MiddletownJournal.com

Grade: B

Verdict: A bloody good time, for the most part.

Details: Starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham. Directed by Allen and Albert Hughes. Rated R for violence and nudity. Two hours, 1 minute.

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Review: From the Hughes brothers comes “From Hell,” a movie that knows what a Victorian potboiler should be. Fog-shrouded streets. The clip-clop of carriage horses. Top-hatted gentleman harassed by “Oliver!” urchins. A broad stroke of florid dialogue. Hints of lurid goings-on.

Best of all, it's got a Victorian celebrity on which to hang its plot. None other than the man who put the “kill” in serial killer: Jack the Ripper who, in the fall of 1888, murdered five London prostitutes before disappearing.

This newest version of Beat the Ripper stars Johnny Depp as Inspector Abberline, a Cockney cop addicted to opium, absinthe, laudanum, you name it. Abberline is also prone to drug-induced visions, which sometimes help him solve cases. Called in after the first grotesquely carved-up corpse is found, his upper-class boss, Sir Charles Warren (Ian Richardson), notes, “ 'Twas the way she was done that calls for a man of your talents.”

One potential victim is Mary Kelly, played by Heather Graham as the prostitute with the best complexion in London. The more involved Abberline gets with the case, the more involved he gets with Mary. Abberline has two helpmates: Godley (Robbie Coltrane), a buff Shakespeare-spouting cop who plays Watson to Abberline's Holmes, and Sir William Gull (Ian Holm), a physician to the royal family who knows a thing or two about surgical stuff.

One of the niftiest aspects of “From Hell” is the way it scatters clues that touch nearly every theory ever about the Ripper's identity. With “Dead Presidents” and “Menace II Society,” the Hughes brothers (Allen and Albert) have already demonstrated their facility for putting solid characters in unsavory situtations. “From Hell” lets them tart things up with period touches. Yet the movie, while garrishly suggestive, tones down the gore quotient. We imagine more than we actually see.

“From Hell” isn't the cleverest take on the Ripper tale, but it's one of the most entertaining. The brothers see London as something out of “Sweeney Todd” — a city on fire with St. Paul's or Big Ben starkly silhouetted against roiling red skies.

The movie's weakness is that it starts to meander in its last half-hour, hampered by how to handle the romance angle. Still, we're held by the story and by Depp, who continues to be one of the most daring actors of his generation. We can't help but follow him as he follows the blood. And, perhaps, the money.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service