Val Kilmer Never Shined Brighter Than in ‘The Doors’
The boldest touch in Oliver Stone’s film “The Doors” is that it never glorifies its subject matter, rocker/poet Jim Morrison.
Rather than create an ode to the so-called “Lizard King” and celebrate his body of work, Stone’s film portrays Morrison as a vile monster, a wordsmith who tarnished every meaningful friendship he had.
Morrison fronted The Doors, one of the most influential bands of the 1960s. He left us with a lot of great music. Here’s a movie that gives fans what they want and expect but also depicts its key figure in the most off-putting manner possible
Val Kilmer stars as Morrison, a free spirit whose filmmaker aspirations were cut short after he meets Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan). The two form a band (Frank Whaley and Kevin Dillon play the other members of The Doors) and create some groovy, poetry-driven rock.
Then, Morrison’s behavior, constant public intoxication and button-pushing actions on stage tarnish their image.
Kilmer’s monumental performance as Morrison is fearless, an uncanny embodiment that transcends mere impersonation. The movie doesn’t let us into Morrison’s personal head space but reflects his state of mind and the world he inhabited.
Of the band members, MacLachlan fares best as Manzarek (Dillon and Whaley remain in the background of most scenes).
Meg Ryan’s turn as Pam, Morrison’s girlfriend, is underappreciated. Like Kilmer, Ryan never flinches from showing her character at her most unguarded and unfavorable. Crispin Glover’s scary/funny Andy Warhol is one for the time capsule. So is Kathleen Quinlan’s ferocious work as a journalist/witch who entices Morrison.
An intriguing idea is implied early on: Stone appears as Morrison’s UCLA film professor and accuses Morrison’s work of being “pretentious.” Morrison is crushed and dramatically leaves the class (it’s among the more subtle things he does in the film).
The Doors (1991)
Val Kilmer lived and breathed Jim Morrison for almost a year before cameras rolled, afterwards he had to seek psychiatric help get ‘Jim’ out of his head. He should’ve won an Oscar for his incredible performance… he wasn’t even nominated.
RIP Val Kilmer pic.twitter.com/ZMoP8H1E60— The Sting (@TheStingisBack) April 2, 2025
It could be suggested that what came next, Morrison’s career as a musician, was the worst thing that could have happened to him. Being famous enabled him to indulge in every temptation imaginable. Pam reminds Jim early on, not unreasonably, “You’re a poet, not a rock star.”
Morrison was addicted to drugs and obsessed with death, even before he had copious amounts of money, drugs and booze at his disposal. Morrison’s life gradually became self-destructive performance art, in which he was constantly surrounded by “vampires” (like the eerie pop figures he encounters at Warhol’s Factory).
Stone’s filmmaking mirrors the carnival mirror approach of Nicolas Roeg or Ken Russell at their battiest. With its gauzy haze and many, many hallucinatory scenes, it’s as though the whole movie were high.
It feels less like a facsimile and more like a movie that escaped from its era. At one point, Morrison declares “I live in the subconscious.”
So does this movie.
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If “The Doors” doesn’t sound like fun, it’s because it mostly isn’t. Before Morrison’s life and the story become a series of unfortunate incidents, there’s the early scene where he takes the band and their girlfriends on a trip to the desert where they take acid. It’s a long scene and a patience tester, even for fans of the band and music bios.
Stone’s vision of Morrison is of a man terrible at facing reality. We constantly cut back to the young Morrison remembering a car crash from his childhood. The incident may be the key to the character, or not at all, merely the only moment that resonated from his younger days.
The most revealing character moment is when Quinlan’s reporter informs Morrison that she located his parents; it’s one of the few times when we see Morrison caught off guard. Otherwise, forget waiting for a character dissection. Morrison’s life as a rock god is presented as an escalator heading down, a red-tinted descent into hell.
Some have come forward over the years to defend Morrison’s memory and accuse Stone of exaggerating (Oliver Stone bending the truth? No way!). Even if the three most objectionable and over the top moments are removed (there are dozens to choose from), the point is still made that Morrison was a drifter, an artist and a bully.
Michael Wincott’s manager character has a key line early on, in which he addresses Morrison’s outrageous behavior: having witnessed Janis Joplin “fall into a bottle,” he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Jim.
The thing is, I love The Doors, have read Morrison’s book of poems and dig his music but, no matter how you want to spin it, his life is a cautionary tale, not a thing to celebrate. The closing scenes show us his grave and reveal the startling fact that Morrison only lived to be 27 years old.
Morrison is never made sympathetic here, and the film itself is often hard to endure. Both Stone and Morrison’s excess become too much. It’s a silly and overlong film but not a stupid one.
Here is a rock and roll epic that strangely draws us to the music but makes us think twice about celebrating the man behind it. Much of this plays like a bad acid trip…but it’s still a trip.
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