Purely Joyful Movie!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A Disappointing Continuation

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Eyes of Laura Mars is a mystery thriller, that I found rather predictable and unthrilling.While Laura was a fairly strong lead character, the others were quite unlikable. The whole idea of being able to see through the killer's eyes, while not explained at all in the film, is merely to set up the moment where she sees herself through the killer's eyes when she is with the one she loves. I already figured that was going to be the case, so when Tommy L Jones's character became close with her it was obvious he would be the killer, thus lacking any thrills. Though he did turn out to have multiple personalities, making it more reasonable. Outside of the main plot, there is nothing of any value and some of it a bit annoying.

Faye Dunaway played Laura Mars, a successful, controversial New York City art photographer, with a psychic vision. Tommy Lee Jones played John Neville, a New York City cop who takes an interest in her work and her. Rene Auberjonois played a supportive colleague. Dunaway's performance is believable enough. The film was shot on location in New York City in the late seventies. The cast was first rate and the film is quite rattling. Dunaway did a terrific job in playing Laura Mars and the film is quite entertaining and thrilling to the suspenseful end. The film has a mystery feel and keeps you guessing to the end of the film. I won't spoil the ending.

Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) is a celebrated fashion photographer. She is haunted by visions from a killer's eyesight. At her gala, she encounters police detective John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) who hates the photos of violence against semi-nude women without knowing it's her. Those around her are killed and Neville investigates. Her pictures seem to mimic real crime scenes. Tommy Ludlow (Brad Dourif) is her driver. Donald Phelps (René Auberjonois) is her manager. Michael Reisler (Raul Julia) is her possessive ex-husband.The killer's vision needs better consistency. It's mostly first person POV except sometimes it goes up to the murder weapon. It becomes more traditional but it needs to stay with the first person POV. Otherwise, it's a nice premise and the visual mostly works. It has blood and gore but like the photos, they are too stagey. The first thing that caught my eye is the writing credit for John Carpenter. This is pre-Halloween by a couple of months. If it somehow got released after Halloween, I'm sure they would have promoted Carpenter's script to death and it would be an even bigger hit. The great cast is doing good work. There is a twist that seems more for twist's sake. This is a nice middling mystery thriller although the pacing is not always that thrilling.

This movie was made in the late 1970's and still is good. It also captures a type of celebrity that today's celebrities don't have. It was when photography was real and no photo-shop around, yeah there were airbrushes, but talent and marketing made a celebrity, not just marketing. It is one of Tommy Lee Jones' first major roles and he was great. It was one of Faye Dunaway's last great roles. The song by Barbara Streisand still is haunting and great today. One reason it wasn't as well received was due to the producer being Jon Peters who was back then known more for being Barbara's Boyfriend. But the script was written by John Carpenter.Among the film's other assets are all the time-capsule location shots in Manhattan, the now-quaint disco soundtrack, the Helmut Newton-style "photo session scenes", and a strong supporting cast which includes Tommy Lee Jones as a homicide detective who becomes romantically involved with the titular Miss Mars. The plot at times stretches believability to ludicrous heights, such as when Dunaway, "seeing" a murder in progress, drives a car through the streets of Manhattan, even though she's effectively blind, screaming "Donald!" before finally crashing through a show window (How did she manage all those turns? From memory?) But unintentional camp does not hurt "the Eyes of Laura Mars" one bit in fact, it just makes it all the more delicious!Overall rating: 8 out of 10.