Based on the popular Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic, FROM HELL makes it up onto the big screen
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FROM HELL

This summer, fans of this new generation of adult-oriented "graphic novels" were treated to an indie film adaptation of Daniel Clowes' teenage girl angst-opera GHOST WORLD comic-derived fodder as far from the exploits of super-powered crusaders as you can get. Now FROM HELL, writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell's famed speculation on the identity of 19th Century proto-serial killer Jack the Ripper, arrives in the form of a lavish, bowel-slicing screen treatment from the filmmaking Hughes brothers, who in a former life haunted the contemporary American 'hood of MENACE II SOCIETY and DEAD PRESIDENTS.

If FROM HELL represents the potential of the artistically bold, reality-based new comics cross-pollinating creatively with the movies, let's hope there are plenty more projects where it came from. The gas-lit London of Dr. Jekyll and Sherlock Holmes has rarely seemed more fearsome than it does in this dark-hearted work of horror, which builds from the assumption that no fictional monster or demon ever conceived can outdo the creature known as Homo sapien when it comes to undiluted evil.

Broadly structured as a Holmesian detective story, the film follows an opium-addicted police inspector named Abberline (Johnny Depp) as he investigates the now-legendary Whitechapel murders of 1888. One by one, prostitutes from this Sodom-like red light district are turning up dead, parts of their female anatomy having been removed with a level of surgical skill that suggests the killer is a highly educated man. Abberline is soon hot on the Ripper's trail, winning the trust of a local streetwalker who knew all the victims (Heather Graham), but when clues begin leading the hero in the direction of certain well-connected gentleman, the powers that be quickly move to shut him down.

Following Moore's carefully researched and footnoted comic version, the film plays the whodunit game and provides a fictional answer to one of history's most famous unsolved cases. While the details about specific real-life individuals involved will primarily be of interest to Ripper buffs, the last act pays off nicely on the dramatic level, raising some intriguing questions about how much justice is possible in a society in which wealth and power are so unevenly distributed.

Playing Abberline as a more restrained flipside to his nuttier period detective in SLEEPY HOLLOW, Depp adds another engagingly unconventional, flawed hero to his rapidly growing resume. His name above a title may not be an absolute guarantee of quality, but viewers can expect to see some adventurous risks taken those are pretty much the only films Depp makes, and the only filmmakers he's interested in working with.

It helps that this time out he's supported by such dependable U.K.-born character players as Ian Holm (as a physician to the royal family) and Robbie Coltrane (as Abberline's sarcastic partner). American star Graham manages a decent Irish/English accent and otherwise doesn't embarrass herself as Whitechapel's cutest whore by far, though it's easy to see how much a classically accomplished Brit actress on the level of Kate Winslet or Minnie Driver could have added to the part.

The Hughes brothers hit most of the thriller buttons square on the head, though a few concealed-identity jolts in the second half aren't as surprising as they seem to think. Using Campbell's sketch-like, black and white art as a particularly inspired set of storyboards, the directors make an impressive stylistic leap forward from their U.S.-set films, demonstrating a flair for both the period dramatics and the intense, garish visuals the material cries out for. While they don't quite succeed in making a 19th century SEVEN, much less a SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, FROM HELL is a respectably grisly stab on all levels.