The Fury has often been cast in the shadow of DePalma's previous movie Carrie released two years prior which also dealt with characters with psychic powers. Whilst Carrie was more of a horror film with elements of science fiction, The Fury appears to be a mixture of everything. Ranging from Sci-fi to thriller to horror and even comedy. This strange mixture proves to be both entertaining but also the major weakness of The Fury.
The movie was adapted from the novel by John Farris and the major problem appears that the movie is trying to cram a story that would work better as a mini series. There are so many different genres, elements and characters thrown in that even at two hours the film doesn't feel fully complete. There are some scenes (such as the part where Kirk Douglas's character raids a couple's apartment) that feel unnecessary and seems to take away from the major plot elements. Doesn't help that for the majority of the film the narrative is juggling both Kirk Douglas being chased around by a mysterious organization and Amy Irving's character realizing that she has psychic powers with the only thing connecting these two plot lines is Kirk Douglas's kidnapped son who Irving's character has a psychic connection with.
Despite its narrative shortcomings the movie is still highly entertaining and is one of DePalma's best looking movies. Its clear that he had a much large budget to work with and he is clearly going to town with it.
The performances are also well done with Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving doing well with there respective characters whilst John Cassevetes is great as the sinister bad guy who has abducted Kirk Douglas's son and is also interested in Irving's psychic abilities. Charles Dunning, Carrie Snodgress and Fiona Lewis contribute strong supporting roles. The only downside being Andrew Stevens who plays the abducted son who feels quite wooden and is overall not as sympathetic as he should be.
John Williams contributes a fine score for this film which seems to take some elements from Star Wars but is easily one of his most underrated scores.
Overall The Fury is quite uneven in terms of its story suffering from cramming a very in depth novel into a two hour popcorn movie but is not less still and entertaining movie with some impressive visuals a mostly solid cast and memorable soundtrack. And the ending is very explosive.
The movie was adapted from the novel by John Farris and the major problem appears that the movie is trying to cram a story that would work better as a mini series. There are so many different genres, elements and characters thrown in that even at two hours the film doesn't feel fully complete. There are some scenes (such as the part where Kirk Douglas's character raids a couple's apartment) that feel unnecessary and seems to take away from the major plot elements. Doesn't help that for the majority of the film the narrative is juggling both Kirk Douglas being chased around by a mysterious organization and Amy Irving's character realizing that she has psychic powers with the only thing connecting these two plot lines is Kirk Douglas's kidnapped son who Irving's character has a psychic connection with.
Despite its narrative shortcomings the movie is still highly entertaining and is one of DePalma's best looking movies. Its clear that he had a much large budget to work with and he is clearly going to town with it.
The performances are also well done with Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving doing well with there respective characters whilst John Cassevetes is great as the sinister bad guy who has abducted Kirk Douglas's son and is also interested in Irving's psychic abilities. Charles Dunning, Carrie Snodgress and Fiona Lewis contribute strong supporting roles. The only downside being Andrew Stevens who plays the abducted son who feels quite wooden and is overall not as sympathetic as he should be.
John Williams contributes a fine score for this film which seems to take some elements from Star Wars but is easily one of his most underrated scores.
Overall The Fury is quite uneven in terms of its story suffering from cramming a very in depth novel into a two hour popcorn movie but is not less still and entertaining movie with some impressive visuals a mostly solid cast and memorable soundtrack. And the ending is very explosive.