Case 39 (2009)

Before I entered the theater I was a little skeptical about Case 39 and the reason is very simple. How many times in Hollywood have we seen movies about kids and how something goes terribly wrong. Well, we had The Omen, The Bad Seed, The Exorcist, Orphan, and every Japanese Horror movie we've already seen. The other problem with the film before I describe the positives is that because of it's late release, we've grown more accustomed to enjoy Orphan more than this film.

The positives to the film are the actors German Director Christian Alvart (Pandorum) hires to act in the film. Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones's Diary) stars as do good social worker Emily Jenkins, a woman so involved in her work that she breaks the number one rule of child care services, never get involved with your work. After her boss (played by Adrian Lester) dumps another case on her already full agenda, she becomes intrigued by the case and decides to get involved. After she discovers this little girl from case 39's parents are trying to kill her, she decides to save her and has the little girl move in. She soons start to discover that the little girl known as Lilith (Played by Jodelle Ferland) isn't as innocent as she plays herself to be. Things start to go terribly wrong for Emily as she discovers Lilith's terrifying secret that she's no normal child. People start to die and everyone is puzzled as to why it's happening.

As I have said in the beginning of the article that when you see the film, you feel as though you have seen this before and everything seems predictable. Ian McShane (Death Race) who plays Emily's friend Detective Baron, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) who plays his typical Suave role in child psychologist Doug really carry their weight in gold in this film. I feel if it wasn't for them this movie would be worse than it is. I will admit that the cinematography is pretty top notch in this film as they tried to film this movie in some unorthodox ways just to try to keep your interest intact. The movie also stars Callum Keith Rennie (The Butterfly Effect) and Kerry O"Malley (Rounders) as Lilith's parents respectively. I give this movie a C for trying, but there weren't enough real scares and it sort of lacks originality.