Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

I hadn't seen "Lolita" for over a year and a half, but when I watched it today, I remembered why. I have the entire Stanley Kubrick collection- not the boxed set that comes with the black-and-white print cover of "Dr. Strangelove"; my purchases were made separately, so I had to get the black-and-red one. Anyway, I hadn't seen Lolita when I purchased it, but since Kubrick is my favorite director, I had to have the entire thing. At that young, ripe age of 15, I settled down watched Lolita, and I didn't find it to be in my favour. The same result came this afternoon.

For certain, the movie starts out very well. The interesting beginning, starring the always interesting Peter Sellers, who is a great character actor, captures you because of the psychoticness involved with James Mason's character, Professor Humbert Humbert, and Sellers', Clare Quilty. After the spark of an ending to their meeting, we fly back four years earlier, where Humbert, the focal interest of the story, is staying at a mid-aged widow's house (Charlotte Haze, played by Shelley Winters), and there he sees her daughter, Lolita...

And if you're a normal sex-sold American, you probably know some of the outline of the rest of the story. Humbert marries Charlotte to be nearer to her daughter, who he's gone crazy for, and eventually ends up running away with her, where they embark on all sorts of adventures. This, of course, is really, really (expletive-deleted)-ed up, but its not what makes the movie dislikable for me. I'd really have to say its Kubrick's way of doing things- this is the only real real Kubrick film (real real Kubrick movies are those from 1962 and after), and I've seen all of them, that I don't like- hell, I love the others, but here it just doesn't work. The rest of the story is Lolita is ridiculous, but I'd imagine there's a likable way to present it, and Kubrick just doesn't do that. I found myself liking the movie less and less as it continued, until I was on the brink of just turning it off. Fortunately for Kubrick, I'm a disciplined film viewer :D.

Kubrick made some interesting differences while making the film between Nabokov's Lolita and his Lolita. Though Nabokov wrote the script, I read Kubrick chose the girl's age- in the book, Humbert meets Lolita when she's only nine, and runs away with her when she's twelve; here she's 14, and the movie finishes with her being 18. I haven't read the book; I just know these things.

I like how Kubrick so well hinted at sexual activity between Humbert and Lolita and the beginning, and the performances of Mason and Lyon all carry the film well through its first half. Mason is good at presenting a man who is a true gentleman at the outside, with a real concern for things (though we know what's really going on), and a monster on the inside who doesn't really love Lolita, just the object of her. Lyon is pretty hot, and she's good at appearing as a nice, pretty girl when she really has deceptive thoughts going on the inside. For her shorter appearance, Winters is good as a strange, passionate Charlotte. And Sellers is also excellent, as he takes on several roles, being best as the German psychologist who appears later in the film.

But unfortunately, the good acting does not save the film, and the cheesy soundtrack doesn't really assist much either- Kubrick's directing is masterful in films like "2001: A Space Odyssey," and "A Clockwork Orange," but it lacks here.

Rating: C

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD