Perfectly adorable

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"Harlequin" plays like, and for most of its run time actually is, a kid's movie about a magic man who comes through the TV screen to heal a sickly child and work other miracles. You fully expect a tear jerker ending in which the magic man has to go back to his home planet, or where ever he comes from, but the kid will never forget him and neither will his parents.Then it abruptly changes gear and expects us to be scared of the magic man. Does the movie think that we are as ignorant and stupid and corrupt as the movie's real bad guys, the politicians the child's dad knows?The plot: A sickly child of an up and coming senator is apparently healed by a mysterious stranger who performs as a clown at his birthday party. The stranger returns, "coming through the TV", and the child continues to get better. The senator doesn't trust him, but his wife, more interested in the kid's health, is prepared to let the mystery of this stranger be.People start asking questions, and the stranger performs more tricks, first as a magician, then a faith healer for an old lady at a party. The crooked politician's friends want to see him disappear however, and will clearly stop at nothing.It's like the story of Rasputin crossed with "Being There"."Harlequin" is a trite little horror-fantasy with little horror and little fantasy. For almost all of the runtime there is nothing surprising in the movie at all. You can see every plot point coming, until the movie's sudden insistence that I would be scared by a character it does nothing to make seem a force of evil. The twist ending doesn't work because from what we have seen, the main character is the LEAST evil of all the characters in the movie! Hence the moment when we realise he - of course - isn't really dead is not scary, it's reassuring. I don't know how they stuffed that up so badly; it's shown like something you are supposed to be truly shocked by, but the feeling it brings is, if anything, the exact opposite, coupled with that feeling of annoyance you get when a movie misses what it's aiming at completely.The actor who plays the kid is also singularly uncharismatic, and an awful actor. And why did they go out of their way to disguise the movie's Australian origin?

"Harlequin" a.k.a. "Dark Forces" offers up an interesting, provocative story that is essentially a 1980's updating of the real-life Rasputin legend, in which a mysterious stranger, here named Gregory Wolfe (Robert Powell) works his way into the lives of a powerful senator, Nick Rast (David Hemmings), his wife Sandra (Carmen Duncan), and their leukemia stricken son Alex (Mark Spain). He does this by seeming to cure the boy of his disease, and before long Sandra, whose marriage to Nick was an arranged one in the first place, develops a substantial attachment to the man. For much of the time, as this story plays out, screenwriter Everett De Roche (whose other cool credits include "Roadgames", "Razorback", and "Patrick") and director Simon Wincer (who went on to have a career in Hollywood with movies such as "D.A.R.Y.L.", "Free Willy", and "The Phantom") keeps things nicely ambiguous: What really are the intentions of Mr. Wolfe? Is he angel or devil? Did he in fact cure the boy? And are there genuine supernatural forces to be reckoned with here? The political angle also adds to the intrigue as we are eventually made to think about who is truly manipulating whom. A solid cast - also prominently featuring the legendary Broderick Crawford in one of his final film roles, as well as Gus Mercurio, a busy actor in Australian cinema, makes the most of the material, especially Powell, who definitely seems to be quite enjoying himself. Hemmings is effectively low key while Duncan has a warm and alluring presence and young Spain is rather good as the weird kid. All in all, the movie is good enough that some awfully cheesy special effects can be tolerated. In any event, the movie never becomes ABOUT the special effects, so it's not that important anyway. Excellent widescreen photography and a wonderful music score by the always reliable Brian May are heavy assets. The ending, which may not be terribly satisfying to some, is admittedly more subtle than one might expect. And De Roche, Wincer, and company know how to keep the element of mystery going the entire time and leaving an intriguing concept of "what next" as it wraps up. Overall, "Harlequin" is intelligent enough, and too ambitious to be easily dismissed, and is worth a look for film fans looking for something a little different. Seven out of 10.

Despite a potentially rich premise and the presence of David Hemmings (a personal favorite of mine) , this was a rather disappointing and overly confusing film. The plot more or less is a bizarre re-working of the Rasputin legend and revolves on a charismatic magician who infiltrates in a political family to cure the son of his leukemia, but then continues with interfering in the husband's career as a replacement-senator. This terrifically mystic idea is pretty much ruined by a bad script, a whole lot of supernatural mumbo-jumbo and a wooden performance by Robert Powell. I was hoping to see some exciting horror effects and eerie make up but "Harlequin" is very tame and lifeless. David Hemmings is okay, and so is the young actor Mark Spain. Especially after his cure, he turns into a spooky and mysterious little brat. In short: this easily could have been one of the most ingenious fantasy-tales of the eighties but it became a failure instead. Director Wincer went on directing less ambitious and more comic movies such as "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man", "Free Willy" and "Crocodile Dundee in LA".

Fascinating, dark study of a political family seduced by the powers of a traveling magician who befriends their ill son. The story works well on that level, and the acting is certainly passable enough to be entertaining.Even more fascinating when one realizes that this is a retelling of the historical plot of the fall of the Czar of Russia! In history, Nicholas (Nicky in this film) and Alexandra (Sandy) had and extremely ill son, Alexander (Alex) and allowed the "Mad Monk" Gregory Rasputin (Gregory Wolfe) into the family with his promises of a cure for the the boy. Viewed on this level, this interesting enough B-movie become a fascinating study in parallels. Well worth a rental and some time to enjoy!