superb. Kilmer embodied Morrison, sounded exactly like him, and looked like him as well. DDL can't sing that well and while he's a great actor, Kilmer was much better suited for this role.
shareI agree that Val did a great job. When I first heard about the film (yeah..I am that old), I thought that Jason Patric would be great. When I actually saw the film, I forgot that it was Val Kilmer I was watching.
"It came with the frame"
I also remember hearing that Val Kilmer had been cast and fellow Doors fans and myself all groaned and thought they had already ruined a promising movie by hiring him. But Kilmer as awesome, it's hard to imagine anyone doing much better. The other band members were pretty bad tho.
share*beep* Oliver Stone isn't talented. You sir, are retarded.
"Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding."
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it doesn't mean you have talent or skill if you win lots of Academy Awards.
look at some of the best directors of all time who have only won one oscar.
Scorsese, Kubrick, Polanski, Orson Welles
and look and all the extremely talented directors who never won oscars
Francois Truffaut, Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock.
Oliver Stone compared to these guys ....
chalk and cheese
If I "pooped" on someone's thought that Jeremy Sisto would have made an excellent "Jim Morrison" in Stone's horrifying portrayal of The Doors, I'm totally sorry!
I just saw the show, Six Feet Under, for the first time and Sisto, with the longer hair, looks very much like Jim Morrison. Since Sisto can play those off-beat characters so well, he would have been the PERFECT star for that movie. Stone made a mistake choosing Kilmer....sorry, I just don't think he looked much like Morrison and he tried too hard. Sisto would have been remarkable.
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Death makes angels of us all & gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws - Jim Morrison
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I agree. I think for the most part the Oscars are political award not who or what is actually the best. As for Stone be a crappy director as you state, I do not think he is crappy I think he falls in the same category as Tim Burton. He can make a good film but a lot of his films feel the same with no difference between except the title name.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2604794/
Oliver Stone isn't very talented? I can't believe people who think that because they don't like somebody then somebody must not be talented. You wrote this five years ago and maybe you're more objective now, so I feel silly replying to a cold thread but... wow. Would love to hear you explain how he won Best Picture for Platoon without being talented. Add to that the fact Kilmer was one of the most talented actors of his time, at that time the youngest ever to be accepted into Julliard's drama program. I'm guilty of talking silly on imdb too, so I'm no angel but I just HAD to respond to this drivel.
shareno. DDL is a great actor and would never be in such a bad movie. VK is a b-list actor at best and belonged in it.
Daniel Day Lewis has been in such crap movies as Crucible and nine and he sucked in them both.
shareKilmer was a no-brainer for the Jim Morrison role and no one at the time could have done it better. Please note I did not say that Kilmer is a great actor.
However, Kilmer was reasonably good in "felon". Still, something was missing.
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<< VK is a b-list actor at best and belonged in it. >>
I guess you've never seen Tombstone. Or Thunderheart. See both. You'll never regret it.
Val Kilmer a "b-list" actor?! Look, I won't argue that he's gone off track the last 10 or 15 years. But in his prime, Kilmer was one of the biggest actors around when he played Jim Morrison in "The Doors." And most people agree that his performance is the best thing about the movie. Even the real band has said that it was eerie watching Kilmer portray Morrison so convincingly. Also, Kilmer does all of the live singing in the movie himself, no small feat. Kilmer simply owned it.
shareI think this crappy movie would deserve a "remake", a better one, cause this one is the *kitschiest* *beep* movie i've ever seen...Looks so late 80's-early 90's (obviously), everything sounds so bad; anyways...The "fans" dancing to "The End" but ovisouly so not into it is one of the worst parts...Argh...
So i think it could have been a very good movie if there had been a better actor, like DDL, but shot today, you know, in a more..visually bearable manner...
And heck yes, DDL would have made a greatt Jim.
But oh well, i still prefer watching "When You're Strange" 10 times than "The Doors" once...I mean there can never be another Jim Morrison...And it's crappy to see an impression of him, kinda whoever the actor is...
If Val Kilmer is a "B list" actor, then so is Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino because they starred with him in the film "Heat"
shareThis is a trick question because Daniel Day-Lewis can outact just about anyone so no matter what role you're talking about, he probably couldn't have done it better.
shareThis was Kilmer's best role. And, having been a Doors fan since birth and having read all the biographies, I am extremely impressed with him in this role. He nailed it. Noone could have done it better. The movie was great. The introduction of Warhol was a bonus. McFly was such a great Warhol. This is one of my favorites of all time.
shareUmm... Not really. Actually I think Val Kilmer did a good job considering what he had to work with.
shareI am perplexed. What the hell is the point of saying one actor would have been better than another? Kilmer did the film and was good. End of story. Why speculate? You can't change the fact of who was cast in the film and speculating and saying "Ooh, Daniel Day Lewis would have been better.", is pointless and bordering on idiocy. Once a film has been made, that's it! It's over and can't be changed and the actors who play parts in it are there forever. Sure, in a play it might be interesting to speculate on who could do a better job, but not in film. Sheesh!
Cheers,
Carcuss.
2,4,6,8,10,12,14....Eat your heart out Ann Miller!
I don't understand why everyone wants to kick around the idea that someone would be better than Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison. No one else was cast as Morrison, so no one else played Morrison. It's impossible to say that someone else would make a better Jim than Kilmer did unless the exact same movie was completely duplicated with Daniel Day Lewis as the role of Morrison. With that aside. Crispin Glover made a superb Andy Warhol. Glover is the great kind of dynamic actor who can play a very passivist creep, while being so interesting that i could take LSD and listen to him talk for a month
shareAt last someone is talking sense. I will never understand why people try to rewrite history by saying so and so would have been better in the role. It's just plain dumb. Val was great as Morrison. End of story. Cheers to you s_hemann.
Carcuss.
2,4,6,8,10,12,14....Eat your heart out Ann Miller!
Asking such a question "Why people speculate about the past", is a bold move. You yourself are speculating about the past by asking this question. They've already speculated so why are you asking? If you can answer this, you will have answered your own question.
shareKlimer was fantasic, as someone said, you forgot it was Val Kilmer and started thinking of him as Jim Morrison while watching the movie. And dont forget he sang all the live parts live for the movie. As a Doors fan I enjoyed the movie very much. Was disappointed with the ending, why they kill him off, i wanted a sequal -)
PS I think Daniel Day Lewis is an over-actor, he over acts everything he is in (Gangs of New York been a good example)
Hmm. You could be right, but I didn't like him much in this. In fact, the only Val Kilmer movie I have liked is 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and that too because of Robert Downey Jr.
shareFirst of all, to anyone who has thus far commented on this thread, you obviously place enough stake on past theatrical performances or else you would never have replied here. I personally believe Kilmer was very well suited to the role. Kilmer looks enough like Morrison, and he also used to sing Doors songs in a garage band. He actually sang in the movie during the close stage shots. One other thing to note was that Val's voice was so close to Morrison's that he fooled Oliver Stone on a cassette he had mixed with songs he sang and those that Jim sang. Robby Krieger even noted during production of the movie that Kilmer sounded almost the same.
shareAbsolutely NOT!
Daniel Day-Lewis is a wonderful actor but he never could match Val's performance as Jimbo Morrison.
Val WAS Jim while shooting the movie.
The film is/was an overproduced, megalomaniacally directed mess. It has little to do with what really happened within the band or what their peformances were actually like. Val Kilmer was a mistake as a lead, and Day-Lewis would have been even worse. Day-Lewis' grandstanding, overwrought roles are embarrassing and annoying to watch, and Kilmer is all ego and little talent.
A good (never mind "great") Doors movie wouldnt have even needed the type of "impersonation" performances that audiences SEEM to require.
It just needed to be faithful to the dark nature of the music, Jim Morrison's genial nature, and what their live performances were actually like (if you don't know what I'm on about, you're not really a fan).
One day, maybe?
^ no.
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val was a great jim! and i cant get over folkes giving his acting a slaging he my have an oversized ego but the boy can act, very versatile from top secret to the doors! not some actors who've gotten away with playing the same role all there career! mr nicolson????????
I think Kilmer was absolutely perfect for this film. I had trouble telling whether Jim Morrison or Val Kilmer was singing in some songs. Kilmer even had the original members of The Doors fooled on a tape he made of him performing 3 of their songs. I think he had Morrison's persona down almost perfectly and that Kilmer's performance was overshadowed by the mediocrity of the film.
mmm, I disagree. I'm usually not a Val Kilmer fan, but I thought he really rose to the occasion on this one. If there were ever a biographical movie made for someone other than the original subject (jim Morrison) than it was Val. And I don't really see any resemblence in daniel to jim.
shareAs others pointed out a young Jason Patrick may have looked better as the part far more than Lewis and Kilmer, but it would be hard to duplicate Kilmer performance as Jim. Still would have liked to see Patrick try though.
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